In The Mountains Of San Gabriel, Overlooking The Lowland Vines And
Fruit Groves, Mother Nature Is Most Ruggedly, Thornily Savage.
Not
even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more
rigidly inaccessible.
The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure
to the foot of the explorer, however great his strength or skill may
be, but thorny chaparral constitutes their chief defense. With the
exception of little park and garden spots not visible in comprehensive
views, the entire surface is covered with it, from the highest peaks
to the plain. It swoops into every hollow and swells over every
ridge, gracefully complying with the varied topography, in shaggy,
ungovernable exuberance, fairly dwarfing the utmost efforts of human
culture out of sight and mind.
But in the very heart of this thorny wilderness, down in the dells,
you may find gardens filled with the fairest flowers, that any child
would love, and unapproachable linns lined with lilies and ferns,
where the ousel builds its mossy hut and sings in chorus with the
white falling water. Bears, also, and panthers, wolves, wildcats;
wood rats, squirrels, foxes, snakes, and innumerable birds, all find
grateful homes here, adding wildness to wildness in glorious profusion
and variety.
Where the coast ranges and the Sierra Nevada come together we find a
very complicated system of short ranges, the geology and topography of
which is yet hidden, and many years of laborious study must be given
for anything like a complete interpretation of them. The San Gabriel
is one or more of these ranges, forty or fifty miles long, and half as
broad, extending from the Cajon Pass on the east, to the Santa Monica
and Santa Susanna ranges on the west.
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