en

provised seats of our carriage, and the carriage itself was in rapid motion. General Stuart's mulatto servant Bob, who was to accompany the instrumental performance with his inimitable rattle of the bones, followed us with a led horse for Captain Phillips, in case the violent jarring of our vehicle should prove too much for one not accustomed to such rude transportation. As an expert driver I had taken the reins in my own hands, the mules being rather difficult to manage from having run off several times with their accustomed teamster. So we rattled along through the cold starlight night, waking the echoes of the woods with song, and creating a sensation in many encampments route, from which the soldiers ran out and cheered us as we passed. All went well for a little time, when Major Terrell, who somewhat prided himself on his driving, proposed to take the reins-a change of position to which I consented the more readily, because I felt a great desire to unite in the animated conversation and merriment going on behind me. Our rate of progress now became greatly accelerated, and the rapid clatter of the hoofs of our fleet animals on the hard-frozen road, just covered with snow, struck pleasantly on the ear, as all began to partake of the agreeable excitement which great velocity of movement generally produces, when suddenly, with a loud crash and a heavy thump, the waggon, overturning, projected its inmates in various directions fully ten paces out upon the snow. Fortunately for us, the mules, struck dumb with astonishment most probably at this unexpected turn in affairs, remained very quietly in their tracks, while the scattered members of our party gathered themselves up to examine into the extent of the disaster. Nobody having received serious injury, though all were more or less bruised, we were in condition to

be diverted at the accident, and heartily to deride Major Terrell, who had managed to upset us by driving directly against a stump several feet in circumference and as many feet in height. The waggon having marvellously escaped, to all appearance, without a fracture, it was soon set up again, and Major Terrell, not without some cavil, having been reinstated as driver, away we went on our journey not less rapidly than before. But the severe thump against the tremendous stump had been, alas! the coup de grace for the dear old yellowpainted Yankee van, which was to carry us no more. After creaking and groaning very painfully for a mile or two, the back part of it all at once gave way everywhere, landing us rudely once more on the snowy ground. Captain Blackford was the chief sufferer from the casualty, one of the wheels, which had been violently detached from the axletree by the shock, having passed directly over his head, cutting so deep a gash in it that we had to employ all our pocket-handkerchiefs in making bandages to stanch the flow of blood. We were now no longer in a frame of mind to laugh over our misfortunes, for we were yet four miles from our place of destination; around us lay the wide forest of the Wilderness, with no human dwelling within striking distance, and above us was the intense wintry night. A return to camp was not to be thought of, as it would have subjected us to the endless ridicule of our comrades. A council of war was at once held over the ruins of the waggon. Our English guest, who had borne all the discomforts and mishaps of our journey with soldierly nonchalance, was left to decide upon our course, and his decision was that we should go on. Indeed, the unanimous vote of our party, including even poor wounded Captain Blackford, was de faire bonne mine au mauvais jeu, and carry out the original expedition in the best way

that we could manage it. The two fore-wheels of the waggon, to which the mules still remained hitched, being uninjured, and securely connected by the axletree, Captain Phillips, Dabney, and myself seated ourselves on this narrow base; the four other gentlemen mounted the four mules, the musicians mounted the led horse, and so this extraordinary caravan proceeded on its way. After an hour of torture, during which the headlong speed of our team over the rough plank-road had given to the sufferers on the axletree the sensation of riding on a razor, we reached the scene of the evening's festivity. The mansion was brilliantly lighted up, many fair ones had already assembled, and the whole company awaited, with impatience and anxiety, the arrival of their distinguished guests and the promised music. Sweeney lost no time in his orchestral arrangements. In a very few minutes the banjo vibrated under his master hand, the two fiddles shrieked in unison, and Bob's bones clat

tered their most hideous din; and in the animated beat of the music, and the lively measures of the dance, we soon forgot the little désagrémens of our journey. Our English captain entered into the fun quite as heartily as any of us. If there was no magnificent hall, with the light showering down from a thousand wax candles on the brilliant toilettes of Europe, to call forth our admiration, there were many pretty faces and sparkling eyes worth looking into; and it was quite delightful to see our foreign friend winding through the mazes of many bounding quadrilles and Virginia reels with an evident enjoyment of the same. After several hours of mirth and dancing, we accepted the kind offer of our host to lend us one of his own waggons for our return to headquarters, where we arrived a short time before daybreak, little thinking how soon we should be aroused by the notes of a very different music from that of Sweeney's orchestra.

