SPECIAL EDITION

WITH THE WORLD’S
GREAT TRAVELLERS

EDITED BY CHARLES MORRIS
AND OLIVER H. G. LEIGH

Vol. II

CHICAGO

UNION BOOK COMPANY

1901

Copyright 1896 and 1897
by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

Copyright 1901
E. R. DuMONT

BOSTON COMMON, BOSTON, MASS.

CONTENTS.

List of Illustrations

VOLUME II

WITH THE WORLD’S

GREAT TRAVELLERS.

THE WORLD’S GREAT CAPITALS OF TO-DAY.

OLIVER H. G. LEIGH.

New York, Washington, Chicago.

The reflective voyager, on his first sight of New York, is baffled when he attempts to catalogue his sensations. All is so completely in contrast with the capitals of Europe. The gloriously bright sky, air that drinks like champagne, the resultant springiness of life and movement, that overdoes itself in excitement and premature exhaustion, and the obtrusively visible defects of this surface enthusiasm, monotonous streets, unfinished or unbegun city improvements, and the conspicuous lack of play-spaces for children—this is the rough portrait sketch New York draws of itself for the newcomer. It does not disguise the fact that money-making was for many years the dominant consideration. The city was laid out for business, and public comfort had to look out for itself. The workers, the poor, and the helpless were apparently overlooked.

But there are at least three New Yorks to explore. Old New York stretches from the bay up to once aristocratic Madison Square, and this is the section that first leaves its mark on the aforesaid visitor. Then comes new New York, the splendid modern metropolis that spreads from Central Park along the Hudson to the northern heights where the stately mausoleum of Grant, the transplanted Columbia University, and the great Cathedral-to-be add majestic dignity to the grandly picturesque panorama by the river. The antiquated brownstone wilderness of fashionable houses blossoms into white and gray and red clusters of mansions, richly varied in form and treatment, with the welcome grassy settings so pitifully missing in the older quarter. From a neglected span of prairie ground, pimpled with bare rocks and goat-sheltering shanties also shared by dago families, this section has in a few years qualified itself to rival the famous features of old-world cities. A nobler prospect than Riverside Drive alongside the mighty Hudson cannot be desired nor found. At last the city has discovered and worthily utilized its splendid opportunities. Then, thirdly, there is Greater New York. For the simplification of local government it is doubtless excellent policy for London and New York to lasso their humbler neighbor towns that the big cities may pose as suddenly greater than ever. The thing is done with a stroke of the pen and does not wound the pride of the newly scooped-in citizens, because the individuality of the suburban districts remains unchanged, but in our infantile capacity as mere sightseers the side-shows do not affect the glories of the ring proper. If this fashion of acquiring greatness continues, being inclusion rather than expansion, there need be no limit to the ciphers periodically tacked on to the population of the world’s swarming hives. Now that New York is growing, it might drop its insignificant borrowed name and assume its rightful one of dignity and historic import, Manhattan. It fills the twenty-two square miles between Harlem river, the Hudson, the East River, and the bay, which area is Manhattan Island. North of the Harlem it includes the district of the Bronx, a little stream which for half a mile or so affords as exquisite a picture of nature’s beauty as can be found anywhere. The drift from town to country homes is a sign of the times and an augury of great good to the coming generation, physical and patriotic. After all, bricks and mortar are not the making of a city. New York is at its best beyond the borders. Its rich citizens overflow into these northern suburbs and lordly estates, and across the East River into Brooklyn and Long Island’s garden villages, and across the Hudson into New Jersey’s charming towns, and down the bay to Staten Island. In no great metropolis this side of Constantinople is it so easy and inexpensive to slip quickly from the office or home and enjoy the bracing delights of a sail down the salt water (the upper bay has fourteen square miles and the lower over eighty) or up a stately river with all the charms of the Hudson. Everything is on the grand scale, once the city’s square blocks of barracky houses are left behind.

Old-world quietists are surprised to discover one cosy quarter, perhaps two, in the grimy section of New York. Stuyvesant Square and its immediate belongings around St. George’s Church still survive as an oasis of sweetness and light in a wilderness of dismal commonplace. Washington Square carries somewhat of the old aristocratic flavor to the borders of Bohemia, and the Theological College in Chelsea used to give a solemnizing leaven to that changing district. The social transformation is still in progress. It may, perhaps, be a token of the rise to metropolitanism that the distinctively American hotels of the old-fashioned type have virtually disappeared. European models have the preference for the time being in the in- and outdoor life of New Yorkers. English sports have apparently taken firm root, as seen in the popularity of golf, football, horse-racing, rowing, and some less desirable practices incident to one or two of these erstwhile sports that have developed into business undertakings, to the regret of true sportsmen. In this connection it is worth while to notice the striking disparity in the sizes of the audiences and outdoor crowds of New York and London. If fifteen thousand people pay to see the Harvard-Yale football game, or other such sport, it is considered worthy of special headlines in the papers. Madison Square Garden holds that number, seated, but the occasions when it has been filled at meetings have been few. Football crowds in England range from thirty up to seventy thousand, by turnstile record. The Crystal Palace accommodates over one hundred thousand holiday-makers without being crowded, in its central nave, sixteen hundred feet by eighty, besides transepts, and its famous grounds. The late Rev. C. H. Spurgeon had congregations of six thousand, seated, twice each Sunday for twenty-eight years. Mr. Gladstone and others have addressed twenty-five thousand in the Agricultural Hall, which covers over three acres, and St. Paul’s Cathedral has occasional congregations of over twenty thousand. These facts are the more curious as applying to a small country.

One explanation of this contrast lies in the fact that New York is not a homogeneous community. In a more marked degree than other capitals it is a congeries of towns and colonies, largely alien in sympathies. You can wander in turn through Judea, China, Italy, Ireland, France, Russia, Poland, Germany, Holland, and colored colonies. Local color is strong in each. The English speech is not used, not known, by many of these people. The picturesqueness of tenement life and its Babel sounds does not atone for the want of the deep-rooted Americanism which must sooner or later be the test of welcome immigration.

Broadway is one of the great streets of the world though really a Narrow-way for so important a thoroughfare. Running north and south and having no rival for its most used section it has more than its natural share of traffic. From the historic Bowling Green and Trinity Church—two fine monuments of pre-Revolution days—up to Fourteenth Street, Broadway is mainly a wholesale market. Then it changes to a retail bazaar, and its trading features disappear as it nears the park. There used to be a well-defined sky-line in the lower city, but this has been sadly damaged by the towering office Babels that make the older quarter of the city a cave of the winds. If some day an earthquake were to shake the lower end of Manhattan Island, mighty would be the fall of these presumptuous files and woe betide their inhabitants. Fifth Avenue up to Thirty-fourth Street has given up its fashionable prestige in exchange for the profits of business. The Stock and Produce Exchanges are far down-town, among the multitude of banks that crowd around the spot made sacred ground to future generations of patriots as the scene of Washington’s inauguration as President. The city and its environs are rich in historic sites and monuments of the Revolutionary struggle. These, happily for the country’s future, are every year being sought and studied by the young, also by bands of teachers from states near and far, and by visitors from abroad. The devotion of one or more societies of private individuals has of late years conferred a boon upon the public which can hardly be too highly appreciated, in causing durable memorial tablets to be placed on buildings of historic interest. In this and kindred ways New York is fast removing all justification for the stale reproach that it cared not for shrines and took small interest in its own history.

A mere suggestion, yet a very helpful one, toward realizing somewhat of the enormous shipping business done for the country by New York can be got by a tour of the main wharves. There is a water-front of twenty-five miles around the island, without reckoning the shores of Brooklyn and Hoboken. The bird’s-eye view from the wonderful and graceful Suspension Bridge enlarges one’s conception of what such a metropolis is and can do. Alpine grain elevators circle the city on the opposite shore of the rivers and upper bay. Two thousand ships sail out each year laden with the grain that feeds the nations on the other hemisphere. Three thousand steamships enter these wharves yearly with human and commercial freight from foreign ports. Nearly ten thousand steerage immigrants land each week the year round, besides an immense passenger contingent. These are the sights that fascinate the thoughtful: the comings and goings of the peoples of the earth and its products. Old Castle Garden and the Battery have greatly changed in recent years, but their memories linger. If it had been possible to keep the triangle south of Fourteenth Street as the select residential quarter, what an unrivalled site it would now be! A water panorama worth crossing the Atlantic to see, for its immensity, its picturesque bordering, and the magnificent view of the foreground of an embowered city by the sea.

Human needs shaped these water avenues to other destinies. They draw from the great ocean beyond the Narrows the sources of all that has gone to the building of national greatness. In turn they have borne to other lands the seeds of a larger liberty, patterned after and stimulated by the unparalleled success that has so splendidly rewarded self-achieved freedom to grow, to think, to speak out, and to speed the commerce of the world.

The wealth thus created has of recent years done much to beautify the city with palatial residences. In the northern districts detached mansions in grass-plots supersede the monotonous brownstone rows. Many of these vie with each other in the extent and delicacy of decorative carvings outside. Others are fashioned after the castellated structures of Europe. The general impression left by a town of the newer fashion quarter is that Jeffersonian simplicity, in architecture at least, is no longer to be understood as synonymous with severe plainness. Probably no other city can point to an equally rapid transition from conventional taste, excellent for its period, to the present enthusiasm for the best in artistic construction, whatever its cost.

The bicycle proved a revolutionizer of dress as well as a stimulus to outdoor exercise. Each nation learns from the others and so we progress, though there is possible weakness in the tendency toward rigid uniformity. The picturesque and the primitive are disappearing in every land. National individuality should not lightly be allowed to lapse, even in minor matters of costume and recreation.

Experienced travellers know that a country is not to be judged by its metropolis. There is a sturdier back-bone of conservatism in the provinces than in the great cities, so largely made up of aliens and sojourners. A goodly proportion of the business men whose genius has made New York what it is, and who are admittedly qualifying it soon to become the financial centre of the world, are country-born and raised. Great as New York is, and mightier as it will become by reason of its situation, the true and abiding greatness of the nation is spread over the thousand cities and towns that equally represent American pluck and stability. In the farming districts and the scattered rural communities, in vast agricultural areas of which city people take too little note, and in the steady, plodding, smaller towns, there abides a calm but potent force that throbs with high patriotism, and will prove an all-sufficient strength in time of peril.

Washington! Its very name an inspiration, its every feature a fascination to the lover of his country who makes his first pilgrimage to the national shrine. Other great cities bear the glorious marks of the tribulations and triumphs they suffered and enjoyed as they passed through their historic experiences. Here is a capital created as the consummation of a people’s release from thralldom. A new city, invented as the proclamation of a new nation’s advent, the symbol and promise of a mightier world-power than its proudest founders ever conceived possible in their highest enthusiasms. The youngest of famous capitals, it already holds its own with the best of its kind for grandeur and the rus in urbe charm. Its spacious avenues, one hundred and sixty feet wide, are lined with trees and grassy walks. Their stately sweep gives chances for fine landscape effects, which are finely used. The vistas of the grand avenues are bounded by some piece of memorial statuary or an imposing structure in the distance, as is Pennsylvania avenue by the incomparable Capitol. No national monument is better known throughout the world than this noble edifice. Its majestic stateliness is enhanced by its snowy whiteness.

The Capitol is the greatest building for its purposes in the United States. It covers three acres and a half, and has a frontage of seven hundred and fifty feet. The great dome, with its figure of Liberty, reaches a height of over three hundred and seven feet. Standing on the rising ground among the rich foliage it has an aspect of quiet strength, an impressive assurance of dignity and permanence peculiar to itself among massive buildings in the great cities. Everyone goes, or should go, to see Congress at work, and to explore the corridors trod by generations of the nation’s legislators, soldiers, jurists, orators, in short, by all the great makers of the nation since Washington laid its foundation stone. A singular instance of fate thwarting intention is found in the situation of the Capitol. It was planned to face eastward, the White House was to be in the rear, and the city was expected to spread away from the river, eastwardly. But it perversely grew to the northwest, with the result that the Capitol turns its back on the capital. No one would suppose this is so unless told, so splendidly balanced in architectural dignity are both fronts of the edifice. Another peculiarity is that the head city of the republic is monarchically governed, and governed better than any other city in the Union. Three commissioners are appointed by the President, and the citizens have no political franchise. The city was planned as a grand example of what a capital should be. Impressed by the lessons of the revolutions in Paris the designer dotted the area with circular grass-plots or miniature parks, from which avenues and streets radiate like wheel-spokes. In case of need a gun in each of the circles could command an enemy approaching from any quarter. The peaceful use of these charming sites is more befitting the spirit of the republic. Statues of its soldier-heroes who saved the Union adorn each circle and give historic interest to the vistas. There are two hundred miles of streets. In summer-time they are groves of rich foliage. They and the park spaces take up half the area of the city. It is wisely intended to re-name the principal streets after famous American patriots instead of alphabetically.

Washington is pre-eminently a city of “sights.” The great government buildings are distributed over the city with excellent effect. They are noble edifices, worthy of the Capitol and the capital. The Treasury, with its never-to-be-forgotten scenes inside, the Army and Navy offices, the Smithsonian Institution, and the rest of the head-quarters of national business need no further mention here. The Corcoran Art Gallery, the Patent Office, and the new Library of Congress demand a special word. The latter is one of the most exquisite buildings in the world, with interior decorative treatment quite beyond anything hitherto known in the country. Its brilliant dome does not suffer by proximity to the Capitol. An inspection of the Patent Office is a revelation of genius peculiarly American, and its display throws the clearest light on the secret of the country’s amazing material prosperity. A visit to Washington ought to be the finishing touch to the schooling of every girl and boy. Historic sites and shrines appeal to the mature mind, but the show places of the capital peculiarly suit the youthful instinct for the novel and striking in matters of fact.

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WASHINGTON

To see the Senate and House of Representatives in session is a high privilege for any citizen, yet it is hampered by few, if any, such restrictions as are imposed in other national legislatures. The chambers are spacious and handsome, so are the classified galleries for spectators, and the sessions are held in daylight. Equally impressive is the Supreme Court of the United States—a temple of equity in all its features, wherein the instinctive reverence for the highest embodiment of justice and legal authority is encouraged by the surroundings. The robes worn by the justices invest the bench and court with a dignity which various state courts wisely emulate by adopting the same rule. Isolated in striking grandeur, the lofty Washington obelisk lifts the contemplative mind to heights above the level of material evidences of prosperity. Like the Stuart portrait, this memorial of Washington leaves the meaner measurements of a man’s stature for other seasons and moods, and by a touch of sublimity gives the nobler cue to patriotic devotion and whole-hearted enthusiasm for him who, though human indeed, in his life-work neared the divine.

Summer is not the best time to appreciate the social life of the capital. It lies low, the Potomac’s swampy margin is near and the street forests of trees aid humidity. The White House snugly reposes in beautiful grounds, with the great obelisk as a perpetual reminder of the first President’s example and reward. Another white portico gleams in the distance, Arlington, the resting-place of the nation’s hero-martyrs. In the winter season Washington blooms into cosmopolitan grandeur. It becomes the focus of the nation’s lights in statesmanship, art, literature, and social pleasures. The foreign embassies supply the grace of brilliant color so lacking in the gatherings of men in the sombre attire of the period. A continuous round of social festivities gladdens the mild winter days and nights. Here, as in royal capitals, society has its greater and lesser constellations. There are the senatorial, judicial, diplomatic, military, and naval groups, too sharply divided, to judge from audible criticisms in New York circles. Still literature, art, and commerce have as free a welcome in Washington salons as anywhere else, despite the plaints of overlooked suppliants. The White House knows nothing of artificial shibboleths. It happily dispenses its hospitalities—which are coveted honors—impartially upon all whom it is an honor to honor, and so sustains the true American principle of equal courtesy to citizens and sojourners of every degree. Washington is an inexhaustible field for the student of men, manners and movements, a theatre on whose stage the comedy of life plays itself, with all-potent moulders of opinion and legislation as the actors, backed by a supernumerary army of minor aids. Among its most eager auditors are outsiders, reporting every byplay to profoundly interested critics across the seas. The drama cannot be too deeply watched and pondered, for it is fraught with issues vital to the well-being of coming generations.

