Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1869-08-20
The Yosemite Valley.

In q recent number of Hearth and
Home Hon. Schuyler Colfax gives the
following vivid description of the various
features of this wondrously beautiful
Valley
Far up in the Sierra Nevada, nearly
three hundred miles from San Francis
CO, is the pre-eminent wonder of our con-
tinent, the Yosemite Valley, untrodden
by the foot of white man till 1851, and
difficult of 100000 to th;e uay. 1Sv
wheels have ever rumbled over its sod;
but leaving the stage at Mariposa, sure
footed horses take you by grades that
seem to the eye almost unclimable, up
rugged mountain ranges, down deep val
leys, through narrow ravines and mar
rover gorges, amid majestic forest, over
boulders of granite, skirting along hill
sides for fifty miles, until at last, from
jutting point on the often precipitous
trail, you look down into this wonderful
cleft or fssure which you must wind
around mile after mile yet to enter. An
ticipating something grand, the reality,
as is so rarely the case, is, in romantic
beauty and wild sublimity, far beyond
the mental pictures drawn by the most
vivid Imagination. The towering Sier-
ras, which the Almighty has thus torn
asunder are all around. Towns and set
Elements and houses are far behind you.
1t seems the home of the genius of soli-
tude. And there you look straight
down nearly mile, into narrow but
smiling valley, eight miles long and av-
eraging but half a mile in width, with
the Merced River winding gracefully
among grassy meadows and scattered
groves; while like grim sentinels on Ell
ther side, the mountains rise 5000 to
5000 feet above the valley, which itself
is 1000 feet above the sea.
| These yellowish granite walls, like
Tu-toch-a-nu-lah, or Ell Captain, as it is
oftener called, straight up and down.
smooth, seamless, and verdureless OIL
surmounted, like another, by beauti
fully rounded dome, greater and vastel
than dome of capital or palace, or shoot
ing up into an assimilation to cathedra
towers, after which others are named, o.
mounting one above another, and rollin,
away in close proximity to each other
J. like the Three Brothers; or cut down
: sharp and sheer in the middle, as if will
a mighty cleaver welded by power n,
J. less than infinite, like the Half Dome
a or towering above all others, like tn
e Sentinel Rock; or slightly sloping from
: the perpendicular, but massive and gi
gantic as the rest-such an aggregation
s of remarkable mountains fill the sou
|. with the bewildering grandeur, as wei
d as the solemn sublimity of the scene, ]
Q seems as if, in the creation, this wonder
/ full furrow was ploughed out of tn
J. mountain range, and the rock throw
n away, that the valley, picturesque in If
, varied beauty, and smiling as you Nigh
l. imagine the happy valley of Rasselal
If shut out from all the din and strife, an
e unrest of the world, might here be founc
% And when, after gazing an hour in S
$ lence, you leave this view to wind aroun
Of the trail by which a descent to this a
(, most inaccessible valley is found, and ,
m last ride along the rivers bank, gallo
d. ina over the luxuriant grass-sward, ft
" days enjoying and drinking in its pee