A few miles beyond Wawona is a stage-station called Fresno, which is within the limits of another grove of mammoth trees, the largest of which is thirty-two feet in diameter at the butt, and there are probably 100 or more that measure as much as twenty feet through. Just beyond Fresno, we enter the far-famed and truly marvelous region of the Yosemite (which, in the Indian tongue, signifies a “grizzly bear”), that great heart of the Sierras which beats in mountain and breaks in waterfall. This wondrous valley, running along the western base of the Sierra Nevada range, is a comparatively level area, but it lies fully 4,000 feet above sea level, and is nine miles long, by an average of one mile wide. The remarkable feature of this valley, aside from its special curiosities and mammoth configurations, is the fact that it is enclosed by granite walls of almost unbroken continuity, which present perpendicular faces ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 feet in height. The valley was discovered May 6, 1851, by the Mariposa battalion, in command of Major James D. Savage, which had been sent against the Yosemite Indians, to punish them for outrages perpetrated against the miners in the counties of Mariposa, Fresno, Tuolumne and Inyo. Up to this time the valley was known to whites only through Indian traditions, which represented the region as one of great beauty, but the abode of witches and evil spirits. Upon the discovery, however, it was found to be a place of refuge for the Indians; and within its boundaries, therefore, some desperate fighting took place between the California rangers and the Yosemite Indian marauders, in which there were heavy losses on both sides, and many acts of shocking cruelty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: SEAL ROCKS AND CLIFF HOUSE AT THE GOLDEN GATE, SAN FRANCISCO.—This is one of the many popular resorts near the city of San Francisco. It affords a fine view of the Golden Gate entrance to the harbor, and the coming and going of the ships. The rocks in front of the hotel are nearly always covered with seals, or sea-lions, whose barking and plunging in the water add variety and interest to the scene. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: GLACIER POINT, YOSEMITE.]