Chicago is usually figured as a conventionally insipid beauty, in flowing garments which would obstruct her progress and could never be kept white. This is a mistake. Most masculine of cities, most American of America’s great centres, its shield should portray a strong youth in the flush of adolescence, conscious power in his proud curled lip, fire in his eye, springing to the foreground in the first ray of dawn, in his right hand the sceptre of genius and his left grasping the key of destiny. The good people of Chicago are not conspicuously lacking in civic self-appreciation. They are accustomed to being twitted by rivals in the rear on their boundless faith in their city’s future greatness. They can afford to listen smilingly. If the child is father of the man, full-grown Chicago must some day tower above the up-stretched heads of its envious seniors like a giant among, say, a committee of venerable municipal Solons. Ordinary cities develop as babies do, slow growth to maturity, but this extraordinary late-comer into the family attained mental and muscular precocity in shorter time than its sisters required to cut their wisdom-teeth. Considered in relation to its geographical position and its express-speed rate of progress, Chicago has the promise and potency of an imperial greatness no easier to exaggerate than to limit. It was tried by fire in the day of small things, but quickly rose to a new life and it still carries the memorial glow in its heart as an inspiration to great things.

The word Chicago is a simpler form of the Indian name, Chacaqua, given to the river in honor of their deity, the Thunderer. The position of Chicago makes it the greatest lake port in the world. It is already the second city in the United States, though only born in 1830, and has hopes of becoming the first, by growth, and not by annexation policy. True, the newest city inherits the wealth and experience which the older ones had to gain for themselves, yet Chicago has done some fine original things. It hitched up an inland sea as its beast of burden and made a vast lake its pleasure pond. Finding itself only seven feet above the level of Lake Michigan it lifted itself bodily another seven feet, churches, warehouses, dwellings and all, with jack-screws, and shovelled a new foundation of dry earth beneath. Fifteen years later the great fire laid it lower than ever. On Oct. 8, 1871, began the disaster that made nearly a hundred thousand people homeless, destroyed seventeen thousand buildings and two hundred lives, and caused the loss of two hundred millions of dollars. Within a year or so the wooden town was transformed into a city of massive palaces built of stone and brick. It is now fast changing itself into a maze of towering Babels, whose tops support the pall of smoke that tells of manufacturing activity. It drove tunnels beneath its river for street-cars. Its thirty-five bridges were not enough for the constant rush. On its lake first swam the novel whale-back boats. One sin will rise up against the city on the day of doom: the twenty-mile line of lake shore has been largely prostituted to railway interests instead of being conserved as an unrivalled pleasure park for the people and an adornment to the city. It can plead in mitigation of sentence that its six public parks cover more than three square miles, besides some sixty linear miles of park-like boulevards of which Paris might be proud. Of these Michigan Avenue has a well-won fame. No business traffic is permitted on its wide and well-sprinkled roadway, the morning and afternoon procession of carriages taking its wealthy residents to and from business at times recalls the Queen’s Drive in the London season. If the Chicago man of affairs works hard at his calling, he takes his pleasure zestfully and plenty of it. On the grand occasion of the American Derby (for Chicago has its Epsom and Ascot in one) it is a revelation to see the gay caravan en route to the race-course, as impressive a display of metropolitan luxury as any capital can present. And on this day the West can match the big crowds of England with this sixty thousand throng, each person paying two dollars for bare admission to the ground.

In a city primarily devoted to business it takes time for the development of the beautiful. Chicago has its “sights” for seekers after the merely outlandish, who often miss the real greatnesses that are less catchy to the eye. One of its achievements which impresses both the trained and untrained observer is the undertaking which has the uninviting name of Drainage Canal. The pure water of Lake Michigan used to be polluted by the inflow of the Chicago River. To prevent this the city has made an immense waterway by which the lake water is carried to the Illinois River and the tide of the Chicago River is diverted from its former course. The new canal is navigable and opens a route between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The territory involved embraces the city and forty-three square miles of Cook County. The main channel is twenty-eight miles long and the cost was about thirty millions.

In their commercial aspect the famous Stock-yards have greater interest than as a show place. They cover four hundred acres, the plant is valued at four million dollars, and about twenty millions of animals are killed and packed in a year. Similarly imposing are the statistics of most of Chicago’s enterprises. The Board of Trade is one of the most remarkable sights in the country. Its public galleries are usually filled with spectators of the feverish bidding of the grain operators, whose slightest nod affects the markets of the world. The Stock Exchange is yearly taking a more important share in the money market. The financial institutions of Chicago and the West have more than once saved the East from impending panic, and immense loans are constantly being renewed, insuring the speedy recognition of the city as a force in the money markets of the nations.

More interesting is the honor-roll of Chicago’s intellectual enterprise. The Columbian World’s Fair of 1893 astonished the world with its beauty, its perfection of artistic skill and taste. It gave an impetus to the pursuit of the beautiful and refining which has borne substantial results. Near the site of the Fair is a cluster of buildings constituting the University of Chicago, dating from 1891, to which a single donor has given nine million dollars, and loyal citizens are continually adding to its possessions. The heads of the University count on an endowment fund of fifty millions. Nowhere is Chicago enthusiasm for progress more finely manifested than here. The great public libraries of the city are envied by foreign visitors. The central Public Library is a splendid triumph of architecture, next in interior elegance to the Library of Congress. It is valued at three millions, exclusive of its books. The Newberry and Crerar libraries form special branches of the system. The city’s churches and charities are doing nobly in ameliorating the condition of the toilers and the handicapped in life’s race. The name and fame of Miss Jane Addams and the Hull House settlement are world-wide. How difficult the task is may be conceived from the fact that out of a million and seven hundred thousand people in the city, nine hundred thousand are Americans, German, and Irish; the remainder represent twenty-four nationalities, exclusive of negroes. A report issued by an investigating committee of Hull House states that “the density of population in the Polish quarter in Chicago is three times that of the most crowded portions of Tokio, Calcutta, and many other Asiatic cities.”

As in New York there is a marked tendency among the richer people to set up country homes. New suburban towns and villages of great attractiveness are drawing an increasing number away from the smoky city. On the other hand the far-famed hospitality of its people to prophets of every school of thought, and the spirit of enterprise which welcomes every new idea, attracts eccentrics and adventurers whose trumpetings are loud enough to mislead superficial observers into the notion that Chicago is the crank’s paradise. If a fault at all, this amiable toleration leans to virtue’s side. Rightly to appreciate the depth and breadth of Chicago’s influence we must follow its trade to the remotest corners of the earth. We must trace the influences of its seats of learning and refinement. We must count, if we can, the tremendous results of its world-renowned enterprises that have stimulated nations to follow the successful lead. Be its faults what they may, Chicago has the heart, the will, and the muscle to mend them, as the world will see, and then will the true greatness of the Western metropolis be discerned, and its full influence be felt.

WINNIPEG LAKE AND RIVER.

W. F. BUTLER.

[Colonel W. F. Butler, in “The Great Lone Land,” gives us some very interesting information about the life and scenery of the great American Northwest, from which we select the following description of a picturesque lake and river. His journey was made during the Riel rebellion, and the traveller was on his way to the Lake of the Woods, where he expected to meet an expedition sent for the suppression of the rebellion. The Red River Indians gave him a hearty send-off.]

The chief gave a signal, and a hundred trading guns were held aloft, and a hundred shots rang out on the morning air. Again and again the salutes were repeated, the whole tribe moving down to the water’s edge to see me off. Putting out to the middle of the river, I discharged my fourteen-shooter into the air in rapid succession; a prolonged war-whoop answered my salute, and, paddling their very best, for the eyes of the finest canoers were upon them, my men drove the little craft flying over the water until the Indian village and its still firing braves were hidden behind a river bend. Through many marsh-lined channels, and amidst a vast sea of reeds and rushes, the Red River of the North seeks the water of Lake Winnipeg. A mixture of land and water, of mud, and of the varied vegetation which grows thereon, this delta of the Red River is, like other spots of a similar description, inexplicably lonely.

The wind sighs over it, bending the tall weeds with mournful rustle, and the wild bird passes and repasses with plaintive cry over the rushes which form his summer home.

Emerging from the sedges of the Red River, we shot out into the waters of an immense lake,—a lake which stretched away into unseen spaces, and over whose waters the fervid July sun was playing strange freaks of mirage and inverted shore-land.

This was Lake Winnipeg,—a great lake, even on a continent where lakes are inland seas. But vast as it is now, it is only a tithe of what it must have been in the earlier ages of the earth.

The capes and headlands of what once was a vast inland sea now stand far away from the shores of Winnipeg. Hundreds of miles from its present limits these great landmarks still look down on the ocean, but it is an ocean of grass. The waters of Winnipeg have retired from their feet, and they are now mountain-ridges, rising over seas of verdure. At the bottom of this by-gone lake lay the whole valley of the Red River, the present Lakes Winnepegoos and Manitoba, and the prairie islands of the Lower Assiniboine,—one hundred thousand square miles of water. The water has long since been drained off by the lowering of the rocky channels leading to Hudson Bay, and the bed of the extinct lake now forms the richest prairie-land in the world.

But although Winnipeg has shrunken to a tenth of its original size, its rivers still remain worthy of the great basin into which they once flowed. The Saskatchewan is longer than the Danube, the Winnipeg has twice the volume of the Rhine. Four hundred thousand square miles of continent shed their waters into Lake Winnipeg; a lake as changeful as the ocean, but, fortunately for us, in its very calmest mood to-day. Not a wave, not a ripple on its surface, not a breath of breeze to aid the untiring paddles. The little canoe, weighed down by men and provisions, had scarcely three inches of its gunwale over the water, and yet the steersman held his course far out into the glassy waste, leaving behind the marshy headlands which marked the river’s mouth.

A long low point stretching from the south shore of the lake was faintly visible on the horizon. It was past mid-day when we reached it; so, putting in among the rocky boulders which lined the shore, we lighted our fire and cooked our dinner. Then, resuming our way, the Grand Traverse was entered upon. Far away over the lake arose the point of the Big Stone, a lonely cape whose perpendicular front was raised high above the water. The sun began to sink towards the west; but still not a breath rippled the surface of the lake, not a sail moved over the wide expanse, all was as lonely as though our tiny craft had been the sole speck of life on the waters of the world. The red sun sank into the lake, warning us that it was time to seek the shore and make our beds for the night. A deep sandy bay, with a high backing of woods and rocks, seemed to invite us to its solitudes. Steering in with great caution among the rocks, we landed in this sheltered spot, and drew our boat upon the sandy beach. The shore yielded large store of drift-wood, the relics of many a northern gale. Behind us lay a trackless forest, in front the golden glory of the western sky. As the night shades deepened around us and the red glare of our drift-wood fire cast its light upon the woods and rocks, the scene became one of rare beauty.

As I sat watching from a little distance this picture so full of all the charms of the wild life of the voyageur and the Indian, I little marvelled that the red child of the lakes and the woods should be loath to quit such scenes for all the luxuries of our civilization. Almost as I thought with pity over his fate, seeing here the treasures of nature which were his, there suddenly emerged from the forest two dusky forms. They were Ojibbeways, who came to share our fire and our evening meal. The land was still their own. When I lay down to rest that night on the dry sandy shore, I long watched the stars above me. As children sleep after a day of toil and play, so slept the dusky men who lay around me. It was my first night with these poor wild sons of the lone spaces; it was strange and weird, and the lapping of the mimic wave against the rocks close by failed to bring sleep to my thinking eyes.

[The next day an early start was made]

We entered the mouth of the Winnipeg River at mid-day and paddled up to Fort Alexander, which stands about a mile from the river’s entrance. Here I made my final preparations for the ascent of the Winnipeg, getting a fresh canoe better adapted for forcing the rapids, and at five o’clock in the evening started on my journey up the river. Eight miles above the fort the roar of a great fall of water sounded through the twilight. In the surge and spray and foaming torrent the enormous volume of the Winnipeg was making its last grand leap on its way to mingle its waters with the lake. On the flat surface of an enormous rock which stood well out into the boiling water we made our fire and our camp.

The pine-trees which gave the fall its name stood round us dark and solemn, waving their long arms to and fro in the gusty winds that swept the valley. It was a wild picture. The pine-trees standing in inky blackness; the rushing water, white with foam; above, the rifted thunder-clouds. Soon the lightning began to flash and the voice of the thunder to sound above the roar of the cataract. My Indians made me a rough shelter with cross poles and a sail-cloth, and, huddling themselves together under the upturned canoe, we slept regardless of the storm....

A man may journey very far through the lone spaces of the earth without meeting with another Winnipeg River. In it nature has contrived to place her two great units of earth and water in strange and wild combinations. To say that the Winnipeg River has an immense volume of water, that it descends three hundred and sixty feet in a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, that it is full of eddies and whirlpools, of every variation of waterfall from chutes to cataracts, that it expands into lonely pine-cliffed lakes and far-reaching island-studded bays, that its bed is cumbered with immense wave-polished rocks, that its vast solitudes are silent and its cascades ceaselessly active,—to say all this is but to tell in bare items of fact the narrative of its beauty. For the Winnipeg, by the multiplicity of its perils and the ever-changing beauty of its character, defies the description of civilized men as it defies the puny efforts of civilized travel. It seems part of the savage,—fitted alone for him and for his ways, useless to carry the burdens of man’s labor, but useful to shelter the wild things of wood and water which dwell in its waves and along its shores. And the red man who steers his little birch-bark canoe through the foaming rapids of the Winnipeg, how well he knows its various ways! To him it seems to possess life and instinct, he speaks of it as one would of a high-mettled charger which will do anything if he be rightly handled. It gives him his test of superiority, his proof of courage. To shoot the Otter Falls or the Rapids of Barrière, to carry his canoe down the whirling of Portage-de-l’Isle, to lift her from the rush of water at the Seven Portages, or launch her by the edge of the whirlpool below the Chute-à-Jocko, all this is to be a brave and a skilful Indian, for the man who can do all this must possess a power in the sweep of his paddle, a quickness of glance, and a quiet consciousness of skill, not to be found except after generations of practice. For hundreds of years the Indian has lived amidst these rapids, they have been the playthings of his boyhood, the realities of his life, the instinctive habit of his old age. What the horse is to the Arab, what the dog is to the Esquimaux, what the camel is to those who journey across Arabian deserts, so is the canoe to the Ojibbeway. Yonder wooded shore yields him from first to last the materials he requires for its construction: cedar for the slender ribs, birch bark to cover them, juniper to stitch together the separate pieces, red pine to give resin for the seams and crevices. By the lake or river shore, close to his wigwam, the boat is built;

“And the forest life is in it,—
All its mystery and its magic,
All the tightness of the birch-tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch’s supple sinews.
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily.”

It is not a boat, it is a house; it can be carried long distances overland from lake to lake. It is frail beyond words, yet you can load it down to the water’s edge; it carries the Indian by day, it shelters him by night; in it he will steer boldly out into a vast lake where land is unseen, or paddle through mud and swamp or reedy shallows; sitting in it, he gathers his harvest of wild rice, or catches his fish or shoots his game; it will dash down a foaming rapid, brave a fiercely running torrent, or lie like a sea bird on the placid water.

For six months the canoe is the home of the Ojibbeway. While the trees are green, while the waters dance and sparkle, while the wild rice bends its graceful head in the lake, and the wild duck dwells amidst the rush-covered mere, the Ojibbeway’s home is the birch-bark canoe. When the winter comes and the lake and rivers harden beneath the icy breath of the north wind, the canoe is put carefully away; covered with branches and with snow, it lies through the long dreary winter until the wild swan and the wavey, passing northward to the polar seas, call it again from its long icy sleep.

Such is the life of the canoe, and such the river along which it rushes like an arrow.

The days that now commenced to pass were filled from dawn to dark with moments of keenest enjoyment, everything was new and strange, and each hour brought with it some fresh surprise of Indian skill or Indian scenery.

The sun would be just tipping the western shores with his first rays when the canoe would be lifted from its ledge of rock and laid gently on the water; then the blankets and kettles, the provisions and the guns, would be placed in it, and four Indians would take their seats, while one remained on the shore to steady the bark upon the water and keep its sides from contact with the rock; then when I had taken my place in the centre, the outside man would spring gently in, and we would glide away from the rocky resting-place. To tell the mere work of each day is no difficult matter: start at five o’clock a.m., halt for breakfast at seven o’clock, off again at eight, halt at one o’clock for dinner, away at two o’clock, paddle until sunset at seven-thirty; that was the work of each day. But how shall I attempt to fill in the details of scene and circumstance between these rough outlines of time and toil, for almost every hour of the long summer day the great Winnipeg revealed some new phase of beauty and of peril, some changing scene of lonely grandeur? I have already stated that the river in its course from the Lake of the Woods to Lake Winnipeg, one hundred and sixty miles, makes a descent of three hundred and sixty feet.

