We returned through the meadows from the Falls, and as I was walking in advance of the party a snake wriggled across the path, which I struck at instinctively with my stick, and was lucky enough to kill at the first blow. I exhibited the carcass, or whatever a snake's dead body may be, in triumph to my companions. Further on our way we fell in with an old Frenchman who was carrying a basket of fruit from his little garden to the inn. With all the courtesy of his country, he offered to Lady Green the choicest in his little _corbeille_. He came from Lorraine very long ago to prospect in the States, almost the earliest of the pioneers, but he was still strong and active, and he pointed with great satisfaction up to a white flag planted on a dizzy height above, which he said he had placed with his own hands. The chief livery stable keeper is a German named Stegman. The first ascent of the Dome was made by a young Scotchman named Anderson, from Montrose; so with Indians, Americans, Mexicans, Europeans, there is a very liberal representation of the nations of the world, in the season, in the valley. Mr. Hutchinson, the Conservator of the Valley--one with all the enthusiasm of the American character in everything pertaining to the country, aggravated in this instance by an intense admiration for the valley over which he is appointed to watch--joined us at dinner in the little inn. Full of information, bubbling over with anecdote and illustration, and replete with all kinds of knowledge concentrated upon the one object--the Valley--the Valley--and nothing but the Valley. He knows its history since the time it was first discovered, and its natural history and geological formation, and all about the Indians who lived there and their traditions. It so happened that the Commissioners of the State of California, who are bound to visit the public domains, were also at the hotel, and so we had quite an unofficial and ceremonious meeting; and presently, as we stood in front of the hotel gazing up on the peaks, lighted up by the stars, and listening to the thunder of the waterfall, a startling report burst out on the night, and in another instant the echoes repeated from rock to rock were crashing through the Valley with the roar of heaven's artillery. It was the first gun of a salute ordered by the Commissioners to be fired in honour of the Duke's arrival. The effect was very fine, but I doubt whether I did not feel full of resentment at the outburst, very much as the owls and night-hawks might have been expected to feel, if one could judge from their cries. However, even a salute and echoes must come to an end, and as we were to get up early to start for the Mirror Lake, we turned in to bed at an early hour; not, however, to sleep, because the indefatigable and numerous company in the public room, off which were our bedrooms, were in high spirits, and the song and the dance, to the accompaniment of an invalid piano, for some time asserted their sway.