YOSEMITE FALLS, SHOWING FLOOR OF THE VALLEY.
The blue sky, the odor of the pines and the falling, gurgling, murmuring water lent an enchantment to the air, which made us forget the fool, but for a moment only. Here he came again. Untiringly he followed us to the summit of the mountains, eight thousand feet above the sea, where the soft ambient soothes like a benediction, and the soul uplifts in prayer.
As these high altitudes make many people ill we were advised to carry with us a bit of the joyful. Arrived at the summit a dainty flask slipped from the folds of a lady’s gown and fell to the earth with a thud. One of the guides picked it up and gravely presented it to the owner with the remark, “Madam, you have lost something valuable.”
As we stood looking down through the blue mist into the YoSemite below us—a landscape that would have delighted the heart and eye of a Homer—a quaint old lady who had braved the trail that she might view the valley from glacial point, exclaimed:
“It’s lovely, ain’t it? Heaven don’t need to be no purtier and I don’t reckon it is, do you? Purty name, too, but I never kin remember whether it’s Yo-se-mite or Yu-summit.”
A personally conducted party arrived just ahead of us. Mr. Personally, as we dubbed the conductor, was a gentleman, so he informed us, of many qualities. His voice was loud and commanding, he was exceedingly voluble, and from the manner in which he hurried his party about I should say that he was a man of much energy.
He came flying into the ladies’ private boudoir regardless of the confusion of shirt waists, ties, collars and riding habits that were flying through the air, commanding the ladies of his party to hasten to the dining-room for luncheon.
That repast served, Mr. Personally Conductor ordered up the stages which were in waiting to take us down the mountains on the other side. After ordering everyone else to stand back he ordered his party to “climb in,” which they meekly did.
We sat under a clump of silver firs thoroughly enjoying the scene and calm in the consciousness that as the transportation company had carried us to the top of the mountains it was in duty bound to carry us down, either by stage coach, mule back or by rope and tackle, over the rocky ledge and drop us three thousand feet to the valley below.