Part 8

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 Canyon. 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 Voering 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.

The amount of water, at this season, adds immensely to the cheerfulness and life of the valley; but it also occasioned us a great deal of trouble in getting round. We were mired several times, and twice one of our ladies was thrown on the soft greensward.

But the scampering gallops through the groves under these grand scenes, and the quiet amblings amid such beauty and sublimity, were pleasures which nothing marred. In our rides down the canyon, we were struck by the grand mass of the Sentinel Dome, four thousand one hundred and fifty feet above the valley, and said to give the finest point of view in the whole region round; the valley itself, it must be remembered, being over four thousand feet above the sea-level. Then three-quarters of a mile beyond is the majestic buttress of the Sentinel Rock, three thousand feet high, of which a thousand feet is a smooth obelisk; opposite to this are the Three Brothers, the highest three thousand eight hundred and thirty feet, and each regularly lower than the next.

Then comes the Cathedral Rock, two thousand six hundred and sixty feet, with two perfect spires, the most picturesque object in the valley; then the exquisite Pohono, or Bridal Veil, a flashing fall of a thousand feet swaying like a silvery plume in the mountain breezes, and the grand feature of the gorge, of which I have so often spoken, El Capitan, three thousand six hundred feet.

To the east of the hotel, about two miles above the falls, the valley ends and divides into three canons, each containing scenery as remarkable as those of the main gorge. The northwest canyon is the Tinaya Fork; here we have the Half Dome, a majestic inaccessible crest of concentric granite, four thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven feet above the valley, with a vertical face where the half sphere split off of two thousand feet in height; the North Dome, a rounded mass, three thousand five hundred and sixty-eight feet, and easy to ascend from the north. In this fork is the exquisite Tisayic Lake, on which the morning reflections are so beautifully given.

The middle canyon, that of the Merced River, is the most important one of the three. No ravine scenery in Europe equals this wild and extraordinary gorge. The river, which at this season has a tremendous body of water, descends through a wild ravine of two miles, nineteen hundred and eighty feet. The path winds along over a series of wild falls and rapids, till a cloud and gale of mist and wet cover it, through which we reach a dry place at the foot of a magnificent fall, four hundred and seventy-five feet high,--the Vernal. Then ladders are ascended up the face of the cliff, and we rest on the dry, sunny ledge over the boiling and whirling cataract. Still another scramble for a mile, and we find ourselves blinded, gasping, in the breath of the furious cataract above. We are all clad in India-rubber coats (furnished by a guide), and drip with water, and work up, inch by inch, stooping, as against a violent current. The gale takes away our breaths, and we have every now and then to catch a breath; there is nothing visible ahead but clouds of mist and driving swirls of rain, with a roar filling the air, which prevents all voices from being heard. We are helping the ladies on with the utmost difficulty, but at last all reluctantly give out and turn back; but I cannot bear to give up the view; and after groping in the furious storm and mist, I at length find a side path through the chaparral, and soon reach a dry ledge beneath the superb Nevada Fall,--a majestic sweep of thundering water, six hundred and thirty-nine feet in height, more grand than any waterfall in the valley, because of the volume of water. There is a peculiar twist in the upper portion of it, which adds to its picturesque effect. On the other side rises a most remarkable peak of granite, solitary and inaccessible,--Mount Broderick, some two thousand feet. The scene as I stood there alone beneath this sublime sweep of waters, and amid those mighty mountain-cliffs, can never be forgotten.

The South Fork I did not visit, but the photographs show that it possesses scenery as romantic as the other branches of the canyon. It is interesting to notice that these enormous waterfalls in the Merced Canyon have scarcely an indentation on this most hard rock,--a fact probably indicating that they have not existed a great length of time. The comparative absence of detritus in the upper part of the main valley would seem to show the action of water and ice, pressing the debris into the lower portion, where more of it is found. There are, too (as was discovered by Mr. King), something which may be called lateral moraines, and perhaps a terminal moraine in the middle of the canyon, so that it seems not improbable, though there is no absolute evidence, that in a comparatively recent period glaciers existed in the upper part, and a lake in the body of the Yosemite Canyon, the descent of the whole valley, it must be remembered, being only fifty feet during some eight miles.

A SPORTSMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN MEXICO.

SIR ROSE LAMBERT PRICE.

[Major Price, whose hunting adventures seem to have extended from Terra del Fuego to the northern boundary of the United States, gives us, in his "Sport and Travel; or, The Two Americas," a record full of incident and observation. From his greatly varied hunting experience we select a description of the pursuit of game in the vicinity of Acupulco, Mexico, which is of interest as showing the conditions of animal and vegetable life in that region.]

The day after our arrival, H---- and myself, getting mules and a guide, started for Pira de la Questa, a small Indian village about twelve miles from Acupulco, and situated near the extremity of a large lagoon, some thirty miles in circumference, which we were informed was full of wild fowl. Over many a rough road and in many lands have I ridden, but never did I travel a highway like unto this. The path ran over the mountains through a thick forest, and more resembled the bed of a water-course than an actually connected route. Nothing but mules, whose cat-like propensities enable them to overcome apparently insurmountable difficulties, could possibly have done the journey. In places the path was so narrow that two of these animals were unable to pass abreast, so that one would be obliged to go back into a convenient corner, or scramble up a bank, to permit the other to go by.

The forest was dense, but, as it was just prior to the rains, almost leafless, everything being burned and parched up except in the valleys and bottoms of ravines, where running water rendered the vegetation luxuriant and flourishing. This absence of foliage, though detracting considerably from the beauty of the forest, permitted us to view all the better its feathered denizens, and in few tropical countries have I seen such lovely birds, or in such numbers as out here. To classify or name them would require a man to be a perambulating encyclopaedia of natural history; but among them all I was most struck with the number of specimens of the woodpecker class, several of which were very beautiful. One in particular with a blood-red topknot, which glittered vividly in the sun, I envied much for my fishing-book, and regretted the guide had my gun in his possession nearly a mile behind.

As the sun was setting we entered the village, which consisted of a few mud huts with sideless roofs, and halting before one of them, was informed by the guide that it was to be our quarters for the night. It was simply a roof of palm-leaves over a mud floor, there being no kind of wall or even screen, and it formed the universal dormitory of men, women, and children, pigs and poultry, at the principal hotel--the Claridge's, in fact--of Pira la Questa. Leaving the proprietress and her numerous progeny engaged in hunting down an active-looking fowl for our evening repast, we rode to the lagoon, and giving the guide our mules to hold, shot a few of the curious-looking aquatic birds, which he pronounced to be "bueno," or good for eating, that were feeding round the banks. It was rapidly getting dark, and seeing at a distance some birds that I took to be duck, I noiselessly crept down on them. To do so I had to pass over a small spot of white sand, concealed, until I was on it, by a clump of bushes.

While still silently watching the birds I saw something move a little to my right, and on turning round discovered a huge alligator, whom I had almost cut off from the lake. The bushes had hidden us until absolutely face to face, and he came by me with his teeth grinning and tail half cocked, in the most unamiable frame of mind I ever saw in one of his tribe. Without intending it, I had very nearly cut him off from his native element; and though naturally a cowardly brute, feeling himself to a certain degree cornered, he had evidently made up his mind to fight. Not being prepared, with only small shot in my gun, for a duel with the reptile, I stopped short and gave him right of way, and, as he cleared me at about two yards, let him have both barrels behind the shoulder to expedite his movements, and had the satisfaction of seeing him give a jump into the water that would have done credit to a performer for the Grand National.

They are cowardly brutes, and though I have been frequently in parts of the world they inhabit, I have never yet heard of an instance of a man being attacked by one on land. In the water it is different. A boy had, while bathing, been taken down some months since close to this very spot; and from what I saw of the lagoon next morning, I would not have ventured a swim there for untold gold. Had I been a little quicker, and unintentionally barred this fellow's way to the lake, I am quite certain he would have attacked me, as he must have passed somehow. These creatures never take to the jungle, and, like a rat driven into a corner, he would have been obliged to fight.

