LESSON 124

THE FALLS OF THE YOSEMITE

约斯迈特瀑布

Thomas Starr King, 1824-1863, was born in New York City. His father was a Universalist minister; and, in 1834, he settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The son was preparing to enter Harvard University, when the death of his father devolved upon him the support of his mother, and his collegiate course had to be given up. He spent several years as clerk and teacher, improving meanwhile all possible opportunities for study. In 1846 he was settled over the church to which his father had preached in Charlestown. Two years later, he was called to the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston. Here his eloquence and active public spirit soon made him well known. He also gained much reputation as a public lecturer. In 1860 he left the East to take charge of the Unitarian church in San Francisco. During the remaining years of his life, he exercised much influence in the public affairs of California. He died suddenly, of diphtheria, in the midst of his brilliant career.

Mr. King was a great lover of nature. His “White Hills,” describing the mountain scenery of New Hampshire, is the most complete book ever written concerning that interesting region.

The Yosemite valley, in California, is a pass about ten miles long. At its eastern extremity it leads into three narrower passes, each of which extends several miles, winding by the wildest paths into the heart of the Sierra Nevada chain of mountains. For seven miles of the main valley, which varies in width from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half, the walls on either side are from two thousand to nearly five thousand feet above the road, and are nearly perpendicular. From these walls, rocky splinters a thousand feet in height start up, and every winter drop a few hundred tons of granite, to adorn the base of the rampart with picturesque ruin.

The valley is of such irregular width, and bends so much and often so abruptly, that there is a great variety and frequent surprise in the forms and combinations of the overhanging rocks as one rides along the bank of the stream. The patches of luxuriant meadow, with their dazzling green, and the grouping of the superb firs, two hundred feet high, that skirt them, and that shoot above the stout and graceful oaks and sycamores through which the horse path winds, are delightful rests of sweetness and beauty amid the threatening awfulness.

The Merced, which flows through the same pass, is a noble stream, a hundred feet wide and ten feet deep. It is formed chiefly of the streams that leap and rush through the narrower passes, and it is swollen, also, by the bounty of the marvelous waterfalls that pour down from the ramparts of the wider valley. The sublime poetry of Habakkuk is needed to describe the impression, and, perhaps, the geology, of these mighty fissures: “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.”

At the foot of the breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of the river, what is that

“Which ever sounds and shines,

A pillar of white light upon the wall

Of purple cliffs aloof descried”?

That, reader, is the highest waterfall in the world—the Yosemite cataract, nearly twenty-five hundred feet in its plunge, dashing from a break or depression in a cliff thirty-two hundred feet sheer.

A writer who visited this valley in September, calls the cataract a mere tape line of water dropped from the sky. Perhaps it is so, toward the close of the dry season; but as we saw it, the blended majesty and beauty of it, apart from the general sublimities of Yosemite gorge, would repay a journey of a thousand miles. There was no deficiency of water. It was a powerful stream, thirty-five feet broad, fresh from the Nevada, that made the plunge from the brow of the awful precipice.

At the first leap it clears fourteen hundred and ninety-seven feet; then it tumbles down a series of steep stairways four hundred and two feet, and then makes a jump to the meadows five hundred and eighteen feet more. But it is the upper and highest cataract that is most wonderful to the eye, as well as most musical. The cliff is so sheer that there is no break in the body of the water during the whole of its descent of more than a quarter of a mile. It pours in a curve from the summit, fifteen hundred feet, to the basin that hoards it but a moment for the cascades that follow.

And what endless complexities and opulence of beauty in the forms and motions of the cataract! It is comparatively narrow at the top of the precipice, although, as we said, the tide that pours over is thirty-five feet broad. But it widens as it descends, and curves a little on one side as it widens, so that it shapes itself, before it reaches its first bowl of granite, into the figure of a comet. More beautiful than the comet, however, we can see the substance of this watery loveliness ever renew itself and ever pour itself away.

“It mounts in spray the skies, and thence again

Returns in an unceasing shower, which round

With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald;—how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs.”

The cataract seems to shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water, which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most charming fretwork of watery nodules, each trailing its vapory train for a hundred feet or more, is woven all over the cascade, which swings, now and then, thirty feet each way, on the mountain side, as if it were a pendulum of watery lace. Once in a while, too, the wind manages to get back of the fall, between it and the cliff, and then it will whirl it round and round for two or three hundred feet, as if to try the experiment of twisting it to wring it dry.

Of course I visited the foot of the lowest fall of the Yosemite, and looked up through the spray, five hundred feet, to its crown. And I tried to climb to the base of the first or highest cataract, but lost my way among the steep, sharp rocks, for there is only one line by which the cliff can be scaled. But no nearer view that I found or heard described, is comparable with the picture, from the hotel, of the comet curve of the upper cataract, fifteen hundred feet high, and the two falls immediately beneath it, in which the same water leaps to the level of the quiet Merced.

