e portions of the precipice
surpassed our immediate _vis-a-vis_ in height.

First, a little east of our off-look, there projected boldly into the
Valley from the dominant line of the base a square stupendous tower that
might have been hewn by the diamond adzes of the Genii for a second
Babel-experiment, in expectance of the wrath of Allah. Here and there
the tools had left a faint scratch, only deep as the width of Broadway
and a bagatelle of five hundred feet in length; but that detracted no
more from the unblemished four-square contour of the entire mass than a
pin-mark from the symmetry of a door-post. A city might have been built
on its grand flat top. And, oh! the gorgeous masses of light and shadow
which the falling sun cast on it,--the shadows like great waves, the
lights like their spumy tops and flying mist,--thrown up from the
heaving breast of a golden sea! In California at this season the dome of
heaven is cloudless; but I still dream of what must be done for the
bringing-out of Tu-toch-anula's coronation-day majesties by the broken
winter sky of fleece and fire. The height of his precipice is nearly
four thousand feet perpendicular; his name is supposed to be that of the
Valley's tutelar deity. He also rejoices in a Spanish _alias_,--some
Mission Indian having attempted to translate by "_El Capitan_" the idea
of divine authority implied in Tu-toch-anula.

Far up the Valley to the eastward there rose far above the rest of the
sky-line, and nearly five thousand feet above the Valley, a hemisphere
of granite, capping the sheer wall, without an apparent tree or shrub to
hide its vast proportions. This we immediately recognized as the famous
To-coy-ae, better known through Watkins's photographs as the Great North
Dome. I am ignorant of the meaning of the former name, but the latter is
certainly appropriate. Between Tu-toch-anula and the Dome, the wall rose
here and there into great pinnacles and towers, but its sky-line is far
more regular than that of the southern side, where we were standing.

We drew close to the edge of the precipice and looked along over our own
wall up the Valley. Its contour was a rough curve from our stand-point
to a station opposite the North Dome, where the Valley dwindles to its
least width, so that all the intermediate crests and pinnacles which
topped the perpendicular wall stood within our vision like the teeth of
a saw, clear and sharp-cut against the blue sky. There is the same