Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent
has the most extensive and complete view of all the different points of interest in the valley. The ascent was to take us three hours, when it would be possible for us to drive afterwards to Mirror Lake in time to see the sunset. We started immediately on a pony and two mules (Mr. Lee being of the party) up the steep trail, preceded by the guide, who turned out to be surly, useless, and disobliging. The sun glared fiercely in our eyes, blurring out the view of the valley below. I tried with ill-success the shelter of a sun-umbrella, the pony shying violently, and turning round on the narrow path to look me in the face. We became impatient with the slow progress, and weary of urging on the animals, and at last, by dint of persistent questioning, I found out from the guide that Glacier Point was six miles from the valley, or about six hours' expedition there and back! Mirror Lake disappeared entirely from our programme, and we even began to think of contenting ourselves with Union Point. We reached there at 4.30, having taken two hours for the four miles, and the guide assured us we must allow the same time for returning. After some discussion the matter was finally settled for us, by looking at the soft haze about the sun, and seeing that the brightness of the afternoon was passing away. We decided to give up Glacier Point, and be contented with the less extensive, though I can hardly believe less beautiful, view.
At Union Point we were 2200 feet up, and on the platform immediately facing us stood the beautiful Agassiz Column, a spiral fragment of rock raised up on end. There was a great solemnity and grandeur in the silence and stillness of the valley below. We were above the hum and stir of life, away from mankind, from the petty aims and ambitions of the world beneath us, left alone with the grand mountains. The evening shadows, with their soft blue lights, fell on the surrounding points even as we looked, and the valley itself lay in shadow below. Immediately above and inclining down towards us were the Three Brothers, their Indian name signifying "mountains playing leap-frog," giving the truest description of their triple zigzag peaks. We knew that on the other side of the rock, only 200 feet lower down, there was a similar formation—the Three Graces, or the sweet "Wakwahlena" of the Mona dialect. We saw the Sentinel or Watch Tower of the Indians, a mass of perpendicular granite tapering into a peak that seemingly points its summit into the sky, and which for ever stands watching, keeping guard over the valley. Again, on the same side, the beautiful Cathedral Spires were just to be seen tapering to a height of 500 feet above the massive roof of the Cathedral Rock, which is itself a piece of unified granite of 2660 feet in height. These spires are the most graceful specimens of natural masonry and architecture in the valley, and at times when the wind soughs and moans amongst the crevices, and round about the spires, they say you can hear the deep tones as of some minor organ wailing "The Miserere of lost souls."
Turning away from this side and looking on the other, in the far distance we saw the Dome; and a very perfectly rounded dome it is. It seems to be made up of prodigious concentric plates of granite, on one side suggesting the formation of what are called, the "Royal Arches." But towering so far above it, that it is completely dwarfed by comparison, is the half dome, the "Goddess of the Valley," the most remarkable formation amongst the many that are in this valley of marvels. It is a symmetrical dome of bare rock, scarred and worn with the storms that gather and play about its mighty head—"storm-written hieroglyphics,"—they have rightly been called, rising 4737 feet above the valley, the valley itself being 4000 feet above the level of the sea. But instead of sloping away on both sides, this dome, on the left, is cut completely away, and descends in an absolutely vertical line of 1800 feet or more, thus producing a perfect half dome. Some great convulsion of Nature seems to have split it directly in two, and the western half has disappeared, no one knows where. The valley is here narrowed to its smallest limit, and this tends to add to the stupendous majesty of this "imperfect" dome. To give some idea of its vast height, it is not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but fifteen times the height of St. Peter's at Rome—all rock, nothing but rock! "And God's hand built it—not in masses of slow-mounting masonry, gaining adventurously and toilsomely, foot by foot, and pushing its scaffolding ever higher to keep command of the work, and straining its enginery to swing aloft the chiselled and ponderous blocks to their place—but with one lift, without break of course, or any gradation of rising completeness, the Supreme Builder set the domed mountain in its place, foundation wall, and top-stone—one sublime integral whole, unprofaned by craftsmen's tools, untrod by foot of man."
Beneath the Half Dome, but hidden from us, lies the Mirror Lake, where on a surface absolutely motionless, at sunset and at sunrise, are reflected all the magnificent surroundings in perfection. Cloud's Rest is the culminating mountain-top in this part of the valley.
And now, after we have been looking at these far-off points, our eyes fall down to those nearer home, and we look opposite at El Capitan. We follow upwards the lines that seem interminable in their length, from the base to the brow of this wall of rock, this mass of immensity. "El Capitan imposes on us by its stupendous bulk, which seems as if hewn from the mountains on purpose to stand as the type of eternal massiveness." "Wipe out the beautiful Merced with its snow-fed streams, let the fierce summer heat dry up the waterfalls, blast as with a curse the whole valley, El Capitan would still smite you with his austere silence." The spire of Strasburg Cathedral, that masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is 468 feet high, and still the compound height of seven such cathedrals would not equal the height of this granite mass.
Over a recess in a dim corner, during the earlier months of the year, pour the "Ribbon Falls," or "Virgin's Tears," (the "Long and Slender" of the Indians), though in summer it dwindles down into what we saw it, a single ribbon string.
Much the same may be said of the Yosemite Falls, from which the Valley takes its name, signifying in Indian "large Grizzly Bear," which are very beautiful from the months of March till July, when they likewise dwindle into insignificance. These may also be said to be divided into three distinct falls; with a perpendicular descent of 1500 feet, a 600 feet of cataracts over a shelving rock, and a final fall of 400 feet ending in spray and foam.
The great advantage of the further ascent to Glacier Point is that you have the more complete view of the valley which includes the Vernal and Nevada Falls, two very beautiful falls of 400 and 600 feet each, some way up the Cañon of the Merced; the Sentinel Dome, which is a mile and a half above the point; the Washington Column or "Watching Eye," and a very far-reaching view over the further side of the valley—of the "little Yosemite," and the higher peaks of the Sierra Nevada.
This view from Union Point proved our only hope of carrying away with us some general idea of the wonderful formations of the valley in the short space of time we could allow, and after trying, with some success, I since think, to print them indelibly in our mind's eye, we turned our thoughts towards the descent.
My pony had come down on his knees at a very early period of the expedition, and I greatly mistrusted his powers of holding up down the steep stony trail, not counting the discomfort of feeling the legs of the animal sliding away in front, and subsiding behind, whilst simultaneously being pitched forward at a very inclined angle. I declined to ride down the first and steepest part of the trail, and eventually it ended in my running down the four miles, and resting at the bottom for half an hour for the others to come up. We returned to Barnard's decidedly crestfallen, and with very different feelings to those of pleasurable excitement with which we had started out earlier in the afternoon. We went to bed quite worn out after such a long day, but—there was to be no sleep for us that night. Mosquitoes and the hardest beds I ever slept on were small drawbacks when compared to the weekly ball that was going on immediately underneath us. Every sound was heard through the thin partitions, and we could only lie and listen to the Master of the Ceremonies with his "Figure number one, and cross over, turn, face partner, ladies' chain, sides," &c., the scraping of the fiddle, and the shuffling of the feet.
Weary and dispirited, we left the valley the next morning at 6 a.m., taking our farewell view from the top of the mountain which we had been winding up the side of for three hours. We had in the coach with us Mrs. McCauley, who kept the inn at Glacier Point, and one of the first inhabitants of the valley. She told us that there was general complaint about the meagre compensation that Government had given to the inhabitants since they had taken possession. The early settlers had expended much toil on the formation of the first and most dangerous trails to the principal points, charging some small fee. It was in 1864 that Congress granted the valley to the State of California, as "the cleft or gorge in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada,"