ite they are on their way
out with a look at the Big Trees, eight miles away, as they pass by. We
left our machine at the Wawona garage and took the 12 o'clock stage
drawn by four splendid horses, to drive through the meadow and along the
mountain for thirty miles to the Yosemite Valley. Later, the Wawona road
was to be opened to motor travel. But the leisurely way of approach by
the stage was very agreeable. The drive ran through the forest. We saw a
pheasant in the bracken by the roadside with her brood of little ones.
She walked with her head high, affecting a careless dignity to hide her
anxiety, while her babies crouched close to the ground and looked like
little brown dots as they skimmed along.

In the late afternoon, we saw a coyote out for his supper. Our stage
driver cracked his whip at him and shouted his contempt. We saw the
beautiful deer cross and recross the road, coming down to their
drinking places. They are protected by the State and come and go with
only the mountain lion to frighten them. And at last after twenty miles
of drive through tall pines we came to the famous Inspiration Point
where the first view of the Valley burst upon us. We had been driving
over a high plateau, and now we were to descend more than a thousand
feet into the deep cut which forms the Yosemite. Our stage driver
evidently took a genuine pleasure, the pleasure of the showman, in
reining up his horses at the psychological moment and allowing us to
drink in the view that burst dramatically upon us. There was the green
level floor of the Valley far below us; there was El Capitan rising in
massive grandeur, a sheer wall of rock, in evening greys and lavenders,
above the Valley; there was the Bridal Veil--a silver thread of water
falling six hundred feet. And beyond were the Valley walls rising in the
distance. In my opinion everyone who wishes to have the most striking
entrance to the Yosemite should come in by the Wawona road, and have the
great view at Inspiration Point fire the imagination first. A little
lower down, we came again on the winding road to the same view, only
from a lower vantage point and therefore more intimate. This point is
known as Artists' Point; and after this we were hurrying down the
mountain slope, the eager horses well aware that they were approaching
food and rest.

Soon we were on the Valley floor, walls rising to the left and right of
us, and ahead of us. Behind us was the way out of the Valley and