The Illilouette in general appearance most resembles
the Nevada. The volume of water is less than
half as great, but it is about the same height (600
feet) and its waters receive the same kind of preliminary
tossing in a rocky, irregular channel. Therefore
it is a very white and fine-grained fall. When
it is in full springtime bloom it is partly divided
by rocks that roughen the lip of the precipice, but
this division amounts only to a kind of fluting and
grooving of the column, which has a beautiful effect.
It is not nearly so grand a fall as the upper Yosemite,
or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful
and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display
so tremendous an outgush of snowy magnificence as
the Nevada; but in the exquisite fineness and richness
of texture of its flowing folds it surpasses them
all.
One of the finest effects of sunlight on falling water
I ever saw in Yosemite or elsewhere I found on the
brow of this beautiful fall. It was in the Indian
summer, when the leaf colors were ripe and the great
cliffs and domes were transfigured in the hazy golden
air. I had scrambled up its rugged talus-dammed
canyon, oftentimes stopping to take breath and look
back to admire the wonderful views to be had there
of the great Half Dome, and to enjoy the extreme purity
of the water, which in the motionless pools on this
stream is almost perfectly invisible; the colored
foliage of the maples, dogwoods, Rubus tangles, etc.,
and the late goldenrods and asters. The voice
of the fall was now low, and the grand spring and
summer floods had waned to sifting, drifting gauze
and thin-broidered folds of linked and arrowy lace-work.
When I reached the foot of the fall sunbeams were
glinting across its head, leaving all the rest of
it in shadow; and on its illumined brow a group of
yellow spangles of singular form and beauty were playing,
flashing up and dancing in large flame-shaped masses,
wavering at times, then steadying, rising and falling
in accord with the shifting forms of the water.
But the color of the dancing spangles changed not
at all. Nothing in clouds or flowers, on bird-wings
or the lips of shells, could rival it in fineness.
It was the most divinely beautiful mass of rejoicing
yellow light I ever beheld—one of Nature’s
precious gifts that perchance may come to us but once
in a lifetime.
There are many other comparatively small falls and
cascades in the Valley. The most notable are
the Yosemite Gorge Fall and Cascades, Tenaya Fall
and Cascades, Royal Arch Falls, the two Sentinel Cascades
and the falls of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks, a mile
or two below the lower end of the Valley. These
last are often visited. The others are seldom
noticed or mentioned; although in almost any other
country they would be visited and described as wonders.
