Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-06-14
The Two Sights Of
California.

balmy sleep, held our limbs, as Homer
says, and filed the weary back with
vigor. The morning breaks in the sub
lime valley; the cliffs come out rosy as
child's cheek on the one side; shaded
cool, refreshing on the other. Behind
us rises like fan the serene wall of
Sentinel Rock. This Is not the Senti-
mel Dome, where our feet first stood;
but wall of the Valley. Before us
glows the Three Brothers, With Yosem-
ite Falls a dark streak adown path
in the upper half of their smooth face.
By its side you see another path-a
trail that swings its ladder athwart the
face of that precipicc, and leads you to
the top of Eagle Point, jut in the
cliff of the Brothers. How any one can
ascend these without wings is problem,
solved, however, by many an adventur-
Gus tourist.
The stage rattles up, and we are
again with our English cousins, and the
little Italian duke, and the surly, schol-
arly, much travelled German, and coup
lie of nice Yankee ladies, and baby.
Sufficient unto the ride is the pleasure
thereof. We climb slowly the moraine
that the wash of river and mountain
has made gaze and gaze on Ell Captain
gorgeous in his morning uniform of
white and gold on the Cathedral
Rocks, solemn and shaded and sublime
on the whole sweep of the immense can
yon, from Inspiration Point half way up
the sides of the Valley, and giving an
exquisite coup dell of the whole scene.
We bow our reverent goodbye to the
grand group and to Wesley Dome, here,
as at Glacier Point and on Sentinel
Dome, the most perfect save Ell Captain
and not below that in luster and SYM
metry and grandeur. We toll slowly
an hour and more up the half precipi-
tiOus hillsides, among the mighty trees
mighty but for what is to come; our
way relieved by stories of bears meeting
on the path the unarmed traveller, and
man and beast being we'll nigh scared
to death.
The halfway house is reached, and
we rush down ten miles in fifty minu-
tes, whirling like lighting round and
round, and leaders gayly cutting off the
corners and the thill horses holding all
steady. never saw before the sagacity
of leaders. They are selected for their
wisdom. They know what they are
about. They never risk anything !;
though, doubtless, the duller brutes be-
hind fear all the time, as does the dull
est brute-he in the coach-that those
prancing leaders don't know what they
are about, and will surely dance off the
precipice, carrying thill.horse and pas
ScuS6r uOWu CO INSTRUCTION.
So have l seen some dull Brutuses
fear the prancing Caesars who lead the
race of men along precipitious but
predestlned path. They cry out, You
will surely spoil everything; when they
are really renewing everything; So
they howled at Paul-the Christians of
the Circumcision no less than the Jews.
So they howled at Luthur, so at Wesley,
so at Garrison, so at Lincoln, so at
Grant. So they will continue to howl
at every leader who rises to guide the
race to better things. But there is a
Hand that guides; and the Divine
Leader leads the human leaders and all
the passenger race on and on to mil
lennial habitations of Righteousness and
Peace.
The scamper brings US soon to the
Big Tree Station, which we had left the
morning before. After lunch we en-
bark on large open wagon, drawn by
four horses, and proceed to visit the
trees themselves.
1t is an hours climb up smooth,
elegant road, through forests that natu-
rally prepare the way-a giants cause
a way to the greater giants. The i'm.
r mense pines would startle you. only
you must keep your surprises for the
: Sequoia, as they are called. After an
J hours ride, at sharp turn in the road,
V in among dense forests of pines and
hemlocks rises two trees, close to each
7 other, the bark smooth and of the color
of cinnamon. They are called the Sen.
tinels. You see and surrender. 81
massive, so symmetrical, so clear, sc
, stately; nothing strained. There is
: nothing strained about big man; nc
!: more about the big trees. They are
: naturally big. Instantly the immense
pines assume their humber position
Their heads bow their forms contract
They are servants in the presence O.
these their masters. Hundred of fee
above the ground spring out shor
! branches ragged and not especially
+ comely. The tiny leaf of the hemlocl
+ grows thinly on these short and scraggl
d branches. Yet this green, curly hair
e crowning the light-brown stalk, gives
not uncomely aspect. 1t seems NOR,
fitting than wide-spreading arms ant
LARGE leaves. Evervthinp ia made firth