This descent is effected not by a continuous decline, but by a series of terraces at various distances from each other; in other words, the river forms innumerable lakes and wide expanding reaches bound together by rapids and perpendicular falls of varying altitude; thus when the voyageur has lifted his canoe from the foot of the Silver Falls and launched it again above the head of that rapid, he will have surmounted two-and-twenty feet of the ascent; again, the dreaded Seven Portages will give him a total rise of sixty feet in a distance of three miles. (How cold does the bare narration of these facts appear beside their actual realization in a small canoe manned by Indians!) Let us see if we can picture one of these many scenes. There sounds ahead a roar of falling water, and we see, upon rounding some pine-clad island or ledge of rock, a tumbling mass of foam and spray studded with projecting rocks and flanked by dark wooded shores; above we can see nothing, but below, the waters, maddened by their wild rush amidst the rocks, surge and leap in angry whirlpools. It is as wild a scene of crag and wood and water as the eye can gaze upon, but we look upon it not for its beauty, because there is no time for that, but because it is an enemy that must be conquered.

Now mark how these Indians steal upon this enemy before he is aware of it. The immense volume of water, escaping from the eddies and whirlpools at the foot of the fall, rushes on in a majestic sweep into calmer water; this rush produces along the shores of the river a counter- or back-current which flows up sometimes close to the foot of the fall; along this back-water the canoe is carefully steered, being often not six feet from the opposing rush in the central river; but the back-current in turn ends in a whirlpool, and the canoe, if it followed this back-current, would inevitably end in the same place. For a minute there is no paddling, the bow-paddle and the steersman alone keeping the boat in her proper direction as she drifts rapidly up the current. Among the crew not a word is spoken, but every man knows what he has to do, and will be ready when the moment comes; and now the moment has come, for on one side there foams along a mad surge of water, and on the other the angry whirlpool twists and turns in smooth hollowing curves round an axis of air, whirling round it with a strength that would snap our birch bark into fragments, and suck us down into the great depths below. All that can be gained by the back-current has been gained, and now it is time to quit it; but where? for there is often only the choice of the whirlpool or the central river. Just on the very edge of the eddy there is one loud shout given by the bow-paddle, and the canoe shoots full into the centre of the boiling flood, driven by the united strength of the entire crew; the men work for their very lives, and the boat breasts across the river, with her head turned full towards the falls; the waters foam and dash about her, the waves leap high over the gunwale, the Indians shout as they dip their paddles like lightning into the foam, and the stranger to such a scene holds his breath amidst this war of man against nature. Ha! the struggle is useless; they cannot force her against such a torrent; we are close to the rocks and foam; but see, she is driven down by the current, in spite of those wild fast strokes. The dead strength of such a rushing flood must prevail. Yes, it is true, the canoe has been driven back; but behold, almost in a second the whole thing is done,—we float suddenly beneath a little rocky isle on the foot of the cataract. We have crossed the river in the face of the fall, and the portage landing is over this rock, while three yards out on either side the torrent foams its headlong course.

Of the skill necessary to perform such things it is useless to speak. A single false stroke and the whole thing would have failed; driven headlong down the torrent, another attempt would have to be made to gain this rock-protected spot, but now we lie secure here; spray all around us, for the rush of the river is on either side, and you can touch it with an outstretched paddle. The Indians rest on their paddles and laugh; their long hair has escaped from its fastening through their exertion, and they retie it while they rest. One is already standing upon the wet, slippery rock, holding the canoe in its place; then the others get out. The freight is carried up, piece by piece, and deposited on the flat surface some ten feet above; that done, the canoe is lifted out very gently, for a single blow against this hard granite boulder would shiver and splinter the frail birch-bark covering; they raise her very carefully up the steep face of the cliff and rest again on the top. What a view there is from coigne of vantage! We are on the lip of the fall; on each side it makes its plunge, and below we mark at leisure the torrent we have just braved; above, it is smooth water, and away ahead we see the foam of another rapid. The rock on which we stand has been worn smooth by the washing of the water during countless ages, and from a cleft or fissure there springs a pine-tree or a rustling aspen. We have crossed the Petit Roches, and our course is onward still.

Through many scenes like this we held our way during the last days of July. The weather was beautiful; now and then a thunder-storm would roll along during the night, but the morning sun, rising clear and bright, would almost tempt one to believe that it had been a dream, if the pools of water in the hollows of the rocks and the dampness of blanket or oil-cloth had not proved the sun a humbug. Our general distance each day would be about thirty-two miles, with an average of six portages. At sunset we made our camp on some rocky isle or shelving shore: one or two cut wood, another got the cooking things ready, a fourth gummed the seams of the canoe, a fifth cut shavings from a dry stick for the fire; for myself, I generally took a plunge in the cool, delicious water; and soon the supper hissed in the pans, the kettle steamed from its suspending stick, and the evening meal was eaten with appetites such as only the voyageur can understand.

Then when the shadows of the night had fallen around and all was silent, save the river’s tide against the rocks, we would stretch our blankets on the springy moss of the crag, and lie down to sleep with only the stars for a roof.

Happy, happy days were these,—days the memory of which goes very far into the future, growing brighter as we journey farther away from them; for the scenes through which our course was laid were such as speak in whispers, only when we have left them,—the whispers of the pine-tree, the music of running water, the stillness of great lonely lakes.

A FINE SCENIC ROUTE.

HENRY T. FINCK.

[From Henry T. Finck’s “The Pacific Coast Scenic Tour” we select the following description of the Canadian Pacific Railway route, which is acknowledged to possess a long succession of grand and beautiful scenery, unequalled by any other railroad route in America. The description is too long a one to be given in full, and for further acquaintance with it the reader must be referred to the book itself.]

After leaving Vancouver, and before reaching Westminster, the train for some time runs along Burrard Inlet, on which is situated Fort Moody, another town which had hoped to be chosen as terminus, and actually did enjoy that privilege for a short time. The shores of the inlet are beautifully wooded, and some of the trees are of enormous size. At the crossing of Stave River a fine view is obtained of Mount Baker, looking forward to the right; and the bridge over the Harrison River, where it meets the Frazer, also affords a picturesque view. For the next fifteen or sixteen hours the train follows the banks of the Frazer River and its tributaries, and this is one of the grandest sections of the route.

At the first the Frazer is a muddy, yellow river, about the size of the Willamette above Oregon City, but more rapid and winding, and an occasional steamer may be seen floating along with the current, or slowly making headway against it. In some places the railway runs so close to the precipitous bank of the river that a handkerchief might be dropped from a car window into the swirling eddies, fifty feet below. At other places it leaves room—and just room enough—for the old wagon-road between the track and the river; but it would take a cool driver, with much confidence in his horses, to remain on his wagon here when a train passes. At last the road itself becomes frightened and crosses the river on a bridge, whereupon it winds along the hill-side above the opposite bank, at a safe distance.

This road was made during the Frazer River gold excitement in 1858, when twenty-five thousand miners flocked into this region, and wages for any kind of work were ten to eighteen dollars a day. To-day the metal no longer exists in what white men consider paying quantity; but Chinamen may still be seen along the river, washing for remnants, their earnings being about fifty cents a day. There is also a “Ruby Creek” in this neighborhood, and some Indian habitations and salmon-fishing places. Shortly before reaching Yale, which for a long time was the western end of the road, there is a slight intermission in the scenic drama, represented by some rich, level, agricultural lands, as if to give the passengers a moment’s rest before the wonders of the Frazer Cañon begin to monopolize their bewildered attention, till darkness sets in and drops the curtain on the superb panorama.

Yale, which is so completely shut in by high, frowning mountain walls on every side that the sun touches the village only during part of the day, has lost its importance since it ceased to be a terminus, and seems at present to be inhabited chiefly by Indians and half-breeds. The train is invaded by a bevy of half-breed girls with baskets of splendid apples and pears, which could not be beaten for size and flavor in any of our States, and indicate a possible use for these mountain regions in the future. And now the train plunges into the midst of the series of terrific gorges which constitute the Frazer Cañon, and which make this railway literally the most gorge-ous in the world. Here were appalling engineering difficulties to overcome, which no private corporation without the most liberal government support could have undertaken. Yet the builders had to be thankful even for this wild and rugged cañon dug out by the Frazer River, without which the Cascade range would have been impassable.

The palace cars of the Canadian Pacific, which contain all the best features of the Pullman cars, with home improvements, have a special observatory, with large windows, at the end of the train, whence the cañon should be viewed; but to see it at its best one must sit on the rear platform, so as to see at the same time both of the wild and precipitous cañon walls, between which the river rushes along as if pursued by demons. At every curve you think the gorge must come to an end, but it only grows more stupendous, and the river, lashed into foam and fury, dashes blindly against the rocks which try to arrest its course. These rocks, ten to thirty feet wide and sometimes twice as long, form many pretty little stone islands in the middle of the torrent, and are a characteristic feature of the cañon scenery. Numerous tunnels, resembling those on the Columbia River, are built through arches seemingly projecting over the river. The train plunges into them recklessly, but always comes out fresh and smiling on the other side, although it seems that if the bottom of the tunnel should by any chance drop out, the train would be precipitated into the river below.

Once in a while the river takes a short rest, and in these comparatively calm stretches hundreds of beautiful large red fish can be seen from the train, in the clear water, struggling up-stream. With their dark backs and bright red sides they form a sight which is none the less interesting when you are told that they are “only dog salmon,” which are not relished by whites, though the Indians eat them.

[A night now passes, during which much fine scenery is missed. But the best is reserved for the next day.]

Scenic wonders now succeed one another with bewildering rapidity throughout the day. This second day, in fact, represents the climax of the trip, and the attention is not allowed to flag for a second. However much such a confession may go against the grain of patriotism, every candid traveller must admit that there is nothing in the United States in the way of massive mountain scenery (except, perhaps, in Alaska) to compare with the glorious panorama which is unfolded on this route. Within thirty-six hours after leaving Vancouver we traverse three of the grandest mountain ranges in America,—the Cascades, Selkirks, and Rockies,—all of them the abode of eternal snow and glaciers, and all of them traversed through by cañons which vie with each other in terrific grandeur.

MEMORIAL MONUMENT TO SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, FOUNDER OF QUEBEC

Before the Selkirks are reached the train passes the Columbia or Gold range, through the Eagle Pass, so called because it was discovered by watching an eagle’s flight. Eagle’s Pass is a poetic and appropriate name, and yet I think it would be well to re-name this mountain pass and call it Mirror Lake Cañon, because that would call the attention of tourists to what is its most characteristic feature, which may otherwise be overlooked. There are four lakes and many smaller bodies of water in this valley, in whose placid surface the finely-sloped mountain ridges and summits of the pass are reflected with marvellous distinctness, so that here, as in the Yosemite Mirror Lake, the copy is more lovely than the original. Some of the mountain-sides reflected in these mirrors are naked rocks, others are covered with living evergreen trees, and others still with dead trees. In the mirror these dead forests look hardly less beautiful than the living ones; but in the original the eye dwells with more pleasure on the green forests which here, and almost everywhere in British Columbia, grow with the rank luxuriance of a Ceylon jungle. The soil under these dense tree-masses, consisting of decayed pine- and fir-needles, a foot deep, and always moist, makes a paradise for lovely mosses and ferns. Here, also, is the home of the bear, and one would not have to walk far in this thicket to encounter a grizzly, black, or cinnamon bruin.

On emerging from the Mirror Lake Cañon, a great surprise awaits the passengers. The Columbia River—to which they had fancied they had said a final farewell when they were ferried across it on the way from Portland to Tacoma—suddenly comes upon the scene again, as clear and as picturesque as ever; and even at this immense distance from its mouth still large enough to require a bridge half a mile long to cross it. A few hours later the train again crosses the Columbia, at Donald, where the river has become much smaller than it seems that it should in such a short distance.

To get an explanation of this circumstance, it is interesting to glance at the map and notice what an immense curve northward the Columbia has made in this interval in order to find a passage through the Selkirk range; and in thus encircling the snowy Selkirks it has, of course, added to its volume the contents of innumerable glacier streams and mountain brooks. Its real sources are southeast of Donald, on the summit of the Rockies, separated by but a short distance from springs which run down on the eastern side and find their way through the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. Thus do extremes meet. It would be difficult to find anything so curious in the course of any other river as this immense, irregular parallelogram which the Columbia here describes from its sources to Arrow Lake....

The snow-peaks of the Selkirks are now looming up on all sides, and the atmosphere becomes more bracing and Alpine as the train slowly creeps up the mountain-side, doubling up on itself in a loop. The Glacier House is reached before long, and here every tourist who has time to spare should get off and spend a day or two, since next to Banff, in the National Park, this is the finest point along the whole route, scenically speaking, while the air is even more salubrious, cool, and intoxicating than at Banff, owing to the nearness of the glacier. It would be difficult, even in Switzerland, to find a more romantic spot for a hotel than the location of the Glacier House. High peaks rise up on every side, so finely moulded, so deeply mantled with snow, and presenting such various aspects from different points of view, that we forget our disgust at the fact that, as usual in the West, these grand eternal peaks have been named after ephemeral mortals,—Browns, Smiths, and Joneses. The Grizzly and Cougar Mountains are more aptly named, as these animals will long continue to abound in the impenetrable forests which adorn these peaks below the snow-line. Looking from the hotel towards the glacier, to the left is a peak which looks like the Matterhorn, the most unique mountain in Switzerland, and, what is still more striking, at its side is another smaller peak, which is an exact copy of the Little Matterhorn....

The principal difference between the Swiss Alps and the Selkirk range lies in the aspect of the mountain-sides below the snow-line. These, in Switzerland, are green meadows dotted with browsing cows, and presenting one unbroken mass of dark green, except where an avalanche has tobogganed down and opened what seems at a distance like a roadway, but is found to be a battle-field strewn with the corpses of cedars three and four feet in diameter.

The most imposing view of such a mountain forest unbroken by a single avalanche path is obtained from the snow-sheds just above the hotel. Sitting outside these sheds and looking towards the left, you see a vast mountain slope covered with literally millions of dark-green trees. Why has none of the world’s greatest poets ever been permitted to gaze on such a Selkirk forest, that he might have aroused in his unfortunate readers who are not privileged to see one emotions similar to those inspired by it? But I fear that neither verse nor photographs, nor even the painter’s brush, can ever more than suggest the real grandeur of such a forest scene. This mountain is not snow-crowned in September, but its wooded summit makes a sharp green line against the snow-peaks beyond and above. From this summit down to the foot stand the giant cedars, as crowded as the yellow stalks in a Minnesota wheatfield. But in place of the flat monochrome of a wheatfield, our sloping forest presents a most fascinating color spectacle. The slanting rays of the sun tinge the waving tree-tops with a deeply saturated yellowish-green, curiously interspersed with a mosaic of dark, almost black streaks and patches of shade, due to clouds and other causes, and the whole edged by the dazzling snow.

If we descend and enter this forest, a cathedral-like awe thrills the nerves. Daylight has not the power to penetrate to the ground hidden by this dense mass of tree-tops rising two hundred to three hundred feet into the air,—except that an occasional ray of sunlight may steal in for a second, like a flash of lightning. And the carpet on which this forest stands! In America we rarely see a house, even of a day-laborer, without a carpet; why, then, should these royal trees do without one? The carpet is itself a miniature forest of ferns and mosses, luxuriating in riotous profusion on an ever-moist soil, the product of thousands of generations of pine-needles. Nor is this carpet a monochrome, for the green is varied by numerous berries of various kinds, most of which are red, as they should be,—the complementary color of green. But there are also acres of blueberries as large as cherries; and if you will tear off a few branches of these and bring them to the young bear chained up near the Glacier Hotel, he will be very grateful, and you will find it amusing to watch him eating them.