【中文阅读】

位于加利福尼亚的约斯迈特峡谷，是一条约有十英里长的山口。在东部尽端，有三条狭窄的通道，每条都绵延达数英里，这里是通向群山之间的内华达山脊核心地带最荒凉的通道。主山谷有七英里长，从四分之三英里到一英里和一英里半处，山谷的宽度变化不定，每一侧的谷壁都位于与下面道路相距二千到近二千五百英尺，几乎是垂直的。从这些谷壁上，岩石碎片开始从一千英尺高的高处往下坠落，每个冬天都掉下数百吨的花岗岩，把谷底的防御土墙装饰成了如画的废墟。

山谷那么不规则，弯曲处又那么多，以及如此频繁地往下坠落石块，以至于当人们沿着溪岸骑马而行时，会发现突出于悬崖之外的岩石在组成和组合上都千变万化，常常出人意表。茂盛的草地，泛出刺目的绿色，挺拔的冷杉组成树群，高达二百英尺，在冷杉群的边缘是粗壮和优雅的橡树及无花果树，马道穿于其间，在令人感到肃穆的威严之间剩下的就是愉快和美了。

流过同一通道的默西迪河是一条雄伟的溪流，深达十英尺，一百英尺宽。默西迪河主要由在狭窄的通道上纵横交错的小溪组成。小河涨水系由从较宽的山谷的防御土墙流下的大瀑布水流造成。希伯来的先知那令人赞叹的诗歌描绘了对这些壮观的狭长裂隙的印象，也许还有地质学上的描述：“你将大地劈开，成了数不尽的河流。”

在将近三千英尺非常危险的斜坡脚下，我们抵达默西迪的河床，从旅馆到这里有六英里的路程，每一次鞭打坐骑都会引起惊奇、惊惧和严肃的快乐。当我们快到旅馆时，我们的目光转向河的对岸，真的是

流水潺潺，光芒四射，

一根白色光柱映在墙上，

还能识得那孤零零的紫色悬崖吗？

读者诸君，那里是世界上最高的瀑布——约斯迈特大瀑布，几乎达二千五百英尺，谁从三千二百英尺高的陡峭悬崖里的裂隙或凹陷处奔流而下。

曾于九月份造访过这个山谷的一位作者，称这个大瀑布简直上接天庭，谁从天而降。也许临近旱季时也是如此。不过正如我们亲眼所见的，除了约斯迈特峡谷本身的庄严以外，大瀑布集雄伟和壮美于一身，足以报偿这一千英里旅程的辛苦。大瀑布堪称完美无瑕，瀑布水势磅礴，有三十五英尺宽，清凉的水源于内华达，在可怕的峭壁上端飞入溪涧。

水最初暴涨的地方，有一千四百九十七英尺高，然后沿四百零二英尺陡峭的楼梯奔流而下，然后跳到五百八十多英尺高的草地上。这是令人叹为观止的最高的大瀑布，响声更是犹如天籁。悬崖几乎是垂直的，以至于在瀑布整个下降期间，在超过四分之一英里的水面上竟没有一处停顿。瀑布以曲线形态从一千五百英尺的顶端飞泻而下，直抵将水积存起来的盆地，这样小瀑布就可以从这里流淌了。

大瀑布以万千姿态飞流而下的过程中，何其错综复杂，何其美丽壮观啊！虽然悬崖顶端相对而言较为狭窄，但是正如我们所言，瀑布飞流竟有三十五英尺宽。随着瀑布下落愈发宽阔，而随着变宽有一侧曲线弧度变小，这样一来在到达第一个花岗岩底时，水流变细成彗星状。然而，比彗星更美的是，我们发现这条水道可爱之处在于，它始终不断自我更新，不断喷涌。

在飞溅中直抵云霄，

从那里复又似永不停歇的阵雨返回，雨云

清婉，缭绕绵延。

之于大地它是永恒的四月天，

万物一片艳绿——水潭深不见底！

洪流何以从一块岩石跳到另一块岩石

超出极限，

连那峭壁也被压得破碎不堪。

大瀑布似乎能射出一千个蜿蜒的水柱或水结，不慌不忙地向下扭动着穿过空中，在瀑布飞泻的半途化为水雾。然后，从瀑布团内和两侧爆出新的水柱，在剩余的距离内又重复上述过程。因此，水结最令人惊奇和引人入胜是其线条和空间图案，每个蒸气拖尾都多达一百英尺长，汇进小瀑流里，不时地旋转摇摆，每一次在山的一侧都扬起三十英尺高的水柱，恍若水带的下摆一样。间或风儿劲吹，企图使瀑布倒流；在瀑布和悬崖之间，风会卷起瀑布达二三百英尺高，仿佛在做甩干实验呢。

当然，我造访的是约斯迈特最低的瀑布，透过水花向上仰望，在五百英尺高处就是它的王冠了。我尝试爬到第一个底座或大瀑布的最高处，可是在陡峭尖厉的岩石间迷失了方向，因为只有一道可以攀爬到崖顶的天梯。但是，从下榻的旅店，也就是较高瀑布的彗星曲线望去，近处没有哪道我发现或者听人描述过的风景，堪与眼前这高达一千五百英尺的壮观景色相比了，两条瀑布直泻大瀑布下方，同样的水飞纵跃入平静的默西迪河。