following our guide, at ten we came to a breastwork of stone, about five feet high, where we halted. I leaned over the stone balustrade, and looked into the depth below. There was a sheer, unbroken abyss one mile in depth. At our feet, so far removed that it seemed a perfect picture, lay the whole of the Mecca of our long pilgrimage. 2. Distance softened every detail, and spread the valley with unbroken green of the softest tint. Cloud shadows swept over the scene, and mosaicked the emerald expanse with gold and gloomy splendor. The Merced River strayed in tangled silver through the land, and broke in riotous loveliness over rocks that seemed but pebbles from our lofty hight. Opposite us, the Yosemite Fall thundered its everlasting shout of victory, to take its mighty leap adown the hights. 3. Far to the left the Bridal Vail wafted its silver through the darkling pines. To the right the Vernal Falls sent up a rainbow-tinted spray, more graceful than smoke-wreaths, and fairer than unfurled banners. We loosened a bowlder of hundreds of pounds weight; it crashed to the cliff's far base, without a graze in its downward plunge of five thousand feet. Never can I forget my sensations, as I leaned and watched the wondrous glory. What was I, that the Creator should think of me? 4. I saw, far down the cliff, a little nodding flower, growing from the rock's bare breast, without an inch of soil, courtesying and bowing to its wind-blown shadow, unwatered and unpruned by the hand of man; and yet no rose in kings' gardens ever grew so fair, no blue of tinted violet was ever half so soft, no wise men of earth could charm it into quicker growth, no trick of science could woo it back to bud or on to seedling. God's loving hand had planted it there, sent dewfall for its nightly drink, and sunshine for its daily strength. 5. Under the shadow of towering hights, God never forgot it, never neglected the softest shading of its lonely petals. So, while the rocks, the awful abyss, and the thundering cascades preached to me of power, this little flower preached to me of loving care. While those said, God is fearful, this said, God is loving; and the words of Jesus came to me with renewed emphasis: "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith?" 6. Turning away, after an hour had sped unheeded by, we retraced our steps in silence, and remounted our horses to seek the base of the mountains. Our trail, for the first time, became absolutely dangerous. For three miles we seemed descending the side of a perpendicular hill. Loose stones detached themselves from beneath our horses' feet, and crashed down into what seemed bottomless ravines. We gave our gallant steeds full rein, and trusted them to take us safely through, and nobly they performed the task. Never slipping or missing step, they gently descended the difficult and dangerous way. 7. At last we reached the level of the valley, thoroughly fatigued. Ah, Yosemite, far-famed and glorious! how can I describe it? There are no human words capacious enough to hold or disclose its marvels. Now that I approach the task my spirit falters, and I would fain lay by my pen and say no more. 8. The valley is a chasm between two ranges of the Sierras. It is five thousand feet above the level of the sea, about one hundred and fifty miles eastward from San Francisco. The first thing that thrusts itself upon your sight, as you enter the valley, is the grand El Capitan. It is a ponderous mass of white rock, unbroken and perpendicular, without a grassblade or a tree to break its mighty front, lifting itself three quarters of a mile into the sky. You think you have seen rocks before! They were pebbles, puny scales, compared to this. It makes you captive as you stand. 9. You look to the opposite side of the valley, a little more than a mile away, and there falls, no, it does not fall, but floats, lightly as the morning mists or wreaths of smoke, floats downwards, and wavers to and fro amid the gloomy pines, the Bridal Vail. It is a waterfall eleven hundred feet in hight, of so little volume of substance, and so lofty in descent, that each drop, losing kinship with sister drops, comes down lightly and softly as feathery snow upon the waiting rocks below. 