418 AMERICAN RHETORIC AMONG THE BRITONS. [1865. responses are ended. Speakers address both ends of the table: 'Mr. President, Mr. Vice-president and Gentlemen.'

Of course the English speeches were conversational-couched in the language of plain, every-day talk-though direct, pointed and sensible. And of course the Americans plunged into the profoundest abyss of rhetoric, and soared to the empyrean of declamation. Once or twice they ran into the ludicrously bombastic; but they amazed and delighted the British auditors-like the rest, a little the better for liquor-who applauded to the echo.

In wine is friendliness if not truth. We had not only the inevitable staple of such occasions, about Shakspeare, and Milton, a common language and a common lineage; but a leading British official even predicted that at some future day the two nations would be one!-a remark which was rapturously cheered.

Nothing succeeds like success.' There was much Southern sympathy on the island; now all are our dear friends, our affectionate cousins, our admiring brethren. Johnny Reb. has proved a bad failure; and Johnny Bull, who began by embracing him, ends with a parting kick.

From Victoria we returned to San Francisco by ocean steamer: seven hundred and forty miles; three days; forty-five dollars. We were usually in sight of land, and passed near the mouth of Columbia river, five miles wide and obstructed by the worst bar in the world. There is not a single good harbor between Victoria and San Francisco.

We threaded St. George's Reef-a series of dangerous rocks near the land; some rising two or three hundred feet, others entirely under water. Here we hoped to meet the Brother Jonathan, with papers from San Francisco only twenty-four hours old. The swell was very high, and our captain's face wrinkled with anxiety until the perilous point was passed. Meanwhile we were discussing the chances for life one would have, shipwrecked in that heavy sea.

We missed the Brother Jonathan; but two hours after we passed the reef she reached it, struck a rock, and in forty-five minutes went to the bottom. Of her passengers and crew only sixteen were saved. One hundred and fifty, with their human hopes and fears, their loves and longings and ambitions, were engulfed in that repository which keeps all its treasures and all its secrets till the sea shall give up its dead. Of the six small boats,

1865.]

FATE OF THE BROTHER JONATHAN.

419

five were swamped in launching; one reached the shore, full of passengers. After the ship struck, James Nisbet, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, found time and coolness to write his will.

GOVERNMENT STREET, VICTORIA, VANCOUVER ISLAND.

There must be a best way of launching boats under such circumstances. There must be possible machinery to facilitate it. There must be some way for a man with Nisbet's nerve and calmness to save himself, if he only knew it.

Marine disasters are far more frequent and appalling on our coasts than in any other quarter of the globe. They spring largely from our national recklessness; and illustrate the ever-recurring anomaly, that here, where human nature finds its most generous opportunities, human life is less prized than in any other civilized nation. Our whole system of travel by river and sea is shamefully hazardous. Our best ocean steamers are without boats enough to hold all their passengers, even in smooth waters. And when an inspection is to take place, owners and officers often know it in season to borrow hose, boats, and other needful articles of outfit. The slaughter will never cease till proprietors and managers are held to strict responsibility. Convict and punish them for homicide whenever it occurs through their penuriousness, heedlessness, or neglect of precautions which law and humanity require.

420

DISCOVERY OF YOSEMITE VALLEY.

[1865.

CHAPTER XXXV.

SEE Yosemite and die! I shall not attempt to describe it; the subject is too large and my capacity too small. Here might the author of the 'Divine Comedy,' whose troubled brow and yearning eyes appeal to us through the shadows of five centuries, despairingly repeat: 'I may not paint them all in full, for the long theme so chases me that many times the word comes short of the reality.'

Yosemite should be studied for months; I saw it but five days. Volumes ought to be and will be written about it; I can only group a few hints and impressions.

Yosemite signifying grizzly-bear-was the name of a tribe of Indians. In 1851 they were hostile. The whites pursuing them into their home and stronghold, discovered this crowning wonder of the world. Finding in one lodge a very aged squaw, they asked how old she was. The Indians replied that when she was a girl these mountains were hills! To appreciate, the statement one should see the mountains.

Our party of seventeen-the largest which ever entered the valley-included my companions of the overland trip; and among other friends, Fred. Mac Crellish of the Alta California, William Ashburner of the California Geological Survey, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Charles Allen, attorney general of the State of Mas sachusetts.

On the seventh of August, after four days' hard travel from San Francisco, we galloped out of the pine woods, dismounted, stood upon the rocky precipice of Inspiration Point, and looked down into Yosemite as one from a house-top looks down into his garden, or as he would view the interior of some stupendous roofless cathedral, from the top of one of its towering walls. In the distance.

1865.]

VIEW FROM INSPIRATION POINT.

421

across the gorge, were snow-streaked mountains. Right under us was the narrow, winding basin of meadow, grove and shining river, shut in by granite walls from two thousand to five thousand feet high-walls with immense turrets of bare rock-walls so upright and perfect that an expert crag-man can climb out of the valley at only three or four points.

Flinging a pebble from the rock upon which we stood, and looking over the

gigantic cedar, appearing like the merest twig. Originally a vast granite mountain, it was riven from top to bottom by some ancient convulsion, which cleft asunder the everlasting hills and rent the great globe itself.

The measureless, inclosing walls, with these leading towers and many other turrets-gray, brown and white rock, darkly veined from summit to base with streaks and ribbons of falling water

422

RIDING DOWN THE ZIGZAGS.

[1865. hills, almost upright, yet studded with tenacious firs and cedars; and the deep-down level floor of grass, with its thread of river and pigmy trees, all burst upon me at once. Nature had lifted her curtain to reveal the vast and the infinite. It elicited no adjectives, no exclamations. With bewildering sense of divine power and human littleness, I could only gaze in silence, till the view strained my brain and pained my eyes, compelling me to turn away and rest from its oppressive magnitude.

Riding for two hours, down, down, among sharp rocks and dizzy zigzags, where the five ladies of our party found it difficult to keep in their saddles, and narrowly escaped pitching over their horses' heads, we were in the valley, entering by the Mariposa trail. The diagram shows its form and features. The length of the valley or cleft is nine miles; its average width three-fourths of a mile. The following dimensions are in feet:

Average width of Merced river,...

60

Hight of Yosemite falls. (Upper, 1,600: Rapids, 434; Lower, 600,)..2,634
Width of these falls at upper summit, in August,..

15

Riding up the valley for five miles, past Bridal Vail fall, (on the brook entering the Merced from the south, above Inspiration Point,) Cathedral rocks and the Sentinel, we dismounted and established our headquarters at Hutchings'. This is a two-story frame house, with interior walls of 'soft finish,' a local term, in contra-distinction to plastering of 'hard finish' and signifying only curtains of white muslin for partitions. They compel guests who don't wish to give magic-lantern exhibitions to extinguish