y remains, to complete this new tale of the Arabian
Nights, to make one's first visit to the sequoias of Mariposa Grove. The
first sight of the calm tremendous columns which support the lofty roof
of this forest temple provokes a new sensation. Unconsciously the
visitor removes his hat and speaks his praise in whispers.

The sequoias are considered at greater length in the chapter describing
the Sequoia National Park, which was created especially to conserve and
exhibit more than a million of these most interesting of trees. It will
suffice here to say that their enormous stems are purplish red, that
their fine, lace-like foliage hangs in splendid heavy plumes, that their
enormous limbs crook at right angles, the lowest from a hundred to a
hundred and fifty feet above the ground, and that all other trees, even
the gigantic sugar pine and Douglas fir, are dwarfed in their presence.
Several of the sequoias of the Mariposa grove approach three hundred
feet in height. The road passes through the trunk of one.

VI

The human history of the Yosemite is quickly told. The country north of
the Valley was known from early times by explorers and trappers who used
the old Mono Indian Trail, now the Tioga Road, which crossed the divide
over Mono Pass. But, though the trail approached within a very few miles
of the north rim of the Yosemite Valley, the valley was not discovered
till 1851, when Captain Boling of the Mariposa Battalion, a volunteer
organization for the protection of settlers, entered it from the west in
pursuit of Indians who had raided mining settlements in the foothills.

These savages were known as the Yosemite or Grizzly Bear Indians.
Tenaya, their chief, met their pursuers on the uplands and besought them
to come no further. But Captain Boling pushed on through the heavy
snows, and on March 21, entered the valley, which proved to be the
Indians' final stronghold. Their villages, however, were deserted.

The original inhabitants of the Valley were called the Ahwahneechees,
the Indian name for the Valley being Ahwahnee, meaning a deep grassy
canyon. The Ahwahneechees, previous to Captain Boling's expedition, had
been decimated by war and disease. The new tribe, the Yosemites, or
Grizzly Bears, was made up of their remainder, with Monos and Piutes
added.

Captain Boling's report of the beauty of the valley having been
questioned, he returned during the summer to prove his assertions to a
few doubters. Neverth