of later times sharply reins in his steed — if so be
that the jaded cayuse requires it — dismounts, and
stands on Inspiration point, a rocky eminence com-
manding a partial view of the valley. Here every
one who writes a book stands spell-bound as if in the
presence of the almighty, beholds a new heaven and
a new earth, feels the omnipotence and majesty of
the infinite, attempts in vain to give his vision utter-
ance, indulges in a sublime fit of rhapsod}^, and then
drops into mesmeric silence. Old life and ordinary
emotions are suspended, and a new tide of feeling
rushes in upon the soul. The mortal part of man
shrinks back, and the immortal prostrates the beholder
before this apparition of majesty and desolation.
Entering at the lower end by the Mariposa trail, a general view of the valley is obtained, which displays first, on the left, the granite-block El Capitan, a smooth seamless battlement, rising clearly cut 3,300 feet in height; and on the right the Bridal Veil fall, a white cascade of fluttering gossamer, leaping from the western edge of Cathedral rock 630 feet, when striking the heaped-up debris at the base of the cliff, it continues in a series of cascades 300 feet perpen- dicular to the bottom, where it flows off" in ten or twelve streamlets. Summer dries the Virgfin's Tears that fall opposite the Bridal Veil, for their source is not the eternal snow of the high sierra. When the stream that feeds the fall runs low, nearly all the water is dissipated, by the wind, which first sways, then scatters it, and finally breaks it into quivering spray, which the tardy sun, when it appears, gilds with rainbows.
Over the floor of the enclosure is spread a varie- gated carpet fit for a palace of the gods. Meadows of thick grass are interspersed with flowers and flowering shrubs, and fringed with thickets of manzanita, alder, maple, and laurel, and groves of oak, cedar, and fir, with occasional moss-covered rocks, marshes, and patches of sand; while high up on the battlement,
