It was near 4 o'clock when the driver, who had been silent for some time, looking round at us occasionally as one who would say, "Wait a little till I surprise you," suddenly pulling up, said, "Now, here you are. This is Fascination Point! Won't you get down a bit?" And, lo! there indeed lay before us a scene of indescribable grandeur. I know nothing like the effect produced by Yosemite Valley when seen for the first time from this point. It has a characteristic which no other similar view I am acquainted with possesses. You take in at one glance stupendous mountain-ranges, all but perpendicular, beyond which you see the snowy crests of the great Sierra, the profound valley between them, a long vista of extraordinary magnificence, of cascades and precipitous waterfalls, and far down below a silvery river rushing through a forest composed of the noblest trees in the world, with patches of emerald-green sward and bright meadows. I see that by a slip of the pen I have miscalled the place from which we got our first view of the wondrous scene. But I have a right to change the name for my own use. What the driver said was "Inspiration Point." I prefer my mistake, for the view inspires you with no feeling save that of wonder and delight. These sublime scenes appear to be beyond the reach of poetry. Niagara and the Yosemite have not yet found a laureate. The peculiar and unique feature of the valley seems to me to be the height and boldness of the cliffs which spring out from the mountain-sides like sentinels to watch and ward over the secrets of the gorge; next to that is the number and height of the waterfalls; but it is only by degrees and by comparison that the mind takes in the fact that the cliffs are not hundreds, but thousands of feet high--that these bright, flashing, fleecy cataracts fall for thousands of feet--that the rent which has been torn in the heart of the mountains, till it is closed by the awful granite portals beyond which no mortal may pass, extends for miles. I thought as I gazed that it were pity to descend, lest a nearer view might destroy the effect of that _coup d'oeil_; but the driver had regulated the period for rapture. He whipped us up to our places by word of mouth, and the carriages renewed their course, now striking by bold zigzags down into the valley for our destination, which was still six miles away. I shall not attempt to describe my own feelings, far less can I pretend to tell what others, probably far more susceptible of the beauty and grandeur of what we beheld than I am, may have felt at the succession of the awe-inspiring revelations of the tremendous grandeur of the Valley which came upon us. What is the use of rolling off a catalogue of names and figures?--even the brush of the painter, charged with the truest colours and guided by the finest hand and eye, could never do justice--that is, could never give a just idea of these cliffs and waterfalls. "El Capitan! Oh, that's the name, is it? Three thousand