There is music, too, in this Forest Cathedral, which is heard to best advantage from the elevated gallery occupied by the snow-sheds. It takes a trained ear to distinguish the steady, rippling staccato sound of a snow-fed mountain brook from the prolonged legato sigh of a pine forest, swelling to fortissimo, and dying away by turns. In the romantic spot we have chosen these sounds are blended, the music of the torrents being caught up by the sloping forest as by a huge sounding-board, and increased in loudness by being mingled with the mournful strains of the tree-tops, as orchestral colors are blended by modern masters. Those err who say there is no music in nature. It is not in “Siegfried” alone that the Waldweben is musical, that leaves sing as well as birds, while the thunder occasionally adds its loud basso profundo. The æsthetic exhilaration which we owe to these poetic sights and sounds is intensified by the salubrious breezes which waft this music to our ears. Born among the clouds and glaciers, they are perfumed in passing across the forests, warmed by the sun’s rays in passing over the valley; and every breath of this elixir adds a day to one’s life. It is not surprising that mountains should make the best health-resorts; for do they not themselves understand and obey the laws of health? They keep their heads cool under a snow-cap, their feet warm in a mossy blanket, and their sides covered with a dense fir overcoat....

For the greater part of the two hours which the train requires to go from Donald to Golden City it passes along the bank of the Columbia River; and there is, perhaps, no part of the whole route where grandeur and beauty are so admirably united as here, especially in the autumn. The grandeur lies in the snowy summits which frame in this Columbia valley—the Selkirks on one side, the Rockies on the other. The beauty lies in the river itself and in the young trees and bushes along its banks, dressed in fall styles and colors, some as richly yellow as a golden-rod, others as deeply purple or crimson as fuchsias or begonias, the yellow predominating. These colored trees occur in groups and streaks along the river, and in isolated patches on the mountain-sides, where they might be mistaken for brown mosses or lichen-colored rocks. There may be as beautifully colored trees in our Eastern forests, but they are not mixed, as here, with young evergreen pines, nor have they a framework of snow mountains, like these, to enhance their beauty.

High up on the ridges there is another variety of trees of a beautiful russet color set off by a deep-blue sky. Talk of color symphonies. Here they are—miles of them—long as a Wagner trilogy, and as richly orchestrated. Even the masses of blackened logs and stumps—if one can set aside for the moment all thought of pity for the poor charred trees, so happy before the fire in their green luxuriance, and of the sad waste of useful timber—enhance the charm of this scene by contrast.

I have said that the time-table of the Canadian Pacific Railway is so arranged that the finest scenery is passed in daylight, in both directions; but of course there must be exceptions, and, as a matter of fact, as long as the road crosses the three great mountain ranges of the Cascades, Selkirks, and Rockies, there is hardly a mile that does not offer something worth seeing. Consequently, as darkness again closes in soon after leaving Golden, east-bound passengers must resign themselves to lose sight of the Kicking Horse Cañon, the Beaverfoot and Ottertail Mountains, the large glacier on Mount Stephen, etc.,—which is all the more provoking as they have to sit up anyway till midnight, when Banff is reached; for, of course, every tourist who is in his right senses and not a slave to duty gets off here to spend a few days in the Canadian National Park.

[The description of this park we can give only in summary.]

Summing up on the Canadian National Park, we may say it has not so many natural wonders as the Yellowstone Park,—no geysers, steam-holes, gold-bottomed rivulets, paint-pots, nor anything to place beside the Yellowstone Cañon and Falls. But the Minnewonka Lake may fairly challenge comparison with the Yellowstone Lake, and the mountain scenery is grander in the Canadian Park, and the snow and glaciers are nearer, though not so near as at the Glacier House, where the air is in consequence cooler and more bracing in summer than even at Banff. As the Canadian Park is only twenty-six miles long and ten wide, while the Yellowstone Park is about sixty-two by fifty-four miles, the former can be seen in much less time than it takes to do justice to the latter.

When we get ready to leave Banff we have to take the midnight train, so there is no chance to say good-by to the mountains. But we have seen so much of them since leaving Vancouver, that we have felt almost tempted to cry out to Nature, “Hold, enough; less would be more!” Now we get ample opportunity to ruminate in peace over our crowded impressions. When we get up we are on the prairie; we go to bed on the prairie, after traversing a territory larger than a European kingdom; again we rise on the prairie, and again go to bed on it; and not till Lake Superior is approached does the scenery once more become interesting....

As a general thing, it is no doubt wiser to take the Canadian Pacific Railway westward than eastward, as the scenic climax is on the western side. However, it is quite possible to avoid the feeling of anti-climax on going east, if we conclude the trip with the Thousand Islands and the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, together with Montreal; or with Niagara Falls and the Hudson River. The Pacific slope, no doubt, is scenically far more attractive than the Atlantic; still, there are some things in the East which even California would be proud to add to her attractions.

SOUTH PASS AND FREMONT’S PEAK.

JOHN C. FREMONT.

[Captain John Charles Fremont, one of the earliest government explorers of the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific slope, was born at Savannah, Georgia, in 1813. Becoming a civil engineer in the government service, in 1842 he explored the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, ascending in August the highest peak in the Wind River range. This has since been known as Fremont’s Peak. In the following year he explored Great Salt Lake. In 1845 he led a third expedition to the Pacific, and during the Mexican war was instrumental in securing California for the United States. He led subsequent expeditions westward, was Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1856, served during the war, and in 1878-82 was governor of Arizona. He died in 1890. We subjoin his account of the crossing of the South Pass and discovery and ascent of Fremont’s Peak.]

The view [of the Wind River Mountains] dissipated in a moment the pictures which had been created in our minds by many travellers who have compared these mountains with the Alps in Switzerland, and speak of the glittering peaks which rise in icy majesty amidst the eternal glaciers nine or ten thousand feet into the region of eternal snows.

[Continuing their course, they encamped on August 7 near the South Pass, and the next morning set out for the dividing ridge.]

About six miles from our encampment brought us to the summit. The ascent had been so gradual that, with all the intimate knowledge possessed by Carson, who had made the country his home for seventeen years, we were obliged to watch very closely to find the place at which we reached the culminating point. This was between two low hills, rising on either hand fifty or sixty feet. When I looked back at them, from the foot of the immediate slope on the western plain, their summits appeared to be about one hundred and twenty feet above. From the impression on my mind at this time, and subsequently on our return, I should compare the elevation which we mounted immediately at the Pass to the ascent of the Capitol hill from the avenue at Washington. It is difficult for me to fix positively the breadth of this pass. From the broken ground where it commences, at the foot of the White River chain, the view to the southeast is over a champaign country, broken, at the distance of nineteen miles, by the Table Rock, which, with the other isolated hills in its vicinity, seem to stand in a comparative plain. This I judged to be its termination, the ridge recovering its rugged character with the Table Rock.

It will be seen that it in no manner resembles the places to which the term is commonly applied,—nothing of the gorge-like character and winding ascents of the Alleghany passes in America; nothing of the Great St. Bernard and Simplon passes in Europe. Approaching it from the mouth of the Sweet Water, a sandy plain, one hundred and twenty miles long, conducts, by a gradual and regular ascent, to the summit, about seven thousand feet above the sea; and the traveller, without being reminded of any change by toilsome ascents, suddenly finds himself on the waters which flow to the Pacific Ocean. By the route we had travelled, the distance from Fort Laramie is three hundred and twenty miles, or nine hundred and fifty from the mouth of the Kansas.

[They continued their course westward, crossing several tributaries of the Colorado River, and on the 10th reached unexpectedly a beautiful lake.]

Here a view of the intensest magnificence and grandeur burst upon our eyes. With nothing between us and their feet to lessen the effect of the whole height, a grand bed of snow-capped mountains rose before us, pile upon pile, glowing in the bright light of an August day. Immediately below them lay the lake, between two ridges, covered with dark pines, which swept down from the main chain to the spot where we stood. “Never before,” said Mr. Preuss, “in this country or in Europe, have I seen such grand, magnificent rocks.” I was so much pleased with the beauty of the place that I determined to make the main camp here, where our animals would find good pasturage, and explore the mountains with a small party of men.

[On the 12th this party set out, crossing intervening hills, and ascending through dense forests to the summit of the ridge.]

We had reached a very elevated point, and in the valley below, and among the hills, were a number of lakes of different levels, some two or three hundred feet above others, with which they communicated by foaming torrents. Even to our great height the roar of the cataracts came up, and we could see them leaping down in lines of snowy foam. From this scene of busy waters we turned abruptly into the stillness of a forest, where we rode among the open bolls of the pines, over a lawn of verdant grass, having strikingly the air of cultivated grounds. This led us, after a time, among masses of rock, which had no vegetable earth but in hollows and crevices, though still the pine-forest continued. Towards evening we reached a defile, or rather a hole in the mountains, entirely shut in by dark pine-covered rocks.

[In the morning they ascended a mountain stream, to its source in a small lake surrounded by a lawn-like expanse.]

Here I determined to leave our animals, and make the rest of our way on foot. The peak appeared so near that there was no doubt of our returning before night; and a few men were left in charge of the mules, with our provisions and blankets. We took with us nothing but our arms and instruments, and, as the day had become warm, the greater part left our coats. Having made an early dinner, we started again. We were soon involved in the most rugged precipices, nearing the central chain very slowly, and rising but little. The first ridge hid a succession of others; and when, with great fatigue and difficulty, we had climbed up five hundred feet, it was but to make an equal descent on the other side; all these intervening places were filled with small deep lakes, which met the eye in every direction, descending from one level to another, sometimes under bridges formed by huge fragments of granite, beneath which was heard the roar of the water. These constantly obstructed our path, forcing us to make long détours; frequently obliged to retrace our steps, and frequently falling among the rocks. Maxwell was precipitated towards the face of a precipice, and saved himself from going over by throwing himself flat on the ground. We clambered on, always expecting, with every ridge that we crossed, to reach the foot of the peaks, and always disappointed, until about four o’clock, when, pretty well worn out, we reached the shore of a little lake, in which was a rocky island.

By the time we had reached the farther side of the lake we found ourselves all exceedingly fatigued, and, much to the satisfaction of the whole party, we encamped. The spot we had chosen was a broad, flat rock, in some measure protected from the winds by the surrounding crags, and the trunks of fallen pines afforded us bright fires. Near by was a foaming torrent, which tumbled into the little lake about one hundred and fifty feet below us, and which, by way of distinction, we have called Island Lake. We had reached the upper limit of the piney region; as, above this point, no tree was to be seen, and patches of snow lay everywhere around us, on the cold sides of the rock. From barometrical observations made during our three days’ sojourn at this place, its elevation above the Gulf of Mexico is ten thousand feet....

[They set out early the next morning.]

On every side, as we advanced, was heard the roar of waters, and of a torrent, which we followed up a short distance, until it expanded into a lake about one mile in length. On the northern side of the lake was a bank of ice, or rather of snow covered with a crust of ice. Carson had been our guide into the mountains, and, agreeably to his advice, we left this little valley and took to the ridges again, which we found extremely broken, and where we were again involved among precipices. Here were ice-fields, among which we were all dispersed, seeking each the best way to ascend the peak. Mr. Preuss attempted to walk along the upper edge of one of these fields, which sloped away at an angle of about twenty degrees; but his feet slipped from under him, and he went plunging down the plain. A few hundred feet below, at the bottom, were some fragments of sharp rock, on which he landed; and, though he turned a couple of somersets, fortunately received no injury beyond a few bruises.

[That day’s work failed, and they returned at evening to the camp. The next day they ascended a long defile on mule-back, and soon had the satisfaction to find that they had taken the right course. Finally, leaving their mules, they continued on foot, eventually reaching a point near the summit. Here was an overhanging buttress of rock, which could be surmounted only by passing around one side of it, which was the face of a precipice several hundred feet in depth.]

Putting hands and feet in the crevices between the blocks, I succeeded in getting over it, and when I reached the top, found my companions in a small valley below. Descending to them, we continued climbing, and in a short time reached the crest. I sprang upon the summit, and another step would have precipitated me into an immense snow-field five hundred feet below. To the edge of this field was a sheer icy precipice; and then, with a gradual fall, the field sloped off for about a mile, until it struck the foot of another lower ridge. I stood on a narrow crest, about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20° north, 51° east.

As soon as I had gratified the first feeling of curiosity I descended, and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would precipitate into the abyss below. We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit, and, fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to wave in the breeze where never flag waved before. During our morning’s ascent we had met no sign of animal life, except a small sparrow-like bird. A stillness the most profound and a terrible solitude forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (Bombus, the bumble-bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men.

It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier,—a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization. I believe that a moment’s thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and seizing him immediately, put him in at least a fit place,—in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on our way. The barometer stood at 18.293, the attached thermometer 44°; giving for the elevation of this summit thirteen thousand five hundred and seventy feet above the Gulf of Mexico, which may be called the highest flight of the bee. It is certainly the highest known flight of that insect.

From the description given by Mackenzie of the mountains where he crossed them, with that of the French officer still farther to the north, and Colonel Long’s measurements to the south, joined to the opinion of the oldest traders of the country, it is presumed that this is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains. [Fremont’s Peak is now estimated at thirteen thousand seven hundred and ninety feet. There are many peaks now known over fourteen thousand feet. The highest point is Blanca Peak, fourteen thousand four hundred and sixty-three feet high.]

The day was sunny and bright, but a slight shining mist hung over the lower plains, which interfered with our view of the surrounding country. On one side we overlooked innumerable lakes and streams, the spring of the Colorado of the Gulf of California; and on the other was the Wind River Valley, where were the heads of the Yellowstone branch of the Missouri; far to the north we could just discover the snowy heads of the Trois Tetons, where were the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers; and at the southern extremity of the ridge the peaks were plainly visible among which were some of the springs of the Nebraska or Platte River. Around us the whole scene had one main, striking feature, which was that of terrible convulsion. Parallel to its length, the ridge was split into chasms and fissures; between which rose the thin lofty walls, terminated with slender minarets and columns.

[The party reached camp the next day, and on the 17th turned their faces homeward, the purpose of the expedition having been accomplished.]

IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.

FERDINAND V. HAYDEN.

[About the middle of this century reports began to be heard of a veritable wonderland in the far West, as yet seen only by trappers and other adventurers, whose stories of the marvels they had beheld whetted the appetite of scientific explorers. The first attempt to reach the region of the Yellowstone was made in 1856, but failed, and it was not until 1869 that an exploring party entered this marvellous valley. A second party reached the Yellowstone region in 1870, and Mr. N. P. Langford wrote a glowing account of the wonders observed. The first detailed description of the locality was made by Dr. Hayden, chief of the Geological Survey of the Territories, in 1871. From this extended and highly interesting account we can only quote a few passages, selecting those which relate to the hot springs and geysers of the wonderful Fire-Hole River region.]

Early in the morning of August 30 the valley was literally filled with columns of steam, ascending from more than a thousand vents. I can compare the view to nothing but that of some manufacturing city like Pittsburg, as seen from a high point, except that instead of the black coal smoke there are here the white delicate clouds of steam. Small groups or solitary springs that are scattered everywhere in the woods upon the mountain-sides, and which would otherwise have escaped observation, are detected by the columns of steam. It is evident that some of these groups of springs have changed their base of operations within a comparatively recent period; for about midway on the east side of the lower basin there is a large area covered with a thick, apparently modern, deposit of the silica, as white as snow, while standing quite thickly all around are the dead pines, which appear to have been destroyed by the excessive overflow of the water and the increased deposition. These dry trees have a most desolate look; many of them have fallen down and are incrusted with the silica, while portions that have fallen into the boiling springs have been reduced to a pulp.

This seems to be one of the conditions of silicification, for when these pulpy masses of wood are permitted to dry by the cessation of the springs, the most perfect specimens of petrified wood are the result. In one instance a green pine-tree had fallen so as to immerse its thick top in a large hot basin, and leaves, twigs, and cones had become completely incrusted with the white silica, and a portion had entered into the cellular structure, so that when removed from the water and dried in the sun, very fair specimens were obtained. Members of my party obtained specimens of pine-cones that were sufficiently silicified to be packed away among the collections.

THE UPPER YELLOWSTONE FALLS
From a Painting by Thomas Moran

In order that we might get a complete view of the Lower Geyser Basin from some high point, we made a trip to the summit of Twin Buttes, on the west side of the basin. From the top of one of these buttes, which is six hundred and thirty feet above the Fire-Hole River, we obtained a bird’s-eye view of the entire lower portion of the valley, which was estimated to be about twenty miles long and five miles wide. To the westward, among the mountains, were a number of little lakes, which were covered with a huge species of water-lily, Nuphar advena. The little streams precipitated their waters in the most picturesque cascades or falls. One of them was named by Colonel Barlow the “Fairy Fall,” from the graceful beauty with which the little stream dropped down a clear descent of two hundred and fifty feet. It is only from a high point that it can be seen, for the water falls gently down from the lofty overhanging cliff into a basin at the foot, which is surrounded by a line of tall pines one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height. The continual flow of the waters of this little fountain has worn a deep channel or furrow into the vertical sides of the mountain. As far as the eye can reach can be seen the peculiar plateau mountain ranges, black with the dense forests of pine, averaging from nine thousand to ten thousand feet above sea-level....

