The Big Trees of California by Esther Singleton

(_UNITED STATES_) / C. F. GORDON-CUMMING

At last we entered the true forest-belt, and anything more beautiful / you cannot conceive. We forgot our bumps and bruises in sheer delight. / Oh the loveliness of those pines and cedars, living or dead! For the / dead trees are draped with the most exquisite golden-green lichen, / which hangs in festoons many yards in length, and is unlike any other / moss or lichen I ever saw. I can compare it to nothing but gleams of / sunshine in the dark forest. Then, too, how beautiful are the long / arcades of stately columns, red, yellow, or brown, 200 feet in height, / and straight as an arrow, losing themselves in their own crown of / misty green foliage; and some standing solitary, dead and sunbleached, / telling of careless fires, which burnt away their hearts, but could not / make them fall!

There are so many different pines and firs, and cedars, that as yet I / can scarcely tell one from another. The whole air is scented with the / breath of the forests -- the aromatic fragrance of resin and of dried / cones and pine-needles baked by the hot sun (how it reminds me of / Scotch firs! ); and the atmosphere is clear and crystalline -- a medium / which softens nothing, and reveals the farthest distance in sharpest / detail. Here and there we crossed deep gulches, where streams (swollen / to torrents by the melting snow on the upper hills) rushed down over / great boulders and prostrate trees and the victims of the winter gales.

Then we came to quiet glades in the forest, where the soft lawn-like / turf was all jewelled with flowers; and the sunlight trickled through / the dripping boughs of the feathery Douglas pines, and the jolly little / chip-munks played hide-and-seek among the great cedars, and chased / one another to the very tops of the tall pitch-pines, which stand / like clusters of dark spires, more than 200 feet in height. It was / altogether lovely; but I think no one was sorry when we reached a turn / in the road, where we descended from the high forest-belt, and crossing / a picturesque stream -- "Big Creek" -- by name -- we found ourselves in this / comfortable ranch, which takes its name from one of the pioneers of the / valley.

We have spent a long day of delight in the most magnificent forest / that it is possible to imagine; and I have realized an altogether / new sensation, for I have seen the Big Trees of California, and have / walked round about them, and inside their cavernous hollows, and / have done homage as beseems a most reverent tree-worshipper. They / are wonderful -- they are stupendous! But as to beauty -- no. They shall / never tempt me to swerve from my allegiance to my true tree-love -- the / glorious Deodara forest of the Himalayas.

If size alone were to be considered, undoubtedly the Sequoia stands / preëminent, for-to-day we have seen several trees at least three times / as large as the biggest Deodara in the cedar shades of Kunai; / but for symmetry, and grace, and exquisitely harmonious lines, the / "God-given" cedar of Himala stands alone, with its wide spreading, / twisted arms, and velvety layers of foliage studded with pale-green / cones, -- its great red stem supporting a pyramid of green, far more / majestic than the diminutive crown of the Big Trees. So at first it was / hard to realize that the California cedars are altogether justified in / concentrating all their growing power in one steady upward direction, / so intent on reaching heaven that they could not afford to throw out / one kindly bough to right or left. They remind me of certain rigidly / good Pharisees, devoid of all loving sympathies with their fellows, / with no outstretched arms of kindly charity -- only intent on regulating / their own lives by strictest unvarying rule.

Great Towers of Babel they seem to me, straining upward towards the / heaven which they will never reach.

There is nothing lovable about a Sequoia. It is so gigantic that I feel / overawed by it, but all the time I am conscious that I am comparing it / with the odd Dutch trees in a Noah's Ark, with a small tuft of foliage / on the top of a large red stem, all out of proportion. And another / unpleasant simile forces itself on my mind -- namely, a tall penguin, or / one of the wingless birds of New Zealand, with feeble little flaps in / place of wings, altogether disproportioned to their bodies.

But this is merely an aside -- lest you should suppose that each new land / I visit wins my affections from earlier loves. The Deodara forests must / ever keep their place in my innermost heart: no sunlight can ever be / so lovely as that which plays among their boughs -- no sky so blue -- no / ice-peaks so glittering as those which there cleave the heaven; and / I am sure that these poor wretched-looking Digger Indians can never / have the same interest for me as the wild Himalayan highlanders -- the / Paharis -- who assemble at the little temples of carved cedar-wood in the / Great Forest Sanctuary, to offer their strange sacrifices, and dance in / mystic sunwise procession.

Having said this much, I may now sing the praises of a newly found / delight, for in truth these forests of the Sierras have a charm of / their own, which cannot be surpassed, in the amazing variety of / beautiful pines, firs, and cedars of which they are composed. The / white fir, the Douglas spruce, sugar-pine, and pitch-pine are the most / abundant, and are scattered singly or in singularly picturesque groups / over all the mountains hereabouts.