Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water / The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

We began gently ascending again, when we continued our journey, for the most part through a shady ravine, till we crossed what was apparently an outlying spur, and began the tedious climb of the larger range. At times the horses seemed hardly to make any progress, and they crawled along with the coach lumbering and creaking after them. Then for the first time we saw specimens of the Sequoia Gigantea, that wonderful genus peculiar to California. Presently we were passing through miles of its forests, their purple and pink-streaked stems, straight and slim, reaching to an enormous height before striking out into long branching arms, which interlace to form a feathery network against the sky. This closely packed array of mighty giants, stretching away into long vistas of upright stems in the dim distance, gives one a feeling of being surrounded by conscious though inanimate beings; they give a feeling of strength in repose, increased by the stillness and silence of all around; for the wheels move noiselessly over the thick carpet of fir needles, and there is only a rustling murmur of the breeze in the pines overhead.

There are no singing birds here, and the only sign of animal life is a ground squirrel darting across the road, and scampering up the nearest tree.

Here and there we emerged into sunlight from the cool depths of the forest, to see the range of mountains forming part of the great Coast Range, looking thin and hazy in the warm afternoon sun. Fire had wrought destruction amongst many of the trees, leaving charred and blackened stumps, decaying into curious and weird forms, Sometimes the trunks and branches, scathed by the fire, remain a beautiful silver grey; in others the trunks would be completely hollowed, and yet still able to support an immense framework above. In one case I remember a pine was burnt through at the base, hollowed out so as to form a perfect V shape.

There appear to be two theories as to the origin of these forest fires; some say that the trees fire themselves in the fall from extreme dryness; the other, which would seem the more probable, that the mischief originates from a spark of the woodman's pipe, or perhaps a brand left burning from the camper's fire. There is no doubt that this is sometimes the cause of the terrible devastation wrought, and it is no uncommon thing to see far away the blue wreaths of smoke curling up from the very heart of a forest that betokens one of these conflagrations.

It is very difficult to convey any idea of the gigantic height of the sequoias by simple measurement or figures, but I know that many of them took root in the ravine so far below, that we in the coach overhanging the precipice, and leaning over, could not trace their origin; whilst the tops would just be on a level with the road. But all this time we were toiling upwards, and the shades of evening were beginning to close around us in gloom, surrounded as we were by the dark pines. We reached the top about 6 p.m. Just one view of a grand, white mountain, with dark, purple shadows lying on its jagged peak touched with a few last rays of light, and we began a mad rush, wild and headlong, down into the valley in the gathering darkness. The horses swung round the zigzag turns at a gallop, the leaders all but over the precipice to allow of room for the remaining four, and for the coach to graze round the corner. Ten, twelve, fifteen miles an hour, the speed gradually increasing, until, breathless and unconscious, save of flying through the air, you gave up at last the anxious watch on the horses, and resigned yourself to the care of the driver.

Mr. Lee, seeing my terrified face, tried to reassure me by saying, "I have perfect confidence in the driver, and in the horses, but hope the vehicle will hold together,"—words that were hardly uttered, when convulsively the driver was seen straining at the reins, and trying to pull up suddenly. One of the powerful brakes had given way, and the horses, feeling the coach at their heels, were preparing to rush madly round the corner we were just coming to, when they were checked—and we were saved. The wheel after that had to be dragged with a chain and straps, and we walked down the remainder of the way, a relief to our overstrained nerves; but the driver looked crestfallen on arriving at Clarke's without the usual flourish round the circular drive, pulling up the steaming horses at the exact arch in the verandah opposite the door.

We slept in the valley that night, guarded by the mountains on every side, with the sound of a gurgling stream in our ears, dimly seen by the light of the crescent moon.

Wednesday, August 27th.—We were off at six the next morning (which meant getting up at five), ascending the mountains, and soon many feet above our last night's resting-place in the valley, looking at the lovely blue mist wreathing and curling up the opposite mountains, out of the dark shadows of the pine forests. We had a still, quiet morning among the giant forest trees and shady glades. Down their gullies trickled sparkling streams, burrowing underground and then flowing out again, forming tiny cascades over a few rocks and sprinkling the surrounding ferns with dewdrops. Some of them were so hidden that we only heard a rustling amongst the green bed by which we traced their course. Everything in nature could not help looking lovely on that bright morning with the keen freshness of the early day yet in the air, and the sunlight peeping through the dark pines, to play in golden cobwebs on the brown carpet below; but again we missed all sign of life in the absence of singing birds, and the stillness became almost oppressive. One of the most beautiful things in these forests are the bright green mosses, that hang like lichens from the branches of the trees, looking most vivid against those that are blackened by the fire. The fir cones that lie on the ground in hundreds are remarkable for their perfect formation and great length, frequently attaining to a foot or more.

All the morning we alternated in a slow and tedious progress up-hill, and one of the quick rushes downhill, when we would accomplish in half an hour the same distance that it had taken us three hours before to mount. But about twelve o'clock we emerged from the forest on to a level winding road, overhanging a terrible precipice on the one side, from which was a view unequalled in beauty and extent in all California. And this is saying something; for throughout these two days' drives we had been enjoying a series of superb and magnificent mountain scenes, that taken singly would alone have been worth coming to see. But here was something that surpassed them all. The valley at our feet was so deep that the eye became giddy in following the downward line of the vertical precipice of rock. You followed the upward slope of dark green mountains rising on either side of the entrance of the valley, till you gradually let the eye float away and away over the blue lines that each indicated a separate mountain range growing fainter as they reached the horizon. This was the great Sierra Nevada Range.