A spring on a level with the river has an enormous square basin thirty feet across, of unknown depth. We called this the “Bath Spring.” A little below is another singular form of wonderful beauty. The water issues from beneath the crust near the margin of the river from several apertures. The basin itself is fifteen by twenty feet and twenty feet deep. It seemed to me that nothing could exceed the transparent clearness of the water. The slightest object was reflected in its clear depths, and the bright blue tints were indescribable. We called this the “Cavern.” The mud springs are also numerous and important in this group. As usual, they are of all sizes, from an inch or two to twenty or thirty feet in diameter, with contents varying from mere turbid water to stiff mud. They seldom have any visible outlet, but are in a constant state of agitation, with a sound that varies with the consistency of the contents. There are several of the mud-pots that give off a suppressed thud as the gases burst their way through the stiff mortar. Sometimes the mortar is as white as snow, or brown, or tinged with a variety of vivid colors....

On the west side of the Fire-Hole, and along the little branch that flows into it from the west, are numbers of springs of all grades, and the broad bottom is covered with a snow-white silicious crust. Near the base of the mountains there is a massive first-class boiling spring, in a constant state of violent agitation, sending forth great columns of steam, with a singular toadstool rim.... About three miles up the Fire-Hole we meet with a small but quite interesting group of springs on both sides of the stream. There is a vast accumulation of silica, forming a hill fifty feet along the level of the river; upon the summit one of the largest springs yet seen, nearly circular, one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, boils up in the centre, but overflows with such uniformity on all sides as to admit of the formation of no real rim, but forming a succession of little ornamental steps, from one to three inches in height, just as water would congeal from cold in flowing down a gentle declivity. There was the same transparent clearness, the same brilliancy of coloring to the waters, but the hot steam and the thinness of the rim prevented me from approaching it near enough to ascertain its temperature or observe its depth. It is certainly one of the grandest hot springs ever seen by human eye.

But the most formidable one of all is near the margin of the river. It seems to have broken out close by the river, and to have continually enlarged its orifice by the breaking down of its sides. It evidently commenced on the east side, and the continual wear of the under side of the crust on the west side has caused the margin to fall in, until an aperture at least two hundred and fifty feet in diameter has been formed, with walls or sides twenty to thirty feet high, showing the laminæ of deposition perfectly. The water is intensely agitated all the time, boiling like a caldron, from which a vast column of steam is ever rising, filling the orifice. As the passing breeze sweeps it away for a moment, one looks down into this terrible seething pit with terror. All around the sides are large masses of the silicious crust that have fallen from the rim. An immense column of water flows out of this caldron into the river. As it pours over the marginal slope it descends by numerous small channels, with a large number of smaller ones spreading over a broad surface, and the marvellous beauty of the strikingly vivid coloring far surpasses anything of the kind we have seen in this land of wondrous beauty,—every possible shade of color, from vivid scarlet to a bright rose, and every shade of yellow to a delicate cream, mingled with vivid green from minute vegetation. Some of the channels were lined with a very fine, delicate yellow, silky material, which vibrates at every movement of the waters. There was one most beautiful funnel-shaped spring, twenty feet in diameter at the top, but tapering down, lined inside and outside with the most delicate decorations. Indeed, to one looking down into its clear depths, it seemed like a fairy palace. The same jelly-like substance or pulp to which I have before alluded covers a large area with the various shades of light red and green. The surface yields to the tread like a cushion. It is about two inches in thickness, and although seldom so tenacious as to hold together, yet it may be taken up in quite large masses, and when it becomes dry it is blown about by the wind, like fragments of variegated lichens.

[From this description of the hot springs of the region we proceed to an account of its marvellous geyser phenomena.]

We camped the evening of August 5 in the middle of the Upper Geyser Basin, in the midst of some of the grandest geysers in the world. Colonel Barlow and Captain Heap, of the United States Engineers, were camped on the opposite side of the Fire-Hole. Soon after reaching camp a tremendous rumbling was heard, shaking the ground in every direction, and soon a column of steam burst forth from a crater near the edge of the east side of the river. Following the steam, arose, by a succession of impulses, a volume of water, apparently six feet in diameter, to the height of two hundred feet, while the steam ascended a thousand feet or more. It would be difficult to describe the excitement which attended such a display. It is probable that if we could have remained in the valley several days, and become accustomed to all the preliminary warnings, the excitement would have ceased, and we could have admired calmly the marvellous ease and beauty with which this column of hot water was held up to that great height for the space of twenty minutes. After the display is over the water settles down in the basin several inches, and the temperature slowly falls to 150°. We called this the “Grand Geyser,” for its power seemed greater than any other of which we obtained any knowledge in the valley.

[After describing more particularly the peculiarities of the Grand Geyser and the smaller neighboring geysers, Dr. Hayden gives us an enthusiastic pen-picture of a beautiful type of springs.]

On the summit of the great mound is one of a class I have called central springs; it is located on the highest point of the mound on which this great group belongs; has a crater twenty feet in diameter, very nearly quiescent, slightly bubbling, or boils near the centre, with a thin, elegant rim projecting over the spring, with the water rising within a few inches of the top. The continual but very moderate overflow of this spring, uniformly on every side, builds up slowly a broad-based mound, layer by layer, one-eighth to one-sixteenth of an inch thick. Looking down into these springs, you seem to be gazing into fathomless depths, while the bright blue of the water is unequalled even by the sea. There are a number of these marvellous central springs, with projecting rims carved with an intricate delicacy which of itself is a marvel; and as one ascends the mound and looks down into the wonderfully clear depths, the vision is unique. The great beauty of the prismatic colors depends much on the sunlight, but about the middle of the day, when the bright rays descend nearly vertically, and a slight breeze just makes a ripple on the surface, the colors exceed comparison; when the surface is calm there is one vast chaos of colors, dancing, as it were, like the colors of a kaleidoscope.

As seen through this marvellous play of colors, the decorations on the sides of the basin are lighted up with a wild, weird beauty which wafts one at once into the land of enchantment; all the brilliant feats of fairies and genii in the “Arabian Nights” entertainments are forgotten in the actual presence of such marvellous beauty; life becomes a privilege and a blessing after one has seen and thoroughly felt these incomparable types of nature’s cunning skill....

Our search for new wonders leading us across the Fire-Hole River, we ascended a gently incrusted slope, and came suddenly upon a large oval aperture with scalloped edges, the diameters of which were eighteen and twenty-five feet, the sides corrugated and covered with a grayish-white silicious deposit, which was distinctly visible at the depth of a hundred feet below the surface. No water could be discovered, but we could distinctly hear it gurgling and boiling at a great distance below. Suddenly it began to rise, boiling and spluttering, and sending out huge masses of steam, causing a general stampede of our company, driving us to some distance from our point of observation. When within about forty feet of the surface it became stationary, and we returned to look down upon it. It was foaming and surging at a terrible rate, occasionally emitting small jets of hot water nearly to the mouth of the orifice.

All at once it seemed seized with a fearful spasm, and rose with incredible rapidity, hardly affording us time to withdraw to a safe distance, when it burst from the orifice with terrific momentum, rising in a column the full size of this immense aperture to the height of sixty feet; and through and out of the apex of this vast aqueous mass five or six lesser jets or round columns of water, varying in size from six to fifteen inches in diameter, were projected to the marvellous height of two hundred and fifty feet. These lesser jets, so much higher than the main column, and shooting through it, doubtless proceed from auxiliary pipes leading into the principal orifice near the bottom, where the explosive force is greater. If the theory that water by constant boiling becomes explosive when freed from air be true, this theory rationally accounts for all irregularities in the eruptions of the geysers.

This grand eruption continued for twenty minutes, and was the most magnificent sight we ever witnessed. We were standing on the side of the geyser nearest the sun, the gleams of which filled the sparkling column of water and spray with myriads of rainbows, whose arches were constantly changing, dipping and fluttering hither and thither, and disappearing only to be succeeded by others, again and again, amid the aqueous columns, while the minute globules into which the spent jets were diffused when falling sparkled like a shower of diamonds, and around every shadow which the denser clouds of vapor, interrupting the sun’s rays, cast upon the column, could be seen a luminous circle, radiant with all the colors of the prism, and resembling the halo of glory represented in paintings as encircling the head of Divinity. All that we had previously witnessed seemed tame in comparison with the perfect grandeur and beauty of this display. Two of these wonderful eruptions occurred during the twenty-two hours we remained in the valley. This geyser we named the “Giantess.”

A hundred yards distant from the Giantess was a silicious cone, very symmetrical, but slightly corrugated upon its exterior surface, three feet in height and five feet in diameter at its base, and having an oval orifice twenty-four by thirty-six and a half inches in diameter, with scalloped edges. Not one of our company supposed that it was a geyser; and among so many wonders it had almost escaped notice. While we were at breakfast upon the morning of our departure, a column of water, entirely filling the crater, shot from it, which, by accurate triangular measurement, we found to be two hundred and nineteen feet in height. The stream did not deflect more than four or five degrees from a vertical line, and the eruption lasted eighteen minutes. We named it the “Beehive.”...

On our return to the lake from this basin we passed up the Fire-Hole River to its source in the divide. Early in the morning, as we were leaving the valley, the grand old geyser which stands sentinel at the head of the valley gave us a magnificent parting display, and with little or no preliminary warning it shot up a column of water about six feet in diameter to the height of a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet, and by a succession of impulses seemed to hold it up steadily for the space of fifteen minutes, the great mass of water falling directly back into the basin, and flowing over the edges and down the sides in large streams. When the action ceases, the water recedes beyond sight, and nothing is heard but the occasional escape of steam until another exhibition occurs. This is one of the most accommodating geysers in the basin, and during our stay played once an hour quite regularly. On account of its apparent regularity, and its position overlooking the valley, it was called by Messrs. Langford and Doane “Old Faithful.” It has built up a crater about twenty feet high around its base, and all about it are decorations similar to those previously described.

On the morning of August 6 we ascended the mountains at the head of the Fire-Hole River, on our return to the hot-spring camp on the Yellowstone Lake. We had merely caught a glimpse of the wonderful physical phenomena of this remarkable valley. We had just barely gleaned a few of the surface observations, which only sharpened our desire for a larger knowledge. There is no doubt in my mind that these geysers are more active at certain seasons of the year than at others. We saw them in midsummer, when the surface waters are greatly diminished. In the spring, at the time of the melting of the snows, the display of the first-class geysers must be more frequent and powerful. We left this valley, with its beautiful scenery, its hot springs and geysers, with great regret.

THE COUNTRY OF THE CLIFF-DWELLERS.

ALFRED TERRY BACON.

[Ruskin, among his reasons for not visiting the United States, declared that it would be impossible for him to exist, even for a short interval, in a country that had no old castles. Had he known it, he might have found here old castles in abundance, older perhaps, and grander in situation, than any to be found in his own land. These are the ruined dwellings of the ancient inhabitants of the western cañons and of the pueblo-builders of Arizona and New Mexico. We give a traveller’s account of the Cliff-dwellers’ habitations.]

The attraction which drew the conquerors of Mexico forty-five days’ journey away into the North was the fame which had reached them of the Seven Cities of Cibola (the buffalo), great in wealth and population, lying in the valley of the Rio de Zuñi. To the grief of the invaders, they found not cities, but rather villages of peaceful agricultural people dwelling in great pueblos three and four stories high, and they searched in vain for the rumored stores of gold. At that time the pueblos held a large population skilled in many arts of civilization. They cultivated large tracts of ground, wove fabrics of cotton, and produced ornate pottery. Their stone-masonry was admirable. But even three hundred years ago it seems that the people were but a remnant of what they had once been. Even then the conquerors wondered at the many ruins which indicated a decline from former greatness. The people have not now the same degree of skill in their native arts which the race once had, and it is probable that when the Spaniards came and found them declining in numbers the old handicrafts were already on the wane.

In a remote age the ancestors of these Pueblo tribes, or a race of kindred habits, filled most of that vast region which is drained by the Colorado River and its affluents, and spread beyond into the valley of the Rio Grande. The explorers of a great extent of country in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado have found everywhere evidences of the wide distribution and wonderful industry of that ancient people. On the low land which they used to till lie the remains of their villages,—rectangular buildings of enormous dimensions and large circular estufas, or halls for council and worship. On the sides of the savage cliffs that wall in or overarch the cañons are scattered in every crevice and wrinkle those strange and picturesque ruins which give us the name “Cliff-dwellers” to distinguish this long-forgotten people. And on commanding points, seen far away down the cañons or across the mesas, stand the solitary watch-towers where sentinels might signal to the villagers below on the approach of Northern barbarians....

There is no other district which embraces in so small a compass so great a number and variety of the Cliff-dwellers’ ruined works as the cañon of the Little Rio Mancos in Southwestern Colorado. The stream rises in a spur of the San Juan Mountains, near the remote mining-camp called Parrott City. Flowing southward for a few miles through an open valley, it is soon enclosed between the walls of a profound cañon which cuts for nearly thirty miles through a table-land called the Mesa Verde. The cañon is wide enough to have permitted the old inhabitants to plant their crops along the stream, and the cliffs rising on either side to a height of two thousand feet are so curiously broken and grooved and shelving, from the decay of the soft horizontal strata and the projection of the harder, as to offer remarkable facilities for building fortified houses hard of approach and easy of defence. Therefore the whole length of the cañon is filled with ruins, and for fifteen miles beyond it to the borders of New Mexico, where the river meets the Rio San Juan, the valley bears many traces of the ancient occupation.

The scenery of the cañon is wild and imposing in the highest degree. In the dry Colorado air there are few lichens or weather-stains to dull the brightness of the strata to the universal hoariness of moister climates: the vertical cliffs, standing above long slopes of débris, are colored with the brilliant tints of freshly-quarried stone. A gay ribbon of green follows the course of the rivulet winding down through the cañon till it is lost to sight in the vista of crags. The utter silence and solitude of the wilderness reigns through the valley. It is not occupied by any savage tribe, and only a few white men within the last few years have passed through it and told of its wonders; and yet its whole length is but one series of houses and temples that were forsaken centuries ago. I can hardly imagine a more exciting tour of exploration than that which Mr. Jackson’s party made on first entering this cañon in 1874.

Above the entrance of the cañon the evidences of prehistoric life begin. On the bottom-land, concealed by shrubbery, are the half-obliterated outlines of square and circular buildings. The houses were of large size, and were plainly no temporary dwelling-places, for an accumulation of decorated pottery fills the ground about them, indicating long occupation. No doubt they were built of adobe,—masses of hard clay dried in the sun,—which the wear of ages has reduced to smoothly-rounded mounds. For some miles down the cañon remains of this sort occur at short intervals, and at one point there stands a wall built of squared sandstone blocks. Along the ledges of the cliffs on the right bits of ruinous masonry are detected here and there, but for a time there is nothing to excite close attention. At last a watchful eye is arrested by a more interesting object perched at a tremendous height on the western wall of the cañon. It is a house built upon a shelf of rock between the precipices, but, standing seven hundred feet above the stream and differing not at all in color from the crags about it, only the sharpest eyesight can detect the unusual form of the building and the windows marking the two stories.

The climb up to the house-platform is slow and fatiguing, but the trouble is repaid by a sight of one of the most curious ruins on this continent. Before the door of the house, part of the ledge has been reserved for a little esplanade, and to make it broader three small abutments of stone, which once supported a floor, are built on the sloping edge of the rock. Beyond this the house is entered by a small aperture which served as a door. It is the best specimen of a Cliff-dweller’s house that remains to our time. The walls are admirably built of squared stones laid in a hard white mortar. The house is divided into two stories of three rooms each. Behind it a semicircular cistern nearly as high as the house is built against the side of it, and a ladder is arranged for descending from an upper window to the water-level. The floor of the second story was supported by substantial cedar timbers, but only fragments of them remain. The roof, too, has entirely disappeared, but the canopy of natural rock overhanging serves to keep out the weather. The front rooms in both stories are the largest and are most carefully finished. Perhaps they were the parlor and “best bedroom” of some prehistoric housewife. They are plastered throughout with fine smooth mortar, and even in that remote age the mania for household decoration had a beginning: floor, walls, and ceiling were colored a deep red, surrounded by a broad border of white.

