THE

outfit for a trip to the far-famed Yosemite Valley. As both provisions and lodgings could be obtained on the way and in the valley, horses and saddles were our main necessities, and we took little else. The distance we understood to be from forty-eight to sixty miles, varying, not according to the route taken-for there is only one-but according to the diversity of travelers, as to trim and endurance.

THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. THE Fourth of July opened gloriously on the loyal little town of Coulterville, in Mariposa County, California. The morning was ushered in with the voice of cannon, whose endless reverberations seemed to announce that the very mountains leaped for joy, and the forests clapped their hands. Clouds of dust, approaching on every side, indicated that the hardy dwellers in cañons, and the workers on flats and bars, would not be the first to forget their country's history and the memory of their fathers.

Coulterville stands at the head of stage navigation, in the direction of the Yosemite Valley, and the same morning that saw the good people of the place preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the National Independence found me and my companion arranging the necessary VOL. XXXII.--No. 192.-3 A

Participating only in the early festivities of the day, by noon we were at full canter through dust and shingle, over a tolerable wagon-road, which lasted us to the close of that day. About mid-afternoon we reached the Bower Cave, twelve miles from Coulterville. This curiosity is but a few yards off the road, and travelers usually turn aside to see it; and no one who passes that way should fail to do so. For the

sum of half a dollar each the keeper took us | hills and the summit. This belt consists of tolthrough its labyrinths and answered all our erably uniform, transverse ridges, running westquestions. The cave is an irregular, crateri- ward from the summit, and lowering gradually form opening, looking toward the sky; and no toward the valley of the San Joaquin. The indication of its existence appears till we stand soil is mostly free of rocks and underbrush, and upon its brink. It is over a hundred feet across supports a heavy growth of pine timber-the the mouth, and about the same in depth. The stately sugar-pine throwing all the other kinds sides are composed of smooth and beautiful into the shade. Some of those trees are over limestone, in many places worked up into fan- ten feet through. A devastating fire was ragtastic and curious formations, as if by fusion, ing at one point we passed, and many square or the action of water. At one side, flights of miles of timber had already been destroyed that wooden stairs lead down to the bottom. From season. a shelving terrace, about half-way down, a few trees shoot up into the open world, and their tops are mistaken from the road for bushes on the surface of the earth. From those trees the cave derives its name. A deep pond of clear water occupies the lowest part of the cave, and a small boat, maintained by the keeper, enables the visitor to reach points otherwise inaccessible. The main area is, of course, perfectly light, but there are several lateral recesses where a candle was very serviceable in our ex-wear such a distressing aspect. Carcasses and plorations.

About dusk we reached Black's Ranch, sixteen miles from Coulterville. Here we found plenty of good hay for our horses, and excellent accommodations for ourselves, at a very moderate figure. Early next morning we were on the track, and for several hours passed through bushy cañons and over barren rocky hills; but before noon we reached the elevated pine region which intersects the entire western slope of the Sierra Nevada range, between the foot

About noon we reached Crane Flat, a grassy opening of a few acres, where we turned out our horses to rest and feed, while we ate our own lunch. A log-house, close by, had been erected by some stockmen, who drove their cattle to the mountains to preserve them alive, during the prevalence of the seyerest drought the country had ever experienced. A few weeks previous to this trip I passed over the San Joaquin Valley, and never before had I seen nature

skeletons of starved cattle could be counted in thousands, and I was often reminded of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones, and of the valley of the shadow of death. In the midst of a ghastly array of crumbling skeletons and fetid carcasses, over which voracious vultures gloated and gorged; surrounded by burning plains, on which the crackling remains of a sickly vegetation crumbled to ashes beneath the foot; while from the fervid rays of an almost tropical sun there was no escape, I could easily imagine my