10. The wind sways it twenty or thirty feet hither and back against its shadowed background. Like daintiest scarf of filmiest lace, it flickers in the embrace of every breeze; like a pure white flame, it wanders heavenward in wreaths of softest spray. There is no shout of merry waters, no crash of thundering torrents; but, through morning light and hush of tender starlight, there is a ceaseless croon of music straying through the enchanted air. 11. Released from this spell of beauty, you pass on up the valley, to where the Cathedral Rock fronts you, solemn and grand. Two spires, symmetrical in shape and lofty in hight, point mutely heavenward three thousand feet above you. Opposite are other pinnacled rocks, four thousand three hundred feet in hight. By your side the Merced River wanders, — a mighty torrent here, fretting over obstructing rocks; peaceful as a quiet heart yonder, where the winds are hushed, and its bed unhindered. 12. Rounding a turn of the valley wall, the Yosemite Fall flashes upon you. This is perhaps the loftiest waterfall in the world. The water takes one sheer plunge of sixteen hundred feet, then breaks in rapids over obstructing rocks for four hundred, then rushes on to another leap of seven hundred feet, dashing again into stormy breakers, before it loses foothold on the last verge, and seeks the Merced River, five hundred feet below. There is continuous thunder here. Yosem ite is no dainty, mist-like vail, but a glad, free torrent, fed from a thousand upland rills. And yet, although so mighty, what lightness, what delicacy! 13. Yet from this wonder-land you must journey up the valley to ever-fresh delights. Here is the Sentinel Rock, tempest-furrowed and hoary, keeping eternal vigil with the stars, three thousand three hundred feet above you. A little farther on tower the Yosemite Domes, the North and the South. O, wonder of wonders! Two domes of bare granite, as perfect as St. Peter's at Rome, only so much greater that the one is as a hillock to the Alps, compared with the others. 14. There is the North Dome, lifting its gray, untroubled front four thousand feet above you; and there the South Dome, with untrodden, cloud-wreathed summit, six thousand feet from the plain on which you stand. Some convulsion of nature has split away a section of this mighty dome, hurling it, none can tell whither. There it stands, cleft on the thither side, steep and inaccessible on this. No human foot has ever scaled it, nor ever shall. LESSON LXXXIII. A VISIT TO THE PYRAMIDS. 1. The sun was setting as we reached the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh. During the day, as we were getting nearer and nearer it, we had expected that it would be swelling out in its proportions to our eye; but it continued to look as distant, and * GHIZEH (gheza), a small village about three miles southwest of Cairo. Here the line of great pyramids begins. The Great Pyramid is distinguished for its vast size and great antiquity, having been constructed certainly more than two thousand years before Christ. It is said that one hundred thousand men were constantly employed during thirty years in erecting this monument. when of nearly the same bulk as at the first; and even now, we were at its base, and gazed at it in that twilight which should have had some magnifying power, it failed to convey to us any such idea of its vastness as its actual magnitude should, as we imagined, have created. 2. Having rested for the night, with the first gleam of dawn we arose and prepared for the ascent. Two or three Arabs attached themselves to each of us, one laying hold of each arm, and the third following behind, prepared to meet the exigencies of the way. The perpendicular hight to be ascended was only four hundred and sixty feet; but this was to be reached by a slope which added more than one hundred feet to the space to be passed over, and that space was occupied by two hundred and forty steps, each step at least twice as high as that in an ordinary staircase. 3. The race was between Tennent and Constable. The latter, the youngest, tallest, strongest of our party, who, to the great astonishment of his guides, breaking loose from their grasp, strode up without stopping, and was the first upon the summit. Having paused by the way, I was the last at the top; but when I reached it, I found that there was not one of us who did not confess that it was the most fatiguing piece of work that he had ever accomplished. 4. But it was over; and there we were upon the square platform which forms the summit, waiting for the sunrise. It came in a few minutes; the great orb of day, raising himself above the line of distant hills that skirted the Red Sea, scattering, as he rose, the mists of the morning, and shining down into the green valley, the land of Egypt, below. It was a scene for silent, absorbing contemplation. 5. But there we were, on a platform about thirty feet square, with at least twenty Arabs who had climbed up with us, giving us not a moment's respite, singing to us scraps of English or American songs, teasing us with all kinds of questions, tell |