A VISIT TO

WE were in San Francisco, the Golden City of California, the paradise of North Pacificans, and there were many wonders to be seengold and silver mines, where hundreds of tons of quartz rock are crushed daily, and millions of dollars extracted yearly; the cinnabar mine of New Almaden, which supplies quicksilver to the whole world; Yo Semite, the loveliest of valleys, where, amongst the grand mountains of the Sierra Nevada, a river leaps down from a height of 2700 feet, and forms the waterfall of the Bridal Veil, the highest in the world. There were geysers, caves, the islands of the sea-lions, and the "Mammoth Trees;" there was a Russian fleet in the harbour, "the Beautiful Menken at the Theatre, and the "Living Skeleton" at the

Museum. We were fairly bewildered by the multiplicity of strange sights awaiting our curious eyes, uncertain which to choose. After mature deliberation, we decided to bend our steps in the first place to the Mammoth Tree Grove, in Calaveras county, about 150 miles east of San Francisco, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. We went on board the Cornelia, accordingly, one evening, and steamed all night up the San Joaquin, a tributary of the Sacramento —a narrow muddy stream, running in a most tortuous channel through an extensive marshy delta. The tall reeds which covered the flat expanse were on fire for miles, almost to the water's edge, and we made our way through a sea of flame and smoke, the whole country being

lighted up by the vast conflagration. At eight o'clock the following morning we reached Stockton city, and then took the stage-waggon for Columbia, fifty-eight miles distant, and thirteen from the Big Tree Valley. The first portion of the road lay along a broad rich valley, brought almost entirely under the plough, where the undisturbed stubbles told of a fertility unknown in the Old World; for so generous is the soil, that luxuriant crops spring up in the second year with out the labour of man, the grain shaken out in the gathering of the first harvest being sufficient for the succeeding one, a "volunteer crop." Although it was past mid-winter -the end of January-the weather was bright and warm as the most genial May; rows of oleanders and heliotropes bloomed in the gardens, ignorant of wintry cold, and strawberries ripened on the sunniest slopes.

Towards evening we began to ascend the lowest swells of the Sierra Nevada, and entered a country less luxuriantly fertile than the Stockton Valley, and met with numerous monuments of the old "placer" diggings in the shape of "flumes," or wooden aqueducts for bringing water to the mines, and flats where thickly - massed boulders of granite and quartz, uncovered by the miners' work, told of streams which ran there in times gone by, and brought down the golden gravel discovered in the ancient bed. As night closed in we passed through the town of Sonora, and six miles more brought us to Columbia, where we stayed the night at a rough hotel, kept by a Welshman named Morgan.

As the stage did not run beyond this, we hired a buggy and pair and drove over to "Murphy's," a mining town thirteen miles distant, and thenceforward through a picturesque hilly country, where grew in scattered clusters many species of pine, the arbutus, and white jessamine, with evergreen

oaks, whose boughs bore numerous branches of mistletoe. The road wound higher and higher up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and at dusk we reached the valley of the Mammoth Tree Grove, 4000 feet above the sea. The weather continued fine and the sky cloudless, but at this height the evening air was sharp and frosty, and a thin carpet of snow covered the ground. After a short drive through a forest of lofty pines, we came in sight of the hotel; and 100 yards in front of it, guarding on each side the entrance to its grounds, grew two of the giant trees. These, named "The Sentinels," although by no means the largest, are very handsome, and of sufficient magnitude to strike the stranger with astonishment, for their height is over 300 feet, and the diameter about 20 feet. 20 feet. At Sperry & Perry's hotel at Murphy's, where we had dined, we had been informed that the hotel at the Mammoth Tree Grove, also kept by Sperry & Perry, or Perry & Sperry, was closed for the winter; but Mr Sperry or Mr Perry (it is impossible to say which) kindly offered to accompany us and open the house for our accommodation, and we carried him along with us in our buggy. It was sunset when we got in, and Sperry or Perry hastened to prepare supper, whilst we had a look in the twilight at The Sentinels and the "Big Tree," so called par excellence, although it is not the greatest amongst the giants. Its huge trunk now lies mutilated on the ground, having been felled a few years ago, as we were told, to furnish material for walking-sticks, which were eagerly bought by curiosity-hunters. Five men were set to work on it, and it took them twenty-five days to accomplish the task! It was hopeless to attempt to cut it down with axes, and it was therefore bored with augers, and the intermediate spaces sawn through, and, finally, a wedge and battering-ram were required to effect the fall of the

severed trunk, which stood firmly perpendicular when completely cut through. The stump measures 96 feet in circumference at the base; and the top, cut smooth and even, is 25 feet diameter, without reckoning the bark, which is about 3 feet more. Upon it is built a round wooden house-a ball-room it is called; and a circular room nearly 10 yards in diameter is no mean dancing saloon. It is said that thirty-two people have danced here in four different sets at the same time, and theatrical performances have been given on the expansive top of this wonderful stump. Near the stump lies a section of the trunk; and some idea of the size of this may be gained from the fact that the writer, a man of 5 ft. 11 in., could barely touch the centre at the smaller end, standing on tiptoe, while at the larger he could in the same manner touch a point about one-third of the whole diameter. The rest of the vast fallen trunk, 302 feet long, had been dressed level, and seemed like a broad terrace-walk, with two bowl. ing alleys made on it side by side. The amount of timber in this tree is calculated at 500,000 cubic feet! and its age estimated from the annual rings at 3000 years! Before we had sufficiently inspected and wondered at the Big Tree it became dark, and we entered the hotel, where Mr Sperry or Perry had supper ready for us, and in the evening told us the history of the Great Trees.