self involved in the frightful realities of an | On account of the constant attention required Arabian desert. Patient vaqueros were urging to prevent me from coming leap-frog over the droves of gaunt and staggering skeletons mount- horse's head I preferred walking, or rather slidainward, while victims of exhaustion and starving, at the steepest parts. The descent in any ation constantly dropped down, and were aban- thing like a direct line would be impossible, doned to the vultures. The bewildering mi-and the trail is as tortuous as a cork-screw. In rage frequently converted the straggling herds our downward course we could see and hear into groves of trees, that flickered and shifted the Merced River as it flashed and murmured fantastically in the illusive horizon. The rem- a last farewell to the exciting scenes of its early nants that reached the mountains soon recuper-career. Its course through the valley is quite ated and did well, but the early snows of win-smooth, but on leaving it recovers much of its ter drove them back to the low country before original turbulence. the grass started, and thousands more perished after all the care and labor bestowed upon them.

A number of miles before reaching the descent into the valley we could perceive unmistakable signs of our proximity to a region more wild and romantic than any we had yet seen. Bald mountains of solid granite raised their hoary crowns in proud relief, and sent down long dipping spurs which were lost in depths we could not yet survey. At an abrupt turn of the road, on the crest of a ridge, while yet six miles off, we had the first glimpse of the lower end of the valley, with the Bridal Veil Fall swinging and playing in the wind. The descent into the valley is about three miles long. In some places it is frightfully steep, but not impracticable for Californian horses.

On reaching the sylvan banks of the stream the frowning walls of rock on every side and the sombre shades of night began to overshadow us at the same time, and we felt as if we were about to be extinguished forever from the face of nature. The solitude was profound; the silence distressing and overwhelming; and the effect was much enhanced by the consideration that we were now in the heart of the wild and rugged Sierras and far from the active haunts of men. But we were as yet only in the vestibule of the great temple in which we had come to worship.

Before us was the entrance, an enormous gap, formed by the perpendicular rock called The Captain on the left, and another rock on the right nearly as high. Those towering giants, three thousand feet high, stand like sentinels to

guard the approach to the grandest rock-temple | the Yosemite Fall on the left, but the darkness Nature has erected in our world; or, viewed as pillars, they form a fitting gateway to that exalted court. The distance between the tops of these rocks is nearly a mile, yet were they to fall toward each other they would clash high above the level vale, and form an arch far loftier than man has ever raised. As we slowly passed through this magnificent portal we could not help remarking what an eligible place was here for the enterprising Blondin. Should he, by his admirable perseverance, exhaust every other field, till he can find no two points sufficiently elevated and wide apart to match his genius, I would recommend this place to his careful consideration, with the firm conviction that it would last him during the period of his natural life. And in all soberness we wondered if human ingenuity, in its progressive course of development, would ever contemplate throwing a suspension bridge across a chasm as wide and deep as that. A short debate decided that many works that actually exist would at one time have been deemed as impossible as this would be now.

On entering the main valley we perceived

rendered the view imperfect. Opposite this fall, and about half-way up the valley, we found two houses where visitors are accommodated with board and lodgings. One is owned and kept by Mr. Huchins, the gentleman who explored the valley and wrote the first description of it. We stopped at the other house, and were very hospitably entertained at the low figure of two dollars per day. A small isolated cabin was appropriated to our use as a bedroom; and before we retired our landlord scattered some withered grass and leaves round the outside of the structure and set them on fire. This, he said, was to drive the ants away. 1 think the precaution must have had the opposite effect, for when we retired we found as many inside as the building appeared capable of accommodating. The floor was carpeted with cedar foliage, and it seemed literally alive: while a glance at the bed-covers gave us the comfortable assurance of plenty of bed-fellows and lively times. We rested tolerably well suffering no annoyance when we lay still, but in no case would our tormentors brook the least disturbance without retaliating. At dawn

PLAN OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

References.-1. Merced River.-2. El Capitan.-3. Bridal Veil Fall.-4. Cathedral Rocks.-5. Sentinel.-6. Three Brothers.-7. Yosemite Fall.-8. North Dome.-9. Mirror Lake.-10. South Dome.-11. South Fork Fall.-12. Vernal Fall.-13. Nevada Fall.-14. Bellows Butte.-15. Hutchins's Hotel.-16. Coulterville Trail.-17. Mariposa Trail.