The same cliff on which this house stands has on its side many other ruins; some half destroyed by gradual decay, some crushed by falling rocks, none so perfect as the one described; but all are crowded into the strangest unapproachable crevices of the cañon-wall, like the crannies which swallows choose to hold their nests, far removed from the possibility of depredation. Some are so utterly inaccessible that the explorers, with all their enthusiasm and activity, have never been able to reach them. How any beings not endowed with wings could live at such points it is hard to conceive: it makes one suspicious that the Cliff-dwellers had not quite outgrown the habits of monkey ancestors.

As the cañon widens with the descent of the stream, the ruins in the western wall increase in number. One fearful cliff a thousand feet in height is chinked all over its face with tiny houses of one room each, but only a few of them can be detected with the naked eye. One, which was reached by an explorer at the peril of his life, stands intact: ceiling and floor are of the natural rock, and the wall is built in a neat curve conforming to the shape of the ledge.

A mile farther down the stream there is a most interesting group of houses. Eight hundred feet above the valley there is a shelf in the cliff sixty feet in length that is quite covered by a house. The building contains four large rooms, a circular sacred apartment and smaller rooms of irregular shape. It was called by its discoverers “The House of the Sixteen Windows.” Behind this house the cliff-side rises smooth and perpendicular thirty feet, but it can be scaled by an ancient stairway cut into it which ascends to a still higher ledge. The stairs lead to the very door of another house filling a niche a hundred and twenty feet long. A great canopy of solid rock overarches the little fortress, reaching far forward beyond the front wall, while from below it is absolutely unapproachable except by the one difficult stairway of niches cut in the rock. In time of war it must have been impregnable. These dwellings have given more ideas about their interior furnishing than any of the others. Among the accumulated rubbish were found corn and beans stored away. In the lower house were two large water-jars of corrugated pottery standing on a floor covered with neatly-woven rush matting. In a house not far above were found a bin of charred corn, and a polished hatchet of stone made with remarkable skill.

From this point onward both the valley and the cliffs are filled with the traces of a numerous population, every mile of travel bringing many fresh ones into sight. Among the cliff-houses there is of necessity a variety in form and size as great as the differences of the caves and crevices that hold them; but among the buildings of the low ground there is more uniformity, not only in this cañon, but in all the valleys of the region. Most of them may be classed as aggregated dwellings or pueblos with rectangular rooms, round watch-towers and large circular buildings. To these must be added a few which seem to have been built only for defence. The straight walls have generally fallen, except the parts supported by an angle of a building; but, as usual in old masonry, the circular walls have much better resisted decay.

About midway down the cañon the curved wall of a large ruin rises above the thicket. It is a building of very curious design. The outer wall was an exact circle of heavy masonry a hundred and thirty feet in circumference. Within, there is another circular wall, concentric with the outer, enclosing one round room with a diameter of twenty feet. The annular space between the two walls was divided by partitions into ten small apartments. Other buildings of the same type occur in this region, some of much larger size and with triple walls. Even in this one, which is comparatively well preserved, the original height is uncertain, though the ruin still stands about fifteen feet high.

The vast quantity of débris about some of them indicates that they were of no insignificant height, and their perfect symmetry of form, the careful finish of the masonry, the large dimensions and great solidity, made them the most imposing architectural works of that ancient people. I find no reason to doubt that they were their temples, and the presumption is very strong that they were temples for sun-worship. The occurrence of a circular room in connection with nearly every group of buildings is of special interest, as seeming to link the Cliff-dwellers to the modern Pueblo tribes in their religious customs.

Most striking and picturesque of all the ruins are the round watch-towers. On commanding points in the valley, and on the highest pinnacles of the cliffs overlooking the surface of the mesa, they occur with a frequency which is almost pathetic as an indication of the life of eternal vigilance which was led by that old race through the years, perhaps centuries, of exterminating warfare which the savage red men from the North waged upon them. To us the suffering of frontier families at the hands of the same blood-thirsty savages is heart-rending. What was it to those who saw year by year their whole race’s life withering away, crushed by those wild tribes?

Near the lower end of the cañon stands one of the most perfect of these towers, rising sixteen feet above the mound on which it is built. It was once attached to an oblong stone building which seems to have been a strongly-fortified house. The rectangular walls, as usual, are prostrate, and have left the tower standing as solitary and picturesque and as full of mystery as the round towers of Ireland....

In the Montezuma Cañon, just beyond the Colorado State border, there are some remains built after an unusual manner with stones of great size. One building of many rooms, nearly covering a little solitary mesa, is constructed of huge stone blocks not unlike the prehistoric masonry of Southern Europe. In the same district there is a ruined line of fortification from which the smaller stones have fallen away and are crumbling to dust, leaving only certain enormous upright stones standing. They rise to a height of seven feet above the soil, and the lower part is buried to a considerable depth. Their resemblance to the hoary Druidical stones of Carnac and Stonehenge is striking, and there is nothing in their appearance to indicate that they belong to a much later age than those primeval monuments of Europe.

All the certain knowledge that we have of the history and manners of the Cliff-dwellers may be very briefly told, for there is no written record of their existence, except their own rude picture-writing, cut or painted on the cañon walls, and it is not likely that those hieroglyphics will ever be deciphered. But much may be inferred from their evident kinship to the Moquis of our time; and the resemblance of the ancient architecture and ceramics to the arts as they are still practised in the degenerate pueblos of Arizona gives us many intimations in regard to the habits of the Cliff-dwellers.

GRAND CAÑON, ARIZONA
In the Country of the Cliff-Dwellers

It was centuries ago—how long a time no one will ever know—when that old race was strong and numerous, filling the great region from the Rio Grande to the Colorado of the West, and from the San Juan Mountains far down into Northern Mexico. They must have numbered many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It is not probable that they were combined under one government, or that they were even closely leagued together, but that they were essentially one in blood and language is strongly indicated by the similarity of their remains. That they were sympathetic in a common hostility to the dangerous savage tribes about them can hardly be doubted. They were of peaceful habits and lived by agriculture, having under cultivation many thousands of acres in the rich river-bottoms, which they knew well how to irrigate from streams swollen in summer by the melting snows of the high mountain-ranges. We read of their dry canals in Arizona, so deep that a mounted horseman can hide in them. We know that they raised crops of corn and beans, and in the south cotton, which they skilfully wove. That they had commercial dealing across their whole country is shown by the quantity of shell-ornaments brought from the Pacific coast, which are found in their Colorado dwellings. They did not understand the working of metals, but their implements of stone are of most excellent workmanship. Their weapons indicate the practice of hunting, and while the race was still numerous their forts and their sharp obsidian arrows made easy their resistance to the wandering savage hordes.

I believe that no instance can be cited of a people still in their Stone Age who have surpassed that old race in the mason’s art: indeed, I doubt if any such people has even approached their skill in that respect. The difficulty of constructing a great work of well-squared, hammer-dressed stones is enormously increased if the masons must work only with stone implements. Imagine the infinite, toilsome patience of a people who in such a way could rear the ancient Pueblo Bonito of New Mexico, five hundred and forty feet long, three hundred and fourteen feet wide, and four stories high! In one wall of a neighboring building of stone less carefully dressed it is estimated that there were originally no less than thirty million pieces, which were transported, fashioned, and laid by men without a beast of burden or a trowel, chisel, or hammer of metal....

At the time of the Spanish conquest the Pueblo tribes were worshippers of the sun and fire, like all the races of this continent which were above barbarism. To-day, even in those pueblos where a corrupted form of the Roman faith is accepted, there are traces of the old sun-worship mingled with it, and in all pueblos there are large circular rooms, called estufas, reserved for councils and for worship. The invariable appearance of estufas among the ruined towns, and even on the ledges of the cliffs, shows what sacredness was attached to the circular room, which, perhaps, was symbolic of the sun’s orb: it indicates a unity of religious faith between the ancients and moderns.

LAKE TAHOE AND THE BIG TREES.

A. H. TEVIS.

[To Rev. A. H. Tevis, author of “Beyond the Sierras; or, Observations on the Pacific Coast,” we owe the following description of a most charming example of American lake scenery, one of the varied and striking regions of beauty which California offers to the tourist.]

Of the many curiosities that nature has scattered over the length and breadth of this coast, Lake Tahoe is one of the most charming.

This is a land of wonders, certainly of curiosities. Providence has made this vast area, between the Rocky Mountains and the sea, his chief receptacle of the wealth of the country. And what folly to travel in foreign countries to see the sights until you have at least seen some of the wonders and treasures of our own great Commonwealth! You can spend your life in exploring these various wonders, and then not find an end,—petrified forests; lost rivers, whose termini no one knows, and of whose source there is great doubt; brackish lakes, whose waters are worse than the Dead Sea, and in which no living thing can exist; bubbling, hissing, thundering geysers, whose awfulness impresses the hardest heart; roaring cataracts, that with a band of silver seem to bind together earth and sky; boiling springs, hither and yon in almost countless profusion, that send their breath of steam as through the throats of some great furnace from Vulcan’s forge; geographical and topographical features that are marvellous in themselves; the big trees, whose magnitude is a wonder, and whose age links the present almost to the days of Solomon; Yosemite, unlike anything of the kind in the known world, whose sublimity is beyond description; and charming, silvery, unique Tahoe, or Pearl of the Sierras.

There is no patent on the name, hence we have chosen to christen it thus. And who will say it is a misnomer that has seen its grandeur and enjoyed the beauty of its surroundings? Its name belongs to the Indian tongue, and signifies clear water.

This lake in its greatest length is twenty-three miles, and greatest width eleven miles; hence it has an area of two hundred and fifty-three square miles. Its altitude is six thousand two hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea. Here, spread out before me, like the finest of burnished silver, is a lake unlike any other body of water in the world, save one in Switzerland, and that has only a few marks of similarity.

This lies nestled away, like a very jewel, in the summit of the Sierras,—the Alps of America,—at an altitude of a mile and a quarter above the level of the sea. Think of it! A body of water containing an area of more than two hundred and fifty square miles, and deep enough to float the largest vessel that ever traversed the sea, and then have almost immeasurable depths below the keel; think of this being in the very summit of the greatest range of mountains in America!

It has been sounded along the line between Nevada and California, which runs through the lake, to the distance of two hundred and fifty-three fathoms, or fifteen hundred and eighteen feet. But other places have been sounded to the great distance of nearly twenty-five hundred feet. The character of the water is almost incredible to one who has never looked upon it. Coming down from the springs that burst from the cañons, and the everlasting snows that crown the mountain-tops, where

“’Tis the felt presence of the Deity,”

the water is almost perfectly pure.

I have leaned over the side of the boat and watched the play of the trout a hundred and fifty feet below the surface. I have dropped a small, shining, metallic button, and watched distinctly its oscillations in sinking for three or four minutes.

The transparent nature of the water is best seen in the morning, when the lake is perfectly calm; not even the small surface ripples that nearly always exist on ordinary streams and lakes are visible.

The various angles of vision present the most charming scene. Yonder the lake looks like a quiet mass of molten silver; yonder, where the rays of the sun meet you, is a gorgeous array of crimson and gold; then there is a range of purest emerald, deepening into blue-black as the scene stretches away from you, bespangled in the distance by the rising white-caps. This, fringed with the green of the deep pine-forests that skirt the mountains, and capped with the everlasting snows, made radiant with the flood of sunlight, furnishes a picture of incomparable beauty, and worthy of a master’s brush.

But here by you, right at your feet, is one of the most pleasing features of all: so still in the morning quietness, and such air-like purity withal. You think you can reach down and pick up those shining pebbles, and yet they are twenty, thirty, or forty feet beneath you. And that boat or skiff seems to be poised in mid-air. You can count the small indentures and nail-heads in the very keel.

You cringe with fear as your boat glides towards that huge boulder, as large as a church, thinking surely your vessel will be wrecked; but there is no danger, as the rock is many feet beneath you. The transparency of the water makes the danger seem so near.

How often have I wished this place—mountains, lake, and all—could be the place of one of the grand Eastern camp-meetings! This bracing air, this unique spot, this wonderful lake, this rich, healthful aroma of deep pine-forests, this grand scenery, all combined, make it one of the best of places for religious summer resort.

Yonder is a quaint spot, a veritable Gibraltar on a small scale, a lonely, rocky island in the centre of Emerald Bay. Some foolish man built a tomb in the solid rock on its summit, intending to be buried there, where the marks of decay would come slowly over his grave, and where he might sleep undisturbed amid the incomparable grandeur that would have surrounded him. His sarcophagus and all were prepared, but the treacherous billows of the lake, that occasionally foam and roar with fury, seized him, and he lies buried at the bottom,—no man knows where, for no one going down ever comes up again from these waters.

It was first an artless, genial party of three of us that drank in the poetry of the scenery around Lake Tahoe. The “elect lady,” whose presence has ever been an inspiration and encouragement in life’s blackest, bitterest hours, her best and dearest friend, Miss Torreyson, and the writer, made up the trio. We were joined by and by with a party of others kindred in spirit, who entered into all our schemes and reconnoissances after pleasure.

Those were memorable six weeks; and now, at this distance of many months on the road of time, that period of frolic and recuperation gleams as with the radiance of youth’s happiest sunset scene. How strange that happy days even never look so charming as when they are mellowed in the deep past!...

During the days we enlivened many a bright morning hour with boat-riding, fishing, gathering wild-flowers, and such other amusements as this delightful place afforded. On one of these fishing excursions one of our party came very near falling into the treacherous waters of the lake.

Our favorite resorts, and it is so with all tourists, were Emerald and Carnelian Bays. The former is a beautiful, land-locked arm of the lake, walled in by rugged and towering cliffs. The latter is a long, gravelly beach, where by the hour we have searched for carnelian stones, of which some of the purest quality are found.

The mountains and cañons are most delightful points of interest as places of observation and rest, and often charm by the echoes they throw back. We were given to song; and many a time summering here, and travelling over the lake, we united in singing the “Evergreen Mountains of Life” and “A Thousand Years,” our favorite lake airs; the former suggested, no doubt, by the towering mountains that surrounded us. The effect is peculiarly fascinating, as the song rings out over the waters, in the pure mountain air, and echoing dies away, after many reverberations of “evergreen mountains of life”—“mountains of life”—“life”—in some deep cañon. Or “a thousand years, Columbia,”—“years, Columbia,”—“Columbia,”—the vowels of the last becoming beautifully distinct in the echoes.

Nearly south of the head of Lake Tahoe, a distance of perhaps a mile and a half, is a little lake that bears the name of Fallen Leaf; and then to the west of this some three miles is Cascade Lake, as charming a little body of water as ever flashed back the sunlight. Of all the objects of interest here, none of its kind is more interesting than this delightful lake, that spreads itself out a half-mile by a mile and a half, and that at an altitude of four or five hundred feet above Tahoe.

Above this, from the summit of Tallac Mountain, it is positively asserted seventeen lakes, varying in size, can be seen at one glance nestled away like a cluster of diamonds in the bosom of the Sierras. All these lakes abound with the finest of trout, and are surrounded by the best of game.

On the east side of Tahoe are Cave Rock and Shakespeare Rock. The former is a bald precipitous peak, that presses its perpendicular side almost to the water’s edge, leaving just room enough for the road of the old overland stage-coach. Under this rock is a cave of small pretensions, but with the wild scenery, the bald, dizzy height of the cliff, and the fine view of the lake, it is one of the many frequented places.

Shakespeare Rock stands back perhaps full half a mile from the landing at Pray’s Bay, or Glenbrook. It is a perpendicular cliff of well on towards a thousand feet above the waters of the lake. It has its name from a well-defined portrait of a man, moss-formed or wind-chiselled, doubtless, that is seen plainly several hundred feet up the rugged side. It is said to look very much like the old bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. But of this we cannot say; we never saw him.

It was on one of Nature’s brightest days that our trio, lunch-armed, toiled up its rugged side, the only accessible point, and flung our handkerchief banners to the breeze from the improvised flag-staff, while we grew enraptured at the rich perspective from the dizzy height. It seemed almost like being on “cloud’s rest” as some cloud’s shadow fell upon us while there.

Below us lay the bustling, thriving village of Glenbrook, having, perhaps, well on towards a thousand souls as the number of its inhabitants; increased by tourists, and, of course, largely diminished in the winter months, when business here “shuts down.” The temperature, however, is generally fine from the last of April to the first of November, or even later. It is not unpleasant now, as I write,—the middle day of January,—to be out boat-riding or rambling by the shore.

