l chamber after
the spacious magnificence and luxury of the starry sky and silver fir
grove. Bade farewell to my friend and the General. The old soldier was
very kind, and an interesting talker. He told me long stories of the
Florida Seminole war, in which he took part, and invited me to visit him
in Omaha. Calling Carlo, I scrambled home through the Indian Canon gate,
rejoicing, pitying the poor Professor and General, bound by clocks,
almanacs, orders, duties, etc., and compelled to dwell with lowland care
and dust and din, where Nature is covered and her voice smothered, while
the poor, insignificant wanderer enjoys the freedom and glory of God's
wilderness.

Apart from the human interest of my visit to-day, I greatly enjoyed
Yosemite, which I had visited only once before, having spent eight days
last spring in rambling amid its rocks and waters. Wherever we go in the
mountains, or indeed in any of God's wild fields, we find more than we
seek. Descending four thousand feet in a few hours, we enter a new
world--climate, plants, sounds, inhabitants, and scenery all new or
changed. Near camp the goldcup oak forms sheets of chaparral, on top of
which we may make our beds. Going down the Indian Canon we observe this
little bush changing by regular gradations to a large bush, to a small
tree, and then larger, until on the rocky taluses near the bottom of the
valley we find it developed into a broad, wide-spreading, gnarled,
picturesque tree from four to eight feet in diameter, and forty or fifty
feet high. Innumerable are the forms of water displayed. Every gliding
reach, cascade, and fall has characters of its own. Had a good view of
the Vernal and Nevada, two of the main falls of the valley, less than a
mile apart, and offering striking differences in voice, form, color,
etc. The Vernal, four hundred feet high and about seventy-five or
eighty feet wide, drops smoothly over a round-lipped precipice and forms
a superb apron of embroidery, green and white, slightly folded and
fluted, maintaining this form nearly to the bottom, where it is suddenly
veiled in quick-flying billows of spray and mist, in which the afternoon
sunbeams play with ravishing beauty of rainbow colors. The Nevada is
white from its first appearance as it leaps out into the freedom of the
air. At the head it presents a twisted appearance, by an overfolding of
the current from striking on the side of its channel just before the
first free out-bounding leap