On my way over the glacier-polished
rocks along the river, I came to an expanded portion of the canon, about
two miles long and half a mile wide, which formed a level park inclosed
with picturesque granite walls like those of Yosemite Valley. Down
through the middle of it poured the beautiful river shining and
spangling in the golden light, yellow groves on its banks, and strips of
brown meadow; while the whole park was astir with wild life, some of
which even the noisiest and least observing of travelers must have seen
had they been with me. Deer, with their supple, well-grown fawns,
bounded from thicket to thicket as I advanced; grouse kept rising from
the brown grass with a great whirring of wings, and, alighting on the
lower branches of the pines and poplars, allowed a near approach, as if
curious to see me. Farther on, a broad-shouldered wildcat showed
himself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jamb
of logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias frisked
about my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts;
cranes waded the shallows of the river-bends, the kingfisher rattled
from perch to perch, and the blessed ouzel sang amid the spray of every
cascade.
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