e 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 hu