e. Fifteen years ago private
residences on Lake Tahoe might have been enumerated on the fingers of
the two hands; now they number as many hundreds, and the sound of
the hammer and saw is constantly heard, and dainty villas, bungalows,
cottages, and rustic homes are springing up as if by magic.

_Then_ Lake Tahoe was comparatively hard to reach. _Now_,
the trains of the _Southern Pacific_ and the _Lake Tahoe
Railway and Transportation Company_ deposit one on the very edge of
the Lake easier and with less personal exertion than is required to
go to and from any large metropolitan hotel in one city to a similar
hotel in another city.

It is almost inevitable that in such a book as this there should be
some repetition. Just as one sees the same peaks and lakes, shore-line
and trees from different portions of the Lake--though, of course, at
slightly or widely differing angles--so in writing, the attention of
the reader naturally is called again and again to the same scenes. But
this book is written not so much with an eye to its literary quality,
as to afford the visitor to Lake Tahoe--whether contemplative, actual,
or retrospective--a truthful and comprehensive account and description
of the Lake and its surroundings.

It will be observed that in many places I have capitalized the common
noun Lake. Whenever this appears it signifies Lake Tahoe--the chief of
all the lakes of the Sierras.

While it is very delightful to sit on the veranda or in the swinging
seats of the Tavern lawn, or at the choice nooks of all the resorts
from Tahoe City completely around the Lake, it is not possible to
write a book on Lake Tahoe there. One must get out and feel the
bigness of it all; climb its mountains, follow its trout streams;
ride or walk or push one's way through its leafy coverts; dwell in the
shade of its forests; row over its myriad of lakes; study its geology,
before he can know or write about Tahoe.

This is what I have done.

And this is what I desire to urge most earnestly upon my reader. Don't
lounge around the hotels all the time. Get all you want of that kind
of recreation; then "go in" for the more strenuous fun of wandering
and climbing. Go alone or in company, afoot or horseback, only go!
Thus will Tahoe increase the number of its devoted visitants and my
object in writing these pages be accomplished.

[Illustration: Signature]

George Wharton James

TAHOE TAVERN, June 1914.

[Illustration: PANORAMA FROM SOU