title="29"/> Ark,' 'John Brown,' 'Tramp, Tramp,' and other choruses.

It was near 4 o'clock when the driver, who had been silent for some time, looking round at us occasionally as one who would say, "Wait a little till I surprise you," suddenly pulling up, said, "Now, here you are. This is Fascination Point! Won't you get down a bit?" And, lo! there indeed lay before us a scene of indescribable grandeur. I know nothing like the effect produced by Yosemite Valley when seen for the first time from this point. It has a characteristic which no other similar view I am acquainted with possesses. You take in at one glance stupendous mountain-ranges, all but perpendicular, beyond which you see the snowy crests of the great Sierra, the profound valley between them, a long vista of extraordinary magnificence, of cascades and precipitous waterfalls, and far down below a silvery river rushing through a forest composed of the noblest trees in the world, with patches of emerald-green sward and bright meadows.

I see that by a slip of the pen I have miscalled the place from which we got our first view of the wondrous scene. But I have a right to change the name for my own use. What the driver said was "Inspiration Point." I prefer my mistake, for the view inspires you with no feeling save that of wonder and delight. These sublime scenes appear to be beyond the reach of poetry. Niagara and the Yosemite have not yet found a laureate. The peculiar and unique feature of the valley seems to me to be the height and boldness of the cliffs which spring out from the mountain-sides like sentinels to watch and ward over the secrets of the gorge; next to that is the number and height of the waterfalls; but it is only by degrees and by comparison that the mind takes in the fact that the cliffs are not hundreds, but thousands of feet high—that these bright, flashing, fleecy cataracts fall for thousands of feet—that the rent which has been torn in the heart of the mountains, till it is closed by the awful granite portals beyond which no mortal may pass, extends for miles. I thought as I gazed that it were pity to descend, lest a nearer view might destroy the effect of that coup d'œil; but the driver had regulated the period for rapture. He whipped us up to our places by word of mouth, and the carriages renewed their course, now striking by bold zigzags down into the valley for our destination, which was still six miles away. I shall not attempt to describe my own feelings, far less can I pretend to tell what others, probably far more susceptible of the beauty and grandeur of what we beheld than I am, may have felt at the succession of the awe-inspiring revelations of the tremendous grandeur of the Valley which came upon us. What is the use of rolling off a catalogue of names and figures?—even the brush of the painter, charged with the truest colours and guided by the finest hand and eye, could never do justice—that is, could never give a just idea of these cliffs and waterfalls. "El Capitan! Oh, that's the name, is it? Three thousand three hundred feet high!" And then you try to take in what that means. "And it's 3500 feet down to the Valley? Dear me!" "And that is the Cathedral Rock? And those two peaks are the Spires? I don't exactly see the resemblance; do you?"

There was a sort of wail of delight from us all as we came on the "Bridal Veil Fall"; and I do not think any one cared to know that it was just 60 short of 1000 feet high! Surely one of the most graceful, lovely chutes d'eau on earth, lost though it be from view behind the rocks at the close of its feathery flight! But there was no stopping to look at anything; relentless Fate drove us down and on, till the wheels rolled more evenly, and at last we came to the bed of the valley—some 1800 yards broad, opening out here and there yet wider—and we rejoiced in the sight of the bright clear water of the Merced, child of innumerable icy mothers, flashing, sparkling, dashing and brawling, like a myriad Lodores, between her banks decked with flowers and covered with forest trees.

Suddenly there dashed out of a glade two cavaliers, and made full tilt at the leading carriage. "To arms!" Not a bit of it! Nor banditti or Injuns—of whom we had met one or two riding sullenly along to the hunting-grounds—no, only two hotel touts armed with cards of self-commendation, and not apparently in much rivalry, for when told that we had engaged our hotel, they galloped off to waylay other travellers, of whose coming they were apprized by our driver. Our hotel, I may say by the way, gave us full contentment. The site was admirable, commanding a full and near view of the Fall of Falls—the Yosemite—which had so fascinated our eyes that we could scarce divert them to any other object—not "Widow's Tears," or "Virgin's Tears," nor the "Three Brothers," not anything but the Yosemite! And so, when our rooms were pointed out, we made off to the spot where the fine cloudlike vapour rising above the tree-tops indicated the basin into which the waters sought rest after their troubled leap.

Our way lay through the usual gathering of stores, hotels, livery stables for the horses and ponies needed for the excursions, and curiosity dealers' shops, to the village street, as it may be termed, shadowed by fine trees, under which reposed some Indians—one of whom, an Amazon in yellow toga, went riding full gallop past us, her hair falling in a black mat on her shoulders, sitting low, in Melton style, regardless of poultry, children, and boulders, and vanishing in a cloud of dust under the trees. Then we turned to the left and crossed the river by a rustic bridge; and as I looked down into the dancing waters certain shadow-like objects flew up against the current. "Trout?" asked I. "Yes, they're trout. They take 'em—when they dew—five pounds weight. The Injuns catch 'em. We don't understand it as well." A short walk, with eyes ever up-turned, and we come out to a moraine, and, clambering up over a mass of trunks of trees and decaying timber, the Falls were before us—I cannot write more—no adjective will do. "Two thousand six hundred and thirty-four feet, mind!" says the voice. "I don't care," thought we, "it's the most beautiful and wonderful water-jump ever seen by human eye." "It only remains," as they say, to state that there is first, falling over a sheet of granite straight as a wall, a considerable river, which in the plunge comes down at once 1600 feet. There, in a basin of rock, it collects its scattered forces, under cover of eternal spray and cloud, and then takes another header of 434 feet to a barrier of granite, against which it rages for a mad moment, till it swells over and escapes from control by another spring of 600 feet sheer down—and now it is free, and rushes past at our feet, a joyous flashing stream.

We returned through the meadows from the Falls, and as I was walking in advance of the party a snake wriggled across the path, which I struck at instinctively with my stick, and was lucky enough to kill at the first blow. I exhibited the carcass, or whatever a snake's dead body may be, in triumph to my companions. Further on our way we fell in with an old Frenchman who was carrying a basket of fruit from his little garden to the inn. With all the courtesy of his country, he offered to Lady Green the choicest in his little corbeille. He came from Lorraine very long ago to prospect in the States, almost the earliest of the pioneers, but he was still strong and active, and he pointed with great satisfaction up to a white flag planted on a dizzy height above, which he said he had placed with his own hands. The chief livery stable keeper is a German named Stegman. The first ascent of the Dome was made by a young Scotchman named Anderson, from