We reached our camp in the valley without accident. Captain Boling at once gave orders to make preparations for our return to the Fresno. The next day we broke camp and moved down to the lower end of the valley near where we camped on the first night of our discovery, near the little meadow at the foot of the Mariposa Trail. At sunrise the next morning, or rather as the reflections on the cliffs indicated sunrise, we commenced our ascent of the steep trail. As I reached the height of land where the moving column would soon perhaps forever shut out from view the immortal “Rock Chief,” my old sympathies returned, and leaving the command to pursue its heedless way, I climbed to my old perch where Savage had warned me of danger. As I looked back upon El Capitan, his bald forehead was cooling in the breeze that swept by me from the “_Summer land_” _below_, and his cheerful countenance reflected back the glory of the rising sun. Feeling my own inferiority while acknowledging the majesty of the scene, I looked back from Mt. Beatitude, and quoting from Byron, exclaimed: Yosemite! “Thy vale(s) of evergreen, thy hills of snow Proclaim thee Nature’s varied favorite now.” We reached the Fresno without the loss of a captive, and as we turned them over to the agent, we were formally commended for the success of the expedition. CHAPTER XV. The Flora of the Region of the Yosemite--General Description of the Valley and its Principal Points of Interest, with their Heights. A marked and peculiar feature observed in the landscape of the Merced River slopes, while going to the Yosemite, especially on the Coultersville route, is the dense growth of the chamiso and the manzanita. These shrubs are found most abundant below the altitude of the growth of sugar-pine, upon dry, slaty ground; though a larger variety of manzanita, distinguishable by its larger blossoms and fruit, and its love of shade and moist clay-slate soil, may be found growing even among the sugar-pine. A peculiarity of this shrub is, that like the Madroña and some trees in Australia, it sheds a portion of its outer bark annually, leaving its branches beautifully bright and clean. The manzanita, when in full bloom, is one of the most beautiful of shrubs; its delicately tinted and fragrant blossoms filling the air with the perfume of an apple-orchard, while its rich evergreen leaves are only shed as others put forth. The name, manzanita, is Spanish, signifying little apple--the fruit in flavor, but more especially in smell, resembling the apple.