DISCOVERY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 122, 19 February 1879, Page 3

DISCOVERY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

Close by the edge of the foot lulls in Tuolumne and Mariposa there occurred ever and anon certain drawbacks to fanners’ prosperity. Indians descended from the Sierras and swept cattle and horses from the ranches into the hills. When daylight revealed these depredations a hot pursuit usually began. Eagerly the trail was followed into the hills. Then higher up, through winding glens and along the banks of torrents, into the Sierras it led ; sometimes a tired horse or a dying ox was overtaken, then the trail led still deeper into the tangled fastnesses until, inwild labyrinths of rock, precipice, and forest, it invariably ended, no man could tell where. In two or three days’ time the party of pursuit would emerge from the Sierras with provisions all exhausted, and with bruised or torn limbs. Still the depredations went on. At last a party of farmers met together for a'pursuit, and swore among themselves to stick to the trail, wherever it led, until their cattle had been recovered. They followed the old line through the. foot hills, up the rugged glens into themountains ; tangled brake, steep precipices were passed ; the trail seemed io load everywhere at once. The place was a deep, gloomy ravine, at the bottom of which a mountain torrent roared along an unseen course. Following up the valley the path became lost amid gigantic boulders. Climbing with difficulty Iho rocky sides of tliis valley, the- pursuers found themselves on a broken plateau thickly forested. Wandering on in the hope of again recovering the lost trail, they came all at once upon the edge of a vast depression—the oldest mountain climber among them had never seen such a sight. Straight down beneath, how many tlmusand feet no man could guess, hay a fair ami lovely land. It was not a valley—its sides were perfectly steep, presenting to the eye at the onnnshe a - ’*• * • '' ■

dark low rock. It was not a chasm — becaus-- the floor appeared as a pwlect level, a.--ra-ted with I right given grass, upon tin- surface o! which stately pme trees grew at intervals. In many curves, bending from the farther wall and lout to view under the nearer one on which the party stood, but emerging again into sight near the centre of the space, was seen a clear and beautiful river. As the men crowded along the edge of the stupendous precipice that enclosed this wonderful fairy region, fresh marvels broke upon their sight. They saw many cataracts fall ingin to the valley from great heights : some rolling over the opposing edges in vast colums of water that broke into innumerable jets of spray as they descended into the mid distance beneath; others making’ successive bounds from basin to basin as they pitched head long down : others again, broke into tiniest threads of vapour ere their long descent was done. But to the rough farmers there was a sight even more wonderful than precipices or cataract or crystal river. Below, in the green meadow, they beheld their lost cattle and their stolen horses, appearing - as specks of life in the immense distance beneath, but still clearlydiscernible in an atmosphere of intense clearness. Into this fairy land there must be means of entrance, this great rock wall most possess a door. They set to work eagerly to look for it ; they followed the edge and frequently essayed a descent, but every whore they meet the same sheer rock. At last they reached a spot where the abrupt rock gave place to a descent shelving enough to give root and sustenance to a growth of pine trees. Down this shelving bank they managed to travel for about a thousand feet ; then the escarped rock was again met with. Descending through a kind of causeway opening cut by a watercourse in this wall, they reached again a less abrupt escarpment, and finally, after a many hours of excessive toil, found themselves on the floor of the valleys — 1 Good Words.’