Next day (June 5th) we left the Yosemite with the satisfactory assurance that we had made the most of our time, though we could not believe we had done it justice. There were some small "nuages" on the face of our "Mirror Lake," caused by changes in the mode of conveyance; but we found six horses and one of the coaches of the country were better than four horses and two carriages of less capacity. Yosemite, I may tell my readers, means "Grizzly Bear" (it may be "Great Grizzly Bear"); but we only heard of one having been thereabouts for a long time, and I believe it was thoroughly tamed. After a glorious day in the woods, clambering up the steep from the Valley, and then on by the road--the only one--to Clarke's, halted there for the night, when we returned from a ceremonious visit to the "Big Trees." We had a most delightful ride from Bruce's, and a hard canter back through the woods on capital ponies, full of life and action, and very sure-footed, but rather inclined to have their own way, which was not always that of the rider. We turned into bed at Bruce's, quite delighted with our expedition, and rather anxious to see the road we had traversed in the dark by the garish light of day. Every traveller's tale, and every guide-book of recent date relating to this part of the world, has a full account of the dimensions, number, appearance, and condition of these wonders of the world. They are either prostrate, mutilated, or decaying; not one has survived the stormy life he must have led for some 3000 years--a few hundreds more or less do not signify. Those which remain upright are scarred by fire and lightning, and drop their monster arms, hung with ragged foliage and sheets of bright moss, mournfully over the ground where their trunks will repose in time to come. I cannot conceive any object of the kind so magnificent as one of those Washingtonias in the full vigour of mature treehood; but we could only fancy what it must have been like by measuring the stems, for there was not anywhere in the forest a tree to be seen which had not suffered. The best way to visit the scene--for it may well be called so--is to strike out from the road on the way to the Yosemite before the halt at Bruce's; but the hotel-keepers and stage-drivers will persuade the stranger, if they can, to defer the excursion till his return from the Valley, so as to make a half-day more out of him.