of beauty, that draws the gaze upward to their stern and unmoved features.

A short distance west of the waterfall stands a bold cone of granite nearly three thousand feet high, like a watch-tower at the entrance of the valley. And near it to the east is a perpendicular bluff two thousand nine hundred feet high, crowned with spires and minarets several hundred feet higher, giving a tapering grace and architectural finish to the grand substructure. The special names applied to these by some tourists are in bad taste. To call the whole group "The Cathedral Rocks" is sufficient to distinguish them from others of like interest.

On the north side of the valley, opposite to the Bridal Veil, is a truncated mountain of granite three thousand six hundred feet high, projecting boldly beyond the general line of the val

ley wall. It is massively buttressed, and standing at its foot and looking up at its stern brow, it seems as if about to plunge forward and fill up the vast chasm at its foot. The size of "Tu-toch-ah-nu-lah," or "El Capitan," as it is also called-the captain of the grand array of columns that uphold the northern wall of the valley-may be judged of by the fact that it occupied a quarter of an hour to ride at a brisk trot round its base. The mercantile marine of America, England, and France could be loaded with its debris, and the tonnage of the world could not carry El Capitan itself.

The trail above this point leads to the river, which is crossed by ford or ferry according to the stage of water. "The shades

of night were falling fast" when we reached it, and we notified our wearied nags by a reminder of the spur that further particular observations would be deferred until another day. As darkness gathered its deeper folds within the depth profound along which we sought our way in some perplexity, the kindly stars shone forth with unwonted brilliancy, and the brow of the valley, darkly outlined against the azure sky, became radiant with a jewelled coronet. A fire-glow in the distance, and then the wavy line of burning grass, gave notice that Indians were in the valley clearing the ground, the more readily to obtain their winter supply of acorns and wild sweet potatoe root"huckhau." This unwelcome discovery was soon after confirmed by the barking of dogs, that came echoing from the walls of this grand corridor in startling reverberations. Then we came to camp-fires, and blanketed warriors, squaws, and pappooses, standing and squatting around them; their swarthy features discolored with ashes, in token of mourning for the murdered member of their tribe. Silent and unmoved, they scarcely gave sign of noticing our intrusion. A hundred yards from their bark and brush lodges, stood the cabin of which we were to be the occupants during our stay in the valley—a rude clapboard frame of two rooms, liberally ventilated by defective carpentry-the hastily-abandoned cooking utensils, table, benches, and unbedded bedstead, of which, with a few other traps, we found to have been undisturbed by the untutored savages without; an immunity that perhaps would not have been conceded to them by civilized barbarians, under like circumstances of destitution and provocation. It was an omen of good neighborhood, which we sought to strengthen by smoking the calumet of peace, and bestowing a few favors in return for information of a suitable meadow in which to picket our horses, and for wood, and a fagot from their camp-fire wherewith to make our own. Coffee, slapjacks, and broiled ham passed rapidly through the process of cooking to that of digestion, which did not wait long on the mountain appetite, coming of our rough ride of thirty miles from Black's—our stopping-place the night before— to the foot of the valley, and six miles beyond to the cabin. And then, wrapped in our blankets, we laid down to sleep;

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and then, to dream; and such dreams! Of cañons, and cataracts, and copper-skins! But this is to be a narrative of what I saw, not what I fancied.

We rose with the dawn; that is, with the dawn that came down into the deep valley, while the first rays of the rising sun were tipping with radiance the spires and pinnacles around, which seemed to be lifted into mid-heaven to catch the first coming of the glorious emanation. A little to the west of north "Eleacha" raised its three cones, called "The Three Brothers," three thousand four hundred and thirty-seven feet, to receive their golden crowns. While to the south, immediately behind our cabin,