They were not discovered until the year 1850, when a Mr Dowd, who was out hunting, was led by a herd of deer which he was following into the Big Tree Valley. He stopped as one enchanted, feeling like Gulliver when lost in the field of barley in Brobdignag-the deer were forgotten, and he gazed with utter astonishment on monsters of vegetation such as he had never even dreamed of as existing in the world. He told his companions of his adventure on his return, but all

laughed at his story as a barefaced attempt to impose upon their credulity; and it was with the greatest difficulty he succeeded in inducing some of them to accompany him to the spot, and verify his statements by actual inspection and measurement.

The newly-discovered trees, called Washingtonia gigantea by Americans, and Wellingtonia gigantea by Englishmen, puzzled the botanists sorely. Some declared them to be a species of cedar, which they certainly closely resemble; others, again, considered them to be of the family of the Taxodia; while Professor Lindley doubted whether a new order would not have to be made for them; and it still appears undecided to what order they properly belong. The seed has been largely exported, and young Wellingtonias may be seen gracing many an English lawn. Yet, strange to say, although the seed grows readily, and the trees flourish with rich luxuriance wherever they have been planted, both here and in America, they are, in the natural order of things, limited to two tiny valleys about fifty miles apart. Not a single tree of the kind, except those which have been lately planted by the hand of man, is known to

exist out of the Calaveras and Mariposa valleys. They have never spread from their quiet nooks in the Sierra Nevada, and have remained hidden in its recesses for hundreds, perchance thousands, of years, until discovered in the manner related.

We turned out early next morning into the fresh frosty air, and after breakfast wandered about the grove for several hours, amid a scene of wonders, the mere description of which we should have laughed at as a traveller's tale. There are about one hundred trees of this species, of every age and size, intermingled with various kinds of pines, yews, and deciduous shrubs, and all standing within an area of about fifty acres.

The younger ones are singularly graceful and handsome, but those of mature growth-a few thousand years old perhaps - are a little withered at the top. The enormous trunks are bare and branchless for from 100 to 130 feet, and the boughs seem small in proportion to the central stem.

The effect of the mighty columns rising thickly round, and towering on high, some burnt hollow, in whose cavities a company of soldiers might almost find shelter; others uninjured, solid and massive, the largest and the oldest of living organisms on earth, monuments of ages past, when there were giants in the land, is almost awesome. The great sugar-pines of 300 feet high, and 10 or 12 feet diameter, kings of the forest elsewhere, seemed mere dwarfs beside those Wellingtonias; and as we walked about, pigmy and insignificant, we half expected to see the strange forms of extinct giants of the animal world, the mammoth or the mastodon of ages still more remote, come crashing through the timber, or the pterodactyl winging its way amongst the colossal vegetation. There stood the "Mother of the Forest," withered and bare, her full height 327 feet, her girth 78 feet without the bark, for this had been removed from 116 feet of the lower portion of the trunk, and the scaffolding erected for the purpose still stood round the tree. This outer shell thus removed is now put up, we believe, in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Thus the two finest trees growing when the forest was first discovered

have both been wantonly destroyed for the gratification of curiositylovers. There is, however, a still greater than these, decayed and fallen-a stupendous ruin lying half-buried in the ground. It appears to have been destroyed by the fire which has evidently devastated the grove years ago, for many of the standing trees are partially charred, and this one has been burnt into a hollow shell. At the base its girth is 112 feet, and we walked inside the tunnel through the trunk for 200 feet with our hats on. Great must have been the fall of the "Father of the Forest;" and numerous large trees have been overthrown or broken off by it when it crashed to the ground. 300 feet from the root it snapped in two, and the upper portion of it has decayed away, and almost all trace of it has disappeared; but at the point of fracture, or 200 feet from the base, its circumference is 54 feet (18 feet diameter). According, therefore, to the average taper of the other trees, the unbroken stem must have been at least 435 feet high

more than twice the height of the Monument, 95 feet higher than the great chimney at Saltaire, and 30 feet higher than the top of the cross which crowns the dome of St Paul's Cathedral!

The fresh ripe cones of the Wellingtonias strewed the ground, and of these we gathered a plentiful stock; and then, having sufficiently gratified our curiosity, we took to our buggy once more, and on the following day regained that luxurious city San Francisco.

VOL XCIX.-NO. DCIV.