The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-30

would accumulate till the weight ol some of the high trestles would be suf l ficient to drag the entire structure down.
 l After a four-mile run the boat sud 1 denly emerges from a forest of pine and fir and the passengers in the boa ! experience the feeling of person in | balloon, when the world seems to drol
 away from under him. The Hume run out over a high trestle, and at frs l glance nothing is visible underneath I There seems to be nothing but un' fathomable space. This is near the turr around the point of Stephenson Noun | tain, and the vast abyss beneath, Whicl | seemed bottomless, is the canon of the | San Joaquin River, down just how fal beneath it would be hard to guess. II | looks not less than 5000 feet; it may I be less
 But by leaning over as the boat hur- ries by one can catch momentary view of the white foam of the river of the
 canon. Not a sound is heard. The ! plunging of the river over the sunken rocks that fret its channel cannot send even a murmur up the summit of the cliff from which the passenger in the Hume boat looks down as he hurries on. Nearly everywhere in sight the canon is dark at that hour of the morning, but
 at two or three places the sunlight
 pours through the gateway in the cliffs
 and the beams fall on foaming floods,
 silent in the distance, and gild the
 blackness of the granite cliffs, which
 hang like walls a thousand feet above
 the river.
 The passenger cannot look twice at
 the scene The next minute he has
 passed again into timber; then comes curve after curve around rocky moua-
 tain, and after little while the canon
 which had seemed so nearly bottomess, has been left behind. The first twelve miles of the journey bring the traveller to the western face of Pine Ridge, the last drift of snow disappears and the stately groves of sugar pine and arborvitae begin to give place to tan gled thickets of lnanzanita and chapar- ral, and the starved and stunted dig ger pines and gnarled jack oaks take the place of the tamaracks which grow about the reservoir at the starting place. Climate succeeds climate as the boat rushes from ridge to ridge
 Passing around the mountain at the head of Dry Creek, Fresno City forty fves miles distant is seen, with the sun kindlng on the metal roofs and glancing from the dome of the courthouse so far away that it seems speck of light.
 Although the toughest parts of the loft oft head of Dry Creek is reached, the fluma has still some of it's steepest grades below that point. The decline is not uniform, varying from a hardly percen uble grade to as much as one foot in ten. Down the steepest places the boat rushes at a speed which approaches very nearly the limit of safety. Within five or six miles further the Hume sweeps around the brink of a high, bold gran te cliff, and two miles away and 2000 feet below the little village of Toll House bursts into view. Green fields sur md it even in winter, but it has a Forsaken appearance, for it's days of are numbered. It was thirty years a stopping place for teamsters hauling lumber from the mountains.
  hereafter, and the teams will never re- urn.
 When the Hume has passed Toll House it has entered the foothills and he excitement is over. The way leads 'or twenty miles down a narrow val ey and the passengers in the boat have nothing to alarm them as they glide dong so smoothly and peacefully that f they shut their eyes they would fall asleep, The speed grows ess as the plains are approached, and LOW and then vineyards or an orange orchard are seen standing in pleasing contrast with the ice and water coldness if the mountains, now 4,Q00 feet above. l From the foot of the hills the distance O the of the Hume at Clovis Is about | welve miles and the speed lessens all | he time Before the end is reached the | Iume- boat passes over fine vineyards, in | which even so late in the season as De- | ember large quantities of grapes load | he vines
 The end came at last, and so slowly | vas the little boat moving that the | ouch of a hand was sufficient to bring | { to stop, and the romantic ride of | fty-two miles was done It has occu- lied four hours, and the boat in that ime had carried it's passengers from |
 region of winter with it's ice and now, into country where grapes still | laded the vines.-Pittsburg Gazette.