a drive, admitting a horse and rider for eighty-seven feet, and allowing
them room to turn and go back. I had the pleasure of taking this novel
ride, allowing my horse to be led.

Many of my readers have seen, and most of them have heard of the novel
dancing-hall in the heart of one of these denizens of the forest, which
admits four quadrilles upon its floors, and can imagine the romance of
"tripping the light fantastic toe" amid such surroundings. Another tree
had been sawed into tablets, upon which each visitor left a name or
record. The day previous to our visit, a little boy of eight years old had
visited the grove. When his bright eyes rested for a time upon the tablet,
his little fingers grasped a piece of chalk, and he readily wrote: "And
God said, let there be a Big Tree, and there was a Big Tree."

We looked admiringly upon the "Twin Trees" named for Ingomar and
Parthenia, and perhaps like these lovers of old, embodied "two hearts that
beat as one." During our three days visit we left no tree unexamined, each
one being fraught with individuality, and each in living language
addressing our hearts in its own characteristic sentiment.

These veterans varied in age from twelve hundred to twenty-five thousand
years, and for their accumulated cycles commanded veneration.

After fully satisfying our love of sight seeing, and taking time to fully
contemplate the beauty and sublimity of the wonders, we returned by way of
Sonora and Columbia to our temporary home in Sacramento, not only
satisfied but highly gratified by our tour.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Dared I but say a prophecy,
As sang the holy men of old,
Of rock-built cities yet to be
Along these shining shores of gold,
Crowding athirst into the sea;
What wondrous marvels might be told!
Enough to know that empire here
Shall burn her loftiest, brightest star;
Here art and eloquence shall reign
As o'er the wolf-reared realm of old;
Here learned and famous from afar,
To pay their noble court, shall come,
And shall not seek or see in vain,
But look on all with wonder dumb."

Once more away from Sacramento we visited Marysville, which is a beautiful
brick town, laid out with great regularity and width of street, each house
nestling in flower-garden and shade, and is a place of extensive
manufactures and trade. We went from there to Colusa, where I reaped a
rich harvest of gain. Indeed I never found a