A week ago I could have added here that in the annals of the yacht clubs of San Francisco there has never been a fatal accident, never a drowning, nor a capsizing, nor a wreck, and this covers a period of thirteen years; alas! in a single day, on a cruise such as I have been writing of, there was a shocking death. One yacht nearly foundered, but fortunately escaped into smooth water, another was dashed upon the rocks, and is probably a total wreck; while a third lost her centre-board over a mud bank, where it buried itself, and held the little craft a helpless prisoner; the crew and guests of the latter took to the small boats, pulled three miles in a squall, and were rescued by a passing steamer when they were all drenched to the skin, and well-nigh exhausted. You see that inland yachting is not child's play, nor are these inland yachts without their romantic records. The flag of the San Francisco yacht club has floated among the South Sea Islands; one of its boats has beaten the German and English types in their own waters; one has been as far as the Australian seas; one is a pearl fisher in the Gulf of California, and another is coquetting with the doldrums along the Mexican coast. They are staunch little beauties all, and it would be neither courteous nor healthful to think otherwise in the presence of inland yachtsmen. [Illustration: Telegraph Hill, 1855] IN YOSEMITE SHADOWS "Yosemite, Sept.--: Come at once--the year wanes; would you see the wondrous transformation, the embalming of the dead Summer in windings of purple and gold and bronze--come quickly, before the white pall covers it--delay no longer. The waters are low and fordable, the snows threaten, but the hours are yet propitious; and such a welcome waits you as Solomon in all his glory could not have lavished on Sheba's approaching queen. * * *" There was much more of the same sort of high-toned epistolary rhetoric, written and sent by a dear hand, whose fanciful pen seemed touched by the ambrosial tints of Autumn. So the year was going out in a gorgeous carnival, before the Lent-like solemnity of Winter was assumed. I had only two things to consider now: First, was it already too late to hasten thither, and enjoy the splendid spectacle so freely offered and so alluring; secondly, could I, if yet in time, venture so boldly upon the edge of Winter, and risk the possibility--nay, probability--of being snow-bound for four or six months, 30 miles from any human habitation?