cause man can measure
himself, his littleness, his brevity of existence, with this growth out
of the earth, that he is more personally impressed by it than he might
be by the mere variation in the contour of the globe which is called a
mountain. The imagination makes a plausible effort to comprehend it, and
is foiled. No; clearly it is not mere size that impresses one; it is the
dignity, the character in the tree, the authority and power of
antiquity. Side by side of these venerable forms are young sequoias,
great trees themselves, that have only just begun their millennial
career--trees that will, if spared, perpetuate to remote ages this race
of giants, and in two to four thousand years from now take the place of
their great-grandfathers, who are sinking under the weight of years, and
one by one measuring their length on the earth.

[Illustration: LAGUNA, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]

The transition from the sublime to the exquisitely lovely in nature can
nowhere else be made with more celerity than from the Sierras to the
coast at Monterey; California abounds in such contrasts and surprises.
After the great stirring of the emotions by the Yosemite and the
Mariposa, the Hotel del Monte Park and vicinity offer repose, and make
an appeal to the sense of beauty and refinement. Yet even here something
unique is again encountered. I do not refer to the extraordinary beauty
of the giant live-oaks and the landscape-gardening about the hotel,
which have made Monterey famous the world over, but to the sea-beach
drive of sixteen miles, which can scarcely be rivalled elsewhere either
for marine loveliness or variety of coast scenery. It has points like
the ocean drive at Newport, but is altogether on a grander scale, and
shows a more poetic union of shore and sea; besides, it offers the
curious and fascinating spectacles of the rocks inhabited by the
sea-lions, and the Cypress Point. These huge, uncouth creatures can be
seen elsewhere, but probably nowhere else on this coast are they massed
in greater numbers. The trees of Cypress Point are unique, this species
of cypress having been found nowhere else. The long, never-ceasing swell
of the Pacific incessantly flows up the many crescent sand beaches,
casting up shells of brilliant hues, sea-weed, and kelp, which seems
instinct with animal life, and flotsam from the far-off islands. But the
rocks that lie off the shore, and the jagged points that project in
fanciful forms, break the eve