down  the  Z's  like  an  urchin  laboring  through  a  hard
word  by  the  help  of  a  schoolma'am's  index  finger.  It
was  easy  as  swinging  down  in  a  basket,  but  it  was  not
heroic.  And  to  think  that  when  we  got  down,  we  were
yet  four-fifths  of  a  mile  above  the  sea!

THROUGH  THE  VALLEY.
The  ride  of  three  miles  up  the  Valley  was  restful  as
"  the  beauty  sleep "  of  forty  winks  that  girls  take  after
the  call  to  breakfast.  The  twanging  nerves  that  were
keyed  to  "C  sharp"  on  the  heights,  let  down  a  little.
The  Valley,  seven  miles  long,  with  a  varying  width  of
a  half  mile  to  a  mile  and  a  quarter,  is  as  wild  as  you
want  it.  The  Merced,  that  crystal  river  of  Mercy,  in
endless  quarrel  with  rock  and  rubble,  foaming,  flashing,
roaring,  dashing,  meets  you  all  along,  in  its  desperate
haste  to  get  out  of  the  canon.  And  when  you  see  what
tremendous  accidents  are  always  happening  to  it  —  now
slipping  from  the  verge  of  precipices  a  mile  high,  and
tumbling  hundreds  of  fathoms  sheer  down,  with  nothing
to  hold  by,  till  it  grows  gauzy  as  a  bridal  veil  and  white
as  silver,  you  can  hardly  wonder  at  its  despei-ation.  You
are  a  little  sorry  for  its  misfortunes,  as  if  it  were  some-
thing human,  and  then  a  little  glad  it  has  had  the  prov-
ocation to  show  its  torrent  temper  and  angry  beauty.
You  drive  through  broad  natural  meadows,  dotted  with
tangles  of  shrubbery,  feathery  with  ferns,  and  impudent
with  wild  flowers  that  fear  nothing;  amid  pines  that  are
trying  to  grow  up  out  of  the  tremendous  gorge  into  the
world;  beneath  avenues  of  live-oaks,  among  the  junipers,
the  buckeyes  and  the  buckthorns;  here  a  mountain  lilac.
