ing blight, dropping its bark and branches, and bleached by the sun, from which no friendly foliage now screens it, lifting on high its seeming marble to perpetuate its own great memory. While occasionally the scene was made instructive by one of these voiceless types of majesty, sapped by natural decay, folding around itself an evergreen winding-sheet of moss, to tell that though material forms may change, elementary life does not perish, and thus reminding the passer-by of the "mortal that must put on immortality."

The trail from Crane Flat continued very tortuous, and the trees along it were frequently seen to bear the nearly obliterated crucial blaze of the old Mexican pioneers. The undergrowth, too, in many places was observed to be flattened and matted together so closely by the weight of winter snows, as to form perfect shelters for wild animals, and such dangerous coverts for the dreaded grizzly, that they are often designedly burnt along the line of the trail, to get rid of their fierce denizens.

About eight miles from Crane Flat, and three from the highest point of the trail, and fifty or sixty yards to the right of it, the first glimpse is caught, through an opening in the trees, of the Yo-Semite Valley in the distance. A sensational writer, after the fashion of eastern guide-book authors, calls this the "Stand-Point of Silence;" but, as if to contradict his own designation of the spot, he seems to have fallen into quite a loquacious fit of rapture over it. The truth is, that at the distance, none of the grand features of the scene are visible-the valley appears to be nothing but a vast misshapen cleft in the earth's surface, and rather calculated to disappoint expectation. It is a mistake to strive to manufacture a preliminary enthusiasm and sentiment over it. The Yo-Semite should be left to create its own impressions on the mind and soul when they come, as they will in due time, within its mysterious influence. "Good wine needs no bush." We were aware of the importance of reaching our destination before nightfall, and the knowledge of the many miles yet to be travelled warned us not to linger on the wayside. Two miles further brought us to a headlong and sparkling little mountain-stream called Cascade Number One, and another mile to Cascade Number Two, which raced over its

rocky bed as if eager to reach first the Merced River, for which we were all bound, though not exactly by the same route. Beyond a rugged little elevation, we came again on a level trail which soon forked, a finger-board telling us that the left led to the Mono Lake gold district, fifty or sixty miles to the northeast, while the other, a half mile further, brought us to the

commencement of the steep descent into the chasm we had been long and weariedly seeking. And here we realized the fact that the Yo-Semite was not a valley of gracefully curving and sloping boundaries, a waving tracery of verdure, but an awful cleft of the earth, ten miles long, of varying depth from three thousand to five thousand feet, whose perpendicular granite walls, so near were they, looked as if about to reunite and close the vast terrestrial crevice, into whose dark depths we peered in vain for the revelation of its wonderful creation. This colossal cañon can be entered readily only at one point at its east end, and from either side of its western outlet. As we came to it upon the Coulterville trail, we made the descent from the north side. The path is winding and precipitous, the angle of inclination being not less than thirty degrees, and in many places as great as forty-five. Nearly all explorers dismount and walk, as well for personal safety as to relieve their horses from the distressing shoulder-weight of their burdens. Half way down, a main fork of the Merced River, which for ages has flowed through the valley, is heard lifting its wild music from its bed of giant boulders, as if rejoicing at its prospect of escape from prolonged imprisonment, to run through natural meadows a few miles to the west, whose wild luxuriance is their smile of welcome to its coming. Two miles of descent brought us to the bottom of the abyss, which shall be described as it unfolded itself in our further progress; its physical features as these may be presented by language, not the impressions of its inconceivable sublimity, which can be written upon the soul only by the wondrous manifestations here displayed of Almighty Power.

ARRIVED at the foot of the trail, down which so rapid is the declivity that it is difficult to avoid running—a pace that would be indulged in with the certainty of a flying leap over the cliff that borders one side of the serpentine path—a river is seen making its escape through a narrow gorge to the right, while to the left, so little north of east that it may with sufficient precision be said eastward, the valley of Yo-Semite stretches in dim distance and perspective for ten miles, with a varying width of from three-quarters of a mile to one and a half. But in consequence of the mountain height of its perpendicular granite walls, the valley really appears to be but a few hundred yards wide. Its level floor spread with a carpet of wild grass, and adorned with groves of pine, fir, alder, oak, cedar, cotton-wood, willow, and ash, is threaded throughout its entire length by a stream, clear and cool, from the snow fountains of the Sierra Nevada―a mirror in whose crystal depths the bold features of surrounding grandeur are reflected with wondrous distinctness; while every blade of grass that borders its banks, and the overhanging boughs, seem pencilled on its transparent bosom.

One of the first objects arresting the attention on reaching the foot of the valley by the north trail, is the waterfall nearly opposite on the south side, called, not inappropriately, "Bridal Veil." It is also known, by those who prefer the Indian nomenclature for the chief objects of interest here, as the "Pohono Fall,” from an evil spirit supposed to exercise a malign power over a little stream of the same name that rises ten or twelve miles to the southward, and, crossing the Mariposa trail, hurries

on to form this waterfall, by leaping over the edge of the cliff, pitching its continuous jets downward nine hundred and fifty feet, that break into mist and float like waves of gauze to the rocks beneath, which have for ages been gradually lifting higher their colossal abutment to meet the falling spray. The avalanche of foam at first plunges with arrowy speed, then seems to rest an instant, then starts again on its flight; clothed, too, in varying tints, as sunshine paints the rainbow on the fleecy drapery, or shade reveals its snowy purity. Wondrous as is this magic veil, yet is there a fascination in the majestic rocks which look down from their gray heights upon this scene