On returning to the village we found our dinner nearly ready; bread and liquor we had brought with us, but the hunted fowl, new-laid eggs, and hot tortillas formed no bad meal for travellers sharp set by a mountain ride. After feeding, we visited some of the principal houses in the village, chaffed some of the good-humored and pretty little Indian girls, and arranged about a canoe for the following morning. We then slung our grass hammocks among the miscellaneous company and wooed the drowsy god of slumber, our guide slinging his hammock up between us, and sleeping with his machete buckled around him, ready for attack or defence at a moment's notice.

The machete is the invariable companion of the poorer and middle classes of Mexicans, and the multiplicity of uses to which it is dedicated are something wonderful to the uninitiated. With it he clears the tangled paths in the forest; it helps to build his hut, to cut his firewood, and eat his dinner; he uses it for purposes of warfare, and too frequently also for purposes of assassination. The blade is broad, slightly curved, a little shorter than an infantry officer's regulation sword, and about twice as heavy. The handle is generally made of wood, the scabbard leather, and the edge invariably as keen as a razor. Occasionally the blades are ornamented with gold or silver, but the ordinary machete is perfectly plain.

Next morning we were up before daylight, and hastened to the banks of the lagoon, where according to agreement we should have found our canoe. None was forthcoming, however, and not until the sun broke fiercely on our heads and our patience was completely exhausted did our guide prevail on the man who was to have provided it to go in search of another. After a still further considerable delay, at last he arrived, but with a rickety conveyance that would only hold one gun besides the paddler; and H----taking the canoe, I walked along the edge, and our shooting commenced.

The place was full of all kinds of odd-looking waterfowl. Geese, duck, teal, pelicans, flamingo, and spoonbills were in hundreds, and many kinds of waders unknown to me; in fact, such an extraordinary variety of fresh-water birds I had never seen together before. The ducks were particularly handsome, having bright bronze breasts, which shone like burnished metal in the sun. Of teal I shot several varieties, many of them with exceedingly beautiful and brilliant plumage; but I think among the queer ones I killed there were none more beautiful in plumage than the spoonbill; for though his singular and uncouth beak did not improve his countenance, he had the most lovely and delicate tinge of rose-color through his white feathers it is possible to conceive. We had him for dinner two days afterwards, and found him excellent.

Not knowing a quarter of the birds that got up, and many being fishy and unfit for food, whenever one rose the guide would cry either "Bueno" or "No bueno," as it happened to be fit or unfit for culinary purposes; and so on for nine miles along the banks, sometimes through mud, at others through sand, and at others through jungle or water, did I plod along, taking whatever was termed "bueno," and occasionally peppering an obtrusive alligator when he came anything inside twelve yards.

The heat was intense, and, to add to the discomfort of walking, the paths through the jungle and mangrove swamps occasionally bordered the edges of the lake, and were so thickly crossed by cobwebs that they were perpetually knocking off my hat, getting in my mouth and eyes, and at times almost impeded my progress. I never saw anything like them. Occasionally large forest-trees were entirely covered from top to bottom, and so thickly shrouded that not a leaf or twig could be seen through its unnatural-looking winding-sheet. The lagoon seemed full of fish, which were jumping in shoals all over it; but not once during the day did we see a single bird settle on its surface; and from the number of alligators swimming about, I think they showed their wisdom.

It was capital sport, but precious hard work also, and I was just about "played out," when we reached a "ranche," where, after a pull of cold water that must have somewhat alarmed my constitution, I tumbled into a grass hammock, uncommonly glad to get out of the burning sun.

A pleasant-featured young Mexican woman, with a dark-eyed, good-looking sister, soon despatched between them one of the many chickens running about the house; and while the _cazuela_ was preparing they very good-naturedly washed out my shirt, lending me, _ad interim_, some embroidered garment of their own. The rest of my clothes were hung up to dry, every stitch on me being thoroughly saturated. H---- and the canoe soon after arrived, and how we did enjoy the homely but excellent fare our hostess put before us! Then came pipes and a siesta, and a couple of hours' rest saw us fit to return. H---- had got enough of it, and, borrowing a horse, rode back to the village. I returned in the canoe, and got a good many shots _en route_. Our bag was a mixed one, and consisted of the birds I have already mentioned, with several others whose names we did not know, and four rabbits. Wild duck and teal predominated, and the guides could hardly stagger from the canoe to the houses with our united bag.