CORRESPONDENCE - .
THE YO-SEMITE VALLEY.
[FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] Sun Francisco, September 10. I IIAVE just accomplished a visit to the famous Yo-Senait6 said by Emerson to be the only natural object that has not been over-praised. The journey to it is now tolerably easy. We left the San Joaquitu Valley Railway at Modesto, an ambitious little township of thirty log houses standing in a sand-plain, which ie now dividing Stanislaus County with a contest for the honour of county town. Thence for about thirty-five miles our track took us through a flat parched plain, which would look to an un- travelled Englishman like the very abomination of desolation, but which can none the less be turned by irrigation and husbandry into a very Garden of Eden, as patches abundantly show. Out of this we pass across the Merced River into a country of pine-clothed, hills, where the watercourses wash down gold and have all been diligently explored. Here the townships have a migratory cha- racter, and a city of 5,000 or 6,000 inhabitants easily dwindles into a mere village, if the mines cease to be profitable. We con,. tinue to ascend, and on the second or third day, according to one physical energies and zeal, reach what is known as Clark's Ranch,. where we halt to examine a grove of the mammoth trees.
Were these standing by themselves, dotted about as in an Eng- lish park, or fringing the banks of a watercourse, there can be no doubt, I think, that the effect would be very grand. As it is the first impression is of disappointment. One has seen so many magnificent specimens of silver and yellow pine on the way, the forest around is so thick, and the great height of the trees them-, selves takes off so much from their massive girth, that one onlat. arrives gradually at the conviction that they are indeed pre- eminent among trees.
Nothing impressed this so much upon one as riding through the hollow trunk of one, not a very large one, which was lying upon the ground, and climbing up upon another which was also prostrate.. But the measurements commonly given, though in a certain sense exact, are a little deceptive. The difference in girth of the same tree at a height of one foot above the ground or at a height of four feet is enormous, and while I do not doubt that it is pos- sible to give several trees a circumference of from eighty to 100, feet by measuring them at the most favourable point, I am sure that at a small distance from the ground fifty feet round repre- sents a very large tree. In height the Australian gum-trees are confessedly pre-eminent, and I think I know some which are not far behind their American rivals in mass. One curious point about the mammoth trees is that there are no middle-sized ones of the same species (sequoia), though here and there a few seedlings are to be seen.
From Clark's Ranch to the Yo-Semite Valley is a mountain, trail of some twenty-seven miles. Six or seven miles before the end Inspiration Point is reached, giving the first view of the valley. It is to my mind the grandest of all. From a height of two thou- sand or three thousand feet one looks down into a little mountain gorge shut in by masses of granite rising sharply up against the
sky. In the distance the white rock looks snow-capped. The peaks are of every shape. Such names as the Dome and the 1Ialf Dome, the Cathedral Rock, the Three Brothers, and El Capitan speak for themselves. Unfortunately it is the close of a hot sum- mer, and the Yo-Semitd Fall itself and the Bridal Veil are only represented by stains ou the rock. Anciently the Merced river has filled the valley beneath us with a broad lake. But the lake has been silted up with white Band, and the river is only a silver thread of water winding through a parched plain. There is nowhere any effect of grass or foliage. My companions who know Lauterbrunnen say that it is the European landscape which best recalls the Yo Setnit6, and that it is superior to its American rival. It wants the uncouth weirdness of the Californian valley, but surpasses it in the effects of verdure, water, and snow. Ou the whole, the time to have seen the Yo Semite must have been when the lake still covered it ; and the best use it could be put to would be to restore this by damming up the waters of the Merced.
I do not think the valley grows upon one as one lingers in it. The general effect is incomparably the finest, and the first view the most startling. But the points of detail will not bear investi- gation. Mirror Lake is very beautiful in a photograph, and pretty in the early morning, but seen by the light of day is a small brown pool half silted up. Except in their summits the granite cliffs show little variety. Perhaps the most charming excursion is to the Nevada Falls, which have the great merit for a tourist of being supplied with water in all seasons. All around the scenery is fine, and the animal life of the whole district is especially inter- esting to a stranger. I did not see a humming-bird in the valley itself, and the woodpecker is certainly the predominant bird ; but butterflies like the White Admiral are very numerous, and now and then a silver-gray squirrel with broad bushy tail steps across the path or a speckled snake glides into the underwood.
Whether it is worth while to pay a visit to the Yo Semite cannot, I think, be decided by general rules. Americans who have so little natural beauty on their vast continent have a much stronger motive for the pilgrimage than those who live within easy distance of Switzerland and the Tyrol. An artist will certainly be repaid by the excursion. But under no circumstances should it be attempted by any who are not prepared to rough it in every sense of the word. It is true the worst thirty miles of the road will soon be materially'abridged when the railway is completed to Bear Creek. But the dust throughout is no common dust ; it pursues and overwhelms you in heavy clouds; and at the end of the day, as an .American put it, the passengers are forced to scrape themselves with shingles that they may be certain of their own identity. Thus there is no road in the English sense, and if the driver takes it into his head to race, on the supposition, which ours professed, that we had all insured our lives before starting, the inside fares have the sensation of being ground in a coffee-mill. Yet so admirably do these men handle the ribbons, that even in the most difficult places I never had any feeling of insecurity. The parts where one is obliged to ride are nowhere so bad as parts of Nor- way ; and the mustang, or native horse, though a sullen, unattrac- tive animal, who will kick his owner as freely as a stranger, is well fitted to the work he has to perform. Were I to make the journey again, I should try to make it on horseback. Lastly, the inns are quite below what they should be, and except that all connected with them are perfectly civil and kind, are for the most part very bad. This is especially the case in the valley itself, where only ten years' leases are granted, and where the hotels in consequence are mere wooden skeletons, in which the sound of a child crying is heard almost equally well in every room. But everywhere the materials for washing are most inadequate ; boots are not cleaned, and it is difficult to get the means of cleaning them ; and some parts of the arrangements are scarcely decent.
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Food is abundant, but infamously cooked. These are no reasons why a strong man should not make the expedition, but there are good grounds why a lady should be cautious before she ventures on it. The general sentiment of all I have met is, that they are glad to have gone and have no wish to return.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A TRAVELLER.
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