if stationary. Of course, there is here, as in every
American city, an enormous skating-rink, where I saw
hundreds of people throwing about their nether limbs,
—never pronounce legs in this land of promise !—in the
wildest fashion, many being attired in fancy dress ; the
entrance fee to this establishment was a bit, or twelve
and a half cents,—everything goes by bits and dollars
in the gold city. The Grand Hotel, like its companions,
the Occidental, the Cosmopolitan, and Lick House, were
on a scale hardly ever seen in Europe ; there was every
possible comfort provided J the meals were excellent,
and all for three dollars per day, exclusive of wine,
which was dear, Americans drinking water, tea, or
coffee, during meals, generally iced, although after
dinner, which they get through in incredibly short
space of time, they are in the habit of retiring
to the bar to “ liquor up.” The Californian wines are
rapidly improving in flavour as the art of vine culture
and vintage becomes better understood, and I tasted
some good sparkling wine of home growth. Fruit,
especially strawberries, were excellent and plentiful.
A few days’ stay a t San Francisco sufficed to persuade
me th a t my time might be pleasanter occupied elsewhere,
and I took an early departure for the famous
Yosemite valley.
At Modesta I had to pass the night with no less
than seven travelling companions sleeping in the same
room, performing the morning ablutions h la Californie
in the open. Here we left the railway and continued
our route by carriage as far as Mariposa, a long weary
drive of thirteen hours, during which we passed a
number of Chinamen with their “ cradles,” washing gold
in the creeks of ancient watercourses. I watched one
man for nearly an hour, whilst taking my frugal tiffin
on the road side, he working patiently amongst some
broken and partly rotten rock, and I saw him collect
about a dollar’s worth of gold-dust during that interval.
On the following morning I left Mariposa at seven a.m. by
dog-cart, the road being heavy, and reached Clarke’s
Hotel about two p.m., to walk thence through a magnificent
virgin forest to the home of the celebrated group
of Wellingtonice or Mammoth trees (Sequoia gigantea).
There was quite a grove of them, some of enormous
size; they averaged 150 to 200 feet in height, but one
or two must have been between 300 and 350 feet, to a
diameter of twenty to thirty feet. They certainly are
splendid trees, and well worth the journey ; they run
up perfectly straight with a full pyramidal-shaped
crown of evergreen, and the soft bark, of a pale
cinnamon brown, is often two to three feet thick, not
unlike the fibre of cocoanut husk, only much finer.