This is the outlet of the entire lake and its surroundings; an immense traffic in lumber, etc., is carried on. Five saw-mills give life and activity to the place, as they cut nearly three hundred thousand feet per day, or more than fifty millions during the business months of the year. A hotel, store, post-office, with daily mail, and telegraph-office, add to the convenience of the place. There are six steamers on the lake that run for pleasure-parties and traffic.

From the lake one of the most unique railroads ever built runs to the summit, a distance of nine miles by the route travelled, although the distance by an air line is but three, while the elevation that it gains is eight hundred and fifty feet. It climbs the mountain by zigzag movements, like a letter Z, the engine sometimes hauling its burden, and sometimes pushing the train. More than a quarter of a million of dollars were required to build and stock this novel short line. It is a rare evidence of engineering skill, and certainly is a good illustration of Western enterprise. It lacks at least a dozen miles of connecting with any other railroad point, and its engines, rolling-stock, etc., had to be hauled up the mountain eight thousand feet high.

[To this description of the liquid marvel of California we add the author’s account of one of its land marvels, a grove of the “big trees,” the vegetable giants of the world.]

The Big Trees, as they are technically called, are of a light, bright cinnamon color, and have a diameter at the ground of from twenty-five to forty feet, a height of from three hundred to four hundred and fifty feet, and a bark that will average one foot and a half in thickness where it has not been molested. I have seen blocks of bark that would measure thirty-two inches in thickness, and I have no doubt but some trees have bark that would average nearly three feet. The texture is loose and spongy, and when cut transversely it is often worked into pincushions and such like toys. The wood is light as the cedar, but is susceptible of a very fine polish. I had a cane made from a piece that I bought of the guide, and I found it would polish equal to mahogany. The Mariposa grove is a State park, together with Yosemite Valley, given by the United States government.

This grove, “together with the Yosemite Valley with its branches and spurs, an estimated length of fifteen miles, and in average width one mile back from the edge of the precipice on each side of the valley, with the stipulation, nevertheless, that the State shall accept this grant on the express condition that the premises shall be held for public use and recreation, and shall be inalienable for all time.” So it is absolutely impossible to get a bit of bark or piece of wood except from the guide, who is allowed to gather them from the outskirts of the grove from a tree that has fallen or one that stands outside of the prescribed limits.

There has but one fallen, however, since their discovery, and that was felled by men’s hands. It was done by immense augers. It took five men twenty-two days to fell the tree, equal to the services of one man for one hundred and ten days. Think of that, nearly four months’ work, not counting any time lost by Sundays, or rainy days, or sickness, to fell one tree! That tree would have yielded more than a thousand cords of four-foot wood and a hundred cords of bark, more than eleven hundred cords altogether. On the stump of this tree there is a house—“whose foundation is sure”—thirty feet in diameter. This house contains room enough in square feet, if it were the right shape, for a parlor twelve by sixteen, a dining-room ten by twelve, a kitchen ten by twelve, two bedrooms ten feet square each, a pantry four by eight feet, two clothes-presses one and a half feet deep and four feet wide, and still have a little to spare.

The foliage of these trees resembles the cedar somewhat. They bear a cone not more than two inches in length, and a black pitch bitter as gall. The forests at present have a gloomy appearance, as some time in the past, no one knows when, the Indians, the better to facilitate their hunting, burned off the chaparral and rubbish, and, as a matter of course, disfigured the trees by burning off nearly all the bark.

The first sight of these monarchs is one of sore disappointment. For you have travelled many miles where the trees are all large, and here, surrounded as they are by immense pines, their magnitude is not appreciated. But their greatness grows very rapidly upon you, so that if there was at first disappointment, there is now a greater awe. Our first view of interest was the Fallen Monarch, a ponderous old trunk stretched out upon the ground for more than two hundred feet, upon which a stage and four horses could be driven with ease. We had to go a hundred feet towards the top to climb upon the trunk. The diameter of this tree, without bark, at the base is twenty-two feet; one hundred feet from the root it is twelve feet.

How long this monarch has been sleeping no one pretends to know. The guide says it is no more decayed now, to all appearances, than it was when first discovered. The tree of greatest interest is the Grizzly Giant, which has an altitude of more than three hundred feet. The first thing we did to try its magnitude was to surround it on horseback, passing around in single file, the head of one horse to the tail of another. It called into requisition twenty-five horses out of the twenty-eight in our party to complete the measurement. This is not considered strictly correct, mathematically speaking, but it indicates the size of the tree by horse measurement.

I had prepared myself with a good-sized string, and, with the help of a friend, made close calculation four feet from the ground, and found it to be ninety-three feet, giving a diameter of thirty-one feet. This tree has a limb one hundred feet from the ground that is six feet in diameter. These trees stand around us in quiet grandeur, but to write of one is to write of many, hence the reader must not be wearied with a notice of each. Pluto’s Chimney is a hollow tree, standing upright, into which several of us rode on horseback. Yonder is another that had fallen in some past age, and sixty feet or more of it had burned from the root upward, and then towards the top had burned in two, leaving a barrel-shaped or hollow part of the trunk some fifty feet in length. Through this we all rode without any inconvenience. I have understood that several have ridden abreast through it, which I do not think improbable.

This completed our tour among these forest giants. There are two groves—and, properly speaking, but two—of these Sequoia gigantea, the Mariposa and Calaveras groves. The first is about twenty miles south of Yosemite Valley, perhaps a little more, while the latter is some fifty miles northwest of the valley. Thus it will be seen that they are not, as many suppose, in the great Yosemite Valley.

The big trees of California, not of this species, however, are not confined to these two groves. Many of the noted redwood species (Sequoia sempervirens) used to grow back of Santa Cruz, many of which are standing yet that were very great in size. We once upon a time, with five others, rode into one of these during a storm. The butt was hollow, and large enough to hold at least twelve men on horseback, and was not less than two hundred and fifty feet in height.

THE CHINESE QUARTER IN SAN FRANCISCO.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

[We need not tell who Helen Hunt Jackson is. She is well known to American readers both of verse and prose for her excellent ability in both these fields of literature. Born in 1831, at Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of Professor N. W. Fiske, she married first Mr. Hunt, of the United States Engineer Corps, and after his death a Mr. Jackson. She died in 1885. From her work entitled “Bits of Travel at Home,” a series of racy sketches of experience east and west, we extract her narrative of the odd and amusing things she saw in the Chinese quarter of San Francisco.]

Sing, Wo & Co. keep one of the most picturesque shops on Jackson Street. It is neither grocer’s, nor butcher’s, nor fishmonger’s, nor druggist’s; but a little of all four. It is like most of the shops on Jackson Street, part cellar, part cellar-stairs, part sidewalk, and part back bedroom. On the sidewalk are platters of innumerable sorts of little fishes,—little silvery fishes; little yellow fishes, with whiskers; little snaky fishes; round flat fishes; little slices of big fishes,—never too much or too many of any kind. Sparing and thrifty dealers, as well as sparing and thrifty consumers, are the Celestials. Round tubs of sprouted beans; platters of square cakes of something whose consistency was like Dutch cheese, whose color was vivid yellow, like baker’s gingerbread, and whose tops were stamped with mysterious letters; long roots, as long as the longest parsnips, but glistening white, like polished turnips; cherries, tied up in stingy little bunches of ten or twelve, and swung in all the nooks; small bunches of all conceivable green things, from celery down to timothy grass, tied tight and wedged into corners, or swung overhead; dried herbs, in dim recesses; pressed chickens, on shelves (those were the most remarkable things. They were semi-transparent, thin, skinny, and yellow, and looked almost more like huge, flattened grasshoppers than like chickens; but chickens they were, and no mistake),—all these were on the trays, on the sidewalk, and on the cellar-stairs.

In the back bedroom were Mrs. Sing and Mrs. Wo, with several little Sings and Wos. It was too dark to see what they were doing; for the only light came from the open front of the shop, which seemed to run back like a cave in a hill. On shelves on the sides were teacups and teapots, and plates of fantastic shapes and gay colors. Sing and Wo were most courteous; but their interest centred entirely on sales; and I could learn but one fact from them in regard to any of their goods. It was either “Muchee good. Englis man muchee like,” or else, “China man like; Englis man no like.” Why should I wish to know anything further than that some articles would be agreeable to “Englis man’s” palate, and others would not? This must be enough to regulate my purchases. But I shall always wish I knew how those chickens were fattened and what the vivid yellow cakes were made of.

[Next our traveller looks into the shop of Ty Wing & Co., where nothing appears but darkness, dust and cobwebs, and two Chinese women eating something unknown with chopsticks; that of Chick Kee, a druggist, with feathers and banners without and nothing but old dried roots visible within; and of Tuck Wo, a restaurant-keeper, where nothing is visible that she has the courage to taste.]

Moo, On & Co. come next. Their shop is full, crowded full,—bags, bundles, casks, shelves, piles, bunches of utterly nondescript articles. It sounds like an absurd exaggeration, but it is literally true, that the only articles in his shop which I ever saw before are bottles. There are a few of those; but the purpose, use, or meaning of every other article is utterly unknown to me. There are things that look like games, like toys, like lamps, like idols, like utensils of lost trades, like relics of lost tribes, like—well, like a pawnbroker’s stock, just brought from some other world. That comes nearest to it.

Moo, On & Co. have apparently gone back for more. Nobody is in the shop; the door is wide open. I wait and wait, hoping that some one will come along who can speak English, and of whom I may ask what this extraordinary show means. Timidly I touch a fluttering bit, which hangs outside. It is not paper; it is not cloth; it is not woollen, silk, nor straw; it is not leather; it is not cobweb; it is not alive; it is not dead; it crisps and curls at my touch; it waves backward, though no air blows it. A sort of horror seizes me. It may be a piece of an ancestor of Moo’s doing ghostly duty at his shop door. I hasten on and half fancy that it is behind me, as I halt before Dr. Li Po Tai’s door. His promises to cure, diplomas, and so forth, are printed in gay-colored strips of labels on each side. Six bright balloons swing overhead; and peacocks’ feathers are stuck into the balloons. I have heard that Dr. Li Po Tai is a learned man, and works cures. His balloons are certainly very brilliant....

Then comes a corner stand, with glass cases of candy. Almond candy, with grains of rice thick on the top; little bowls of pickles, pears, and peppers; platters of odd-shaped nuts; and beans baked black as coffee. As I stand looking curiously at these, a well-dressed Chinaman pauses before me, and making a gesture with his hand towards the stand, says, “All muchee good. Buy eat. Muchee good.” Hung Wung, the proprietor, is kindled to hospitality by this, and repeats the words, “Yaas, muchee good. Take, eat,” offering me, with the word, the bowl of peppers.

Next comes a very gay restaurant, the best in the empire. Hang Fee, Low & Co. keep it, and foreigners go there to drink tea. There is a green railed balcony across the front, swinging full of high-colored lanterns, round and square; tablets with Chinese letters on bright grounds are set in panels on the walls; a huge rhinoceros stands in the centre of the railing: a tree grows out of the rhinoceros’s back, and an India rubber man sits at the foot of the tree. China figures and green bushes in flower-pots are ranged all along the railing. Nowhere except in the Chinese Empire can there be seen such another gaudy, grotesque house front. We make an appointment on the spot to take some of Hang Fee’s tea, on our way to the Chinese Theatre, the next evening, and then we hurry home....

After all, we did not take tea at Hang Fee’s on our way to the theatre. There was not time. As it was, we were late; and when we entered the orchestra had begun to play. Orchestra! It is necessary to use that name, I suppose, in speaking of a body of men with instruments, who are seated on a stage, furnishing what is called music for a theatrical performance. But it is a term calculated to mislead in this instance. Fancy one frog-pond, one Sunday-school with pumpkin whistles, one militia training, and two gongs for supper on a Fall River boat, all at once, and you will have some faint idea of the indescribable noise which saluted our ears on entering that theatre. To say that we were deafened is nothing. The hideous hubbub of din seemed to overlap and transcend all laws and spheres of sound. It was so loud we could not see; it was so loud we could not breathe; it was so loud there did not seem to be any room to sit down! The theatre was small and low and dark. The pit and greater part of the gallery were filled with Chinamen, all smoking. One corner of the gallery was set aside for women. That was full, also, with Chinese women. Every woman’s hair was dressed in the manner I have described [“drawn back from her forehead, twisted tight from the nape of the neck to the crown of the head, stiffened with glue, glistening with oil, and made into four huge double wings, which stood out beyond her ears on either side. It looked a little like two gigantic black satin bats, pinned to the back of her head, or still more like a windmill gone into mourning.”] The bat-like flaps projected so far on each side of each head that each woman seemed almost to be joined to her neighbors by a cartilaginous band; and, as they sat almost motionless, this effect was heightened.

The stage had no pretence of secrecy. It was hung with gay banners and mysterious labels. Tall plumes of peacock’s feathers in the corners and some irregularly placed chairs were all the furniture. The orchestra sat in chairs at the back of the stage. Some of them smoked in the intervals, some drank tea. A little boy who drummed went out when he felt like it; and the fellow with the biggest gong had evidently no plan of operations at all except to gong as long as his arms could bear it, then rest a minute, then gong again.

“Oh, well,” said we, as we wedged and squeezed through the narrow passage-way which led to our box, “it will only last a few minutes. We shall not entirely lose our hearing.” Fatal delusion. It never stopped. The actors came out; the play began; the play went on; still the hideous hubbub of din continued, and was made unspeakably more hideous by the voices of the actors, which were raised to the shrillest falsetto to surmount the noise, and which sounded like nothing in nature except the voices of frantic cats....

At first, in spite of the deafening loudness of the din, it is ludicrous beyond conception. To see the superbly dressed Chinese creatures,—every one of them as perfectly and exquisitely dressed as the finest figures on their satin fans or rice-paper pictures, and looking exactly like them,—to see these creatures strutting and sailing and sweeping and bowing and bending, beating their breasts and tearing their beards, gesticulating and rushing about in an utterly incomprehensible play, with caterwauling screams issuing from their mouths, is for a few minutes so droll that you laugh till tears run, and think you will go to the Chinese Theatre every night as long as you stay in San Francisco. I said so to the friend who had politely gone with me. He had been to the performance before. He smiled pityingly, and yawned behind his hand. At the end of half an hour, I whispered, “Twice a week will do.” In fifteen minutes more, I said, “I think we will go out now. I can’t endure this racket another minute. But, nevertheless, I shall come once more, with an interpreter. I must and will know what all this mummery means.”

The friend smiled again incredulously. But we did go again, with an interpreter; and the drollest thing of all was to find out how very little all the caterwauling and rushing and bending and bawling and sweeping and strutting really meant. The difficulty of getting an interpreter was another interesting feature in the occasion. A lady, who had formerly been a missionary in China, had promised to go with us; and, as even she was not sure of being able to understand Chinese caterwauled, she proposed to take one of the boys from the missionary school, to interpret to her before she interpreted to us. So we drove to the school. Mrs. —— went in. The time seemed very long that we waited. At last she came back, looking both amused and vexed, to report that not one of those intelligent Christian Chinese would leave his studies that evening to go to the theatre.

“I suppose it is an old story to them,” said I.

“Not at all,” said she. “On the contrary, hardly a boy there has been inside the theatre. But they cannot bear to lose a minute from their lessons. Mr. Loomis really urged some of them; but it was of no use.”

In a grocery store on Kearny Street, however, we found a clever young man, less absorbed in learning; and he went with us as interpreter. Again the same hideous din; the same clouds of smoke; the same hubbub of caterwauling. But the dramatis personæ were few. Luckily for us, our first lesson in the Chinese drama was to be a simple one. And here I pause, considering whether my account of the play will be believed. This is the traveller’s great perplexity. The incredible things are always the only things worth telling; but is it best to tell them?

The actors in this play were three,—a lady of rank, her son, and her man cook. The play opened with a soliloquy by the lady. She is sitting alone, sewing. Her husband has gone to America; he did not bid her farewell. Her only son is at school. She is sad and lonely. She weeps.

Enter boy. He asks if dinner is ready.

Enter cook. Cook says it is not time. Boy says he wants dinner. Cook says he shall not have it. This takes fifteen minutes.

Mother examines boy on his lessons. Boy does not know them; tries to peep. Mother reproves; makes boy kneel; prepares to whip; whips. Mother weeps; boy catches flies on the floor; bites her finger.

Enter cook to see what the noise means. Cook takes boy to task. Boy stops his ears. Cook bawls. Cook kneels to lady; reproves her also; tells her she must keep her own temper, if she would train her boy.

