We were shown one large room that was occasionally used as a
dancing-hall; another that was used as a chapel, with natural pulpit and
crosses and pews, sermons in every stone, where a priest had said mass.
Mass-saying is not so generally developed in connection with natural
wonders as dancing. One of the first conceits excited by the giant
Sequoias was to cut one of them down and dance on its stump. We have
also seen dancing in the spray of Niagara; dancing in the famous Bower
Cave above Coulterville; and nowhere have I seen so much dancing as in
Yosemite. A dance on the inaccessible South Dome would likely follow the
making of an easy way to the top of it.
It was delightful to witness here the infinite deliberation of Nature,
and the simplicity of her methods in the production of such mighty
results, such perfect repose combined with restless enthusiastic energy.
Though cold and bloodless as a landscape of polar ice, building was
going on in the dark with incessant activity. The archways and ceilings
were everywhere hung with down-growing crystals, like inverted groves of
leafless saplings, some of them large, others delicately attenuated,
each tipped with a single drop of water, like the terminal bud of a
pine-tree.
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