We passed a cow stretched by the
roadside, her bell slowly beating time to the movement of her
ruminating jaws, her big red face crawled over by half a dozen
flies, a monument of content.
A little farther, and we struck to the left up a mountain road, and
for two hours threaded one valley after another, green, tangled,
full of noble timber, giving us every now and again a sight of
Mount Saint Helena and the blue hilly distance, and crossed by many
streams, through which we splashed to the carriage-step. To the
right or the left, there was scarce any trace of man but the road
we followed; I think we passed but one ranchero's house in the
whole distance, and that was closed and smokeless. But we had the
society of these bright streams--dazzlingly clear, as is their
wont, splashing from the wheels in diamonds, and striking a lively
coolness through the sunshine. And what with the innumerable
variety of greens, the masses of foliage tossing in the breeze, the
glimpses of distance, the descents into seemingly impenetrable
thickets, the continual dodging of the road which made haste to
plunge again into the covert, we had a fine sense of woods, and
spring-time, and the open air.
Our driver gave me a lecture by the way on Californian trees--a
thing I was much in need of, having fallen among painters who know
the name of nothing, and Mexicans who know the name of nothing in
English.
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