Lady sulks, naturally. Boy slips behind and cuts her work out of her embroidery frame. Cook attacks boy. Cook sings a lament, and goes out to attend to dinner; but returns in frantic distress. During his absence everything has boiled over; everything has been burned to a crisp. Dinner is ruined. Cook now reconciles mother and son; drags son to his knees; makes him repeat words of supplication. While he does this cook turns his back to the audience, takes off his beard carefully, lays it on the floor, while he drinks a cupful of tea.

This is all, literally all. It took an hour and a half. The audience listened with intensest interest. The gesticulations, the expressions of face, the tones of the actors, all conveyed the idea of the deepest tragedy. Except for our interpreter, I should have taken the cook for a soothsayer, priest, a highwayman and murderer, alternately. I should have supposed that all the dangers, hopes, fears, delights possible in the lives of three human beings were going on on that stage. Now we saw how very far-fetched and preposterous had probably been our theories of the play we had seen before, we having constructed a most brilliant plot from our interpretation of the pantomime.

After this domestic drama came a fierce spectacular play, too absurd to be described, in which nations went to war because a king’s monkey had been killed. And the kings and their armies marched in at one door and out at the other, sat on gilt thrones, fought with gilt swords, tumbled each other head over heels with as much vigor and just as much art as small boys play the battle of Bunker Hill with the nursery chairs on a rainy day. But the dresses of these warlike monarchs were gorgeous and fantastic beyond description. Long, gay-colored robes, blazoned and blazing with gold and silver embroidery; small flags, two on each side, stuck in at their shoulders, and projecting behind; helmets, square breastplates of shining stones, and such decorations with feathers as pass belief. Several of them had behind each ear a long, slender bird-of-Paradise feather. These feathers reached out at least three feet behind, and curved and swayed with each step the man took. When three or four of these were on the stage together, marching and countermarching, wrestling, fighting, and tumbling, why these tail feathers did not break, did not become entangled with each other, no mortal can divine. Others had huge wings of silver filigree-work behind their ears. These also swayed and flapped at each step.

Sometimes there would be forty or fifty of these nondescript creatures on the stage at once, running, gesticulating, attacking, retreating, howling, bowing, bending, tripping each other up, stalking, strutting, and all the while caterwauling, and all the time the drums beating, the gongs ringing, and the stringed instruments and the castanets and the fifes playing. It was dazzling as a gigantic kaleidoscope and deafening as a cotton-mill. After the plays came wonderful tumbling and somersaulting. To see such gymnastic feats performed by men in long damask nightgowns and with wide trousers is uncommonly droll. This is really the best thing at the Chinese Theatre,—the only thing, in fact, which is not incomprehensibly childish.

My last glimpse at the Chinese Empire was in Mr. Loomis’s Sunday-school. I had curiosity to see the faces of the boys who had refused our invitation to the theatre. As soon as I entered the room I was asked to take charge of a class. In vain I demurred and refused.

“You surely can hear them read a chapter in the New Testament.”

It seemed inhuman as well as unchristian to refuse, for there were several classes without teachers, many good San Franciscans having gone into the country. There were the eager yellow faces watching for my reply. So I sat down in a pew with three Chinese young men on my right hand, two on my left, and four in the pew in front, all with English and Chinese Testaments in their hands. The lesson for the day was the fifteenth chapter of Matthew. They read slowly, but with greater accuracy of emphasis and pronunciation than I expected. Their patience and eagerness in trying to correct a mispronunciation were touching. At last came the end of the chapter.

“Now do you go on to the next chapter?” said I.

“No. Arx-play-in,” said the brightest of the boys. “You arx-play-in what we rade to you.”

I wished the floor of that Sunday-school chapel would open and swallow me up. To expound the fifteenth of Matthew at all; above all, to expound it in English which those poor souls could understand! In despair I glanced at the clock: it lacked thirty minutes of the end of school; at the other teachers: they were all glibly responding. Guiltily I said, “Very well. Begin and read the chapter over again, very slowly; and when you come to any word you do not understand, tell me, and I will try to explain it to you.”

Their countenances fell. This was not the way they had usually been taught. But with the meekness of a down-trodden people they obeyed. It worked even better than I had hoped. Poor souls! they probably did not understand enough to select the words which perplexed them. They trudged patiently through their verses again without question. But my Charybdis was near. The sixth verse came to the brightest boy. As he read, “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition,” he paused after the word tradition. I trembled.

“Arx-play-in trardition,” he said.

“What?” said I, feebly, to gain a second’s more of time. “What word did you say?”

“Trardition,” he persisted. “What are trardition? Arx-play-in.”

What I said I do not know. Probably I should not tell if I did. But I am very sure that never in all my life have I found myself, and never in all the rest of my life shall I find myself, in so utterly desperate a dilemma as I was then, with those patient, earnest, oblique eyes fixed on me, and the gentle Chinese voice reiterating, “What are trardition?”

MARIPOSA GROVE AND YOSEMITE VALLEY.

CHARLES LORING BRACE.

[Our sketches of travel in America will not be complete without descriptive narratives relating to its great natural wonders, of which the United States possesses more examples than any other country on the globe. The present selection, therefore, from Brace’s “The New West, or California in 1867-68,” is devoted to a brief account of the monster trees of that State and the scenic marvels of the Yosemite Valley.]

The great pleasure of the American continent will hereafter be the journey to the Yosemite. There is no one object of nature in the world, except Niagara, to equal it in attraction. Whenever the Pacific road brings the two coasts within a fortnight of each other, innumerable parties will be made up to visit it. I have been tolerably familiar, by foot-journeys, with Switzerland, Tyrol, and Norway, and I can truly say that no one scene in those grand regions can compare equally, in all its combinations, with the wonderful Cañon of the Yosemite. It is a matter of congratulation, also, to me, that I saw it before any road, or coach, or rail-car had approached it. It ought not to be visited otherwise than as our party journeyed to it,—on horses winding in picturesque train over velvety trails, beneath the gigantic pines of the Sierras....

Among all my many travelling experiences in various countries, I do not think I can ever forget the romance and the delicious beauty of that first night’s ride towards the Yosemite. The trail was barely wide enough for two to ride abreast, winding under majestic pines, over mountains, and down wide, deep dells, each step of the horses springing elastic from soft pine-leaves. The sun soon set, and a magnificent moon arose, giving us at one time a broad belt of light over the path, and then leaving us to descend into a mysterious gulf of darkness, and then casting strange shadows and half-lights through the pine-branches over our procession of riders. As we penetrated farther into the forest we began to wind about beneath trees such as few of us had ever seen,—the superb sugar-pine, perhaps the most perfect tree in nature, here starting with a diameter of from seven to twelve feet, and mounting up with most symmetrical branches to the height say of Trinity Church spire (two hundred and fifty to two hundred and sixty feet); on the ends of its branches cones hanging a foot long. Sometimes we came forth from the forest for a few moments, and had grand glimpses of great mountain valleys, only partly revealed in the glorious moonlight. Most of the party were old travellers, and were rather impervious to sensations, but we all agreed that this was a new one, and gave a most promising augury of the Yosemite excursion. After fourteen miles—an easy ride—we all reached Clark’s Ranch at a late hour, ready for supper and bed.

[The next morning] we started at not too early an hour for a forest-ride to the Trees, Mr. Clark kindly guiding us. What may be called the avenue to these hoary monuments of antiquity lies through a gigantic forest of sugar-pines, themselves some two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high; so that when you reach the mighty towers of vegetation you lose a little the sense of their vast height. I searched curiously as we rode through the forest for the conditions which should produce such monsters of growth. It must be remembered that the Sequoia gigantea is not found merely here, or at Calaveras and its neighborhood. There appears to be a belt of them running along the slope of the Sierras, about four thousand and five thousand feet above the sea-level, and as far south as Visalia. They are so plentiful near that place as to be sawed for lumber, though what so light a wood could be used for I can hardly think. In the neighborhood of the latter place the Indians report a tree, far in the forest, surpassing in grandeur anything ever seen; but thus far no white man has ever cast eyes on it. It is a mistake, too, to suppose the race wearing out. I saw, both here and in Calaveras, young giant Sequoiæ, beginning patiently their thousand years of growth with all the vigor of their grand ancestors; some of but four hundred years, mere youths, were growing splendidly. There are fewer young trees here than in Calaveras, because fire or some other cause has swept among the underbrush of all trees, and must have destroyed many of these burly saplings.

The Sequoia grows on mountain-slopes, where the slow wash of water, through ages, brings down minute particles of fertilizing rocks, and the decayed vegetation of countless centuries, with the moisture of eternal springs, water and feed its roots. It enjoys a sun of the tropics without a cloud for six months, and has the balmy air of the Pacific, with incessant and gentle moisture, and a warm covering of snow for its winter. Beneath its roots, the ground never freezes. As has been well said, “It has nothing to do but grow;” and so with all the favorable conditions that nature can offer—air and sun and moisture—it pumps up its food from the everlasting hills, and builds up its slow, vegetable-like substance during century after century into a gigantic, symmetrical, and venerable pile, while nations begin and pass away beneath its shadow.

Think of lying under a tree beneath which the contemporary of Attila or Constantine might have rested, and which shall defy the storm, perhaps, when the present political divisions of the world are utterly passed away, and the names of Washington and Lincoln are among the heroes of a vague past.

But how to give an impression of its size! If my readers will imagine a Sequoia placed beside Trinity Church, he must conceive it filling up one of our largest dwelling-houses, say a diameter of thirty feet, with a circumference of ninety feet; the bark of this gigantic trunk will be light, porous, and reddish in color, with many scars upon it of fire (its great enemy); then, perhaps, at the height of the Trinity belfry (say one hundred feet), two opposing huge branches will protrude, it may be, themselves, of the size of large trees (say eight feet in diameter); these will be twisted and much broken; above them will come forth other heavy branches, which show the marks and blows of the storms of a thousand years or more, for the giant, so far above his fellows, meets a continual battering from the gales of the mountains.

There is no symmetry in his top, or delicacy and grace in his outline; he has battled and struggled with the storm for too many centuries to preserve an artistic appearance. He looks the giant of the forest, broad-rooted and strong-limbed, rough and weather-beaten, but defying snow and frost and hurricane for thousands of years, and still sheltering bird and beast and cattle beneath his grand shadow....

We visited one big tree in Calaveras which had been blown over two years before. The enormous weight which each tree carries makes it more difficult to bear the gales, as it overtops the forest. Perhaps any ordinary wood, such as oak or maple, would increase the specific gravity, so that at three hundred feet high the leverage on the roots would be too great to bear any strain of a gale; but this wood is almost like cork,—lighter than any wood on the Eastern coast. The fall of this mighty tower, they say, was heard for miles around, and made the earth tremble. Where it fell it has buried its top deep in the ground, so that there is quite a ravine made by the blow in the earth. You strike the trunk where it is still a large tree, and then walk upon it some two hundred feet towards the roots. When you reach the roots you are upon a height equal to the roof of a moderate-sized house, and a fall from the trunk would be dangerous. You descend by a ladder.

If I recollect rightly, there were three hundred and sixty-five trees in this Mariposa Grove. I measured one trunk, broken off at the top, where it was a foot in diameter, which was about two hundred and ninety feet in length, and estimating thirty feet as the length of the part broken off, it must have been some three hundred and twenty feet high. We lunched near a “camp” of the Geological Survey, in the heart of the grove, lying on our backs beneath the gigantic canopies, and feeling like pigmies at the feet of these giants. The younger trees were often wreathed with a strange, yellow, hanging moss. Our ladies were deeply interested in a remarkable flower which grew beneath the snow, a few patches of which still remained here in June. It was a blood-red flower of a fleshy-like substance, like the Pyrola, or “Dutchman’s pipe,” growing somewhat like a garden hyacinth. Its stems were clustered, from six to ten inches high, with long, erect scales, broader below and gradually narrower, and finally becoming bracts. The flowers were numerous, and occupied the upper half of the stem. It is the Sarcodes sanguinea.

[Leaving the Big Tree grove, the travellers made a farther ride of twenty-five miles through the Sierras to the Yosemite, the first view of which impressed them deeply.]

No aspect of nature I have ever looked upon, no sight of the desolate ocean, heaving and lashing in mighty surges beneath wintry storm, or sudden view of Alpine snow-peaks through rifts of black thunder-clouds, or glimpses of Norwegian coast-glaciers through the lulls of an Arctic gale, or even Niagara itself, was so full of the inspiration of awe as this first opening view of the Yosemite Cañon. All other scenes of grandeur and beauty must fade away in my memory when this vision is forgotten. Before the mighty powers which had shaped this tremendous gorge, and in presence of this scene of unspeakable and indescribable beauty and majesty, man and his works seemed to sink away to nothingness.... I almost felt as if I had known nothing of the cañon before, so surprising were the effects of coloring and shadow. It must be remembered we had struck the gorge on one of its lateral walls, say about four miles from its western end. There is no approach to it from below up the stream. As we lay on the edge of the cliff we gazed up a narrow green valley perfectly flat, from a mile to half a mile wide, and winding, some six miles above, between enormous cliffs and precipices, a small, bright, sparkling stream in the middle, fringed with green grass or forest-trees. The wall, over the edge of which we were looking, was nearly three-quarters of a mile high, and far below, the oaks and willows and poplars and pines in the green intervale looked like little shrubs. On the other side, a short distance beyond, was the grand bluff of El Capitan, a sheer precipice of nearly four thousand feet, its light granite pile, in the evening light, the most majestic cliff that human eye has looked upon, beyond were other bluffs and precipices, pearly gray and purplish-white, with green fringes below, and dark archways or fantastic figures traced by shadows on their surface. There were buttresses, as of gigantic cathedrals, and archways such as might support hills of granite, and domes where a mountain was the substructure, and half domes, and peaks whose regular succession has given them the name of “Brothers,”—all varying in color and shadow, incessantly, with the receding light; some with the delicious cool gray of the rock color, some white, with a reddish shade; others faint purple; others resplendent in pink and brilliant purple; while over their edges, giving a joyous life to the scene, rushed sparkling silver streams, in innumerable waterfalls, dashing into the green valley below.... But the scene was changing. Over the valley, the heavy shadow of El Capitan continually increased its gigantic breadth of shade; beyond him the “Arches,” which, to be seen at that distance, must be a thousand feet in height, grew each instant more strongly marked, but still farther beyond to the east the North Dome and the Half Dome were golden and purple in the evening light, and yet beyond the still white peaks of the Sierras towered above in the pale blue.

On our side of the vast gorge the foot of the various precipices and cliffs was covered with detritus, making, near the bottom, a considerable slope, on which grew many evergreen trees.

On the other side there was one line of massive rock, which fell apparently plumb, without a break or curve, for nearly four thousand feet, and at its base, so hard was the material, there seemed no recent detritus at all. One could evidently touch the very bottom of the immense fall of rock....

The form of the cañon is unique, nothing in Europe resembling it: the immense vertical walls rising so abruptly from the green vale; the peaks, too, which surround it, being original, even in the Sierras; the immense, inaccessible, concentric masses of granite,—domes, or half-domes, as if melted in some gigantic mould, and then, when cooled, left standing in the air.

One of the grandest and most beautiful objects in the valley was directly opposite our hotel, and its music never ceased, day or night,—the Yosemite Fall. The stream which bears this name heads about ten miles away, and then flows down, almost directly over the mighty precipice, into the valley below,—a depth of two thousand five hundred and fifty feet. At this time it is about thirty-five feet wide by two or three deep. The fall has almost the appearance of one grand shoot of water, but it has, in reality, three divisions: the first is a descent of fifteen hundred feet on a ledge (as it seems), though it is, in fact, a shelf of rock, a third of a mile broad; then follow a series of cascades for six hundred and twenty-five feet, and a final leap of four hundred. There is water enough now to give a bright, foaming, grand sweep of the whole cataract. It is certainly one of the most beautiful objects the human eye can ever gaze upon! We never wearied of riding out over the green meadows and gay, wild flowers to get some new aspect of it.

The only fall to compare it with, that I have ever seen, is the Vöring Foss, in Norway. This is a fall of nine hundred and fifty feet, but the water is so scanty that it is all resolved into wreaths of mist before it reaches the bottom; and it makes but little impression on the mind, compared with the Yosemite Fall. It is, moreover, confined in a narrow, dark gorge, and must be seen usually from above. In seeing the Californian fall, I did not even think of the Norwegian.