We are on our way up the valley. The train left San Francisco in the morning. We have crossed the bay and rounded the Contra Costa Mountains, and Mount Diablo, with its majestic twin peaks, lies already behind us. We have just crossed the San Joaquin river not far from its mouth; the west side of the valley is on our right; on the left looms up the Sierra Nevada, far away it is true, but grand and imposing, gradually decreasing, as it were, towards the south, finally to disappear among the clouds at the farther end of the valley. It is in the middle of August; the day is warm, but there has been a shower in the mountains, as is usual at this season of the year, a sprinkling of rain has purified the atmosphere in the foothills, which stand out clear and bright, a contrast to the dusty road in the center of the valley, over which the smoking train carries us at a rapid speed. On both sides of us stretch apparently endless plains, thirty miles wide,--to the Coast Range on one side, to the Sierra Nevada on the other,--plains dry and yellow, parched in the brilliant sun, shaded by no clouds, but cooled by a steady breeze from the northwest following us up the valley. Up, we say, but it is hardly any more up than down, the ascent being about one foot to the mile; it is rather a journey over one of the most level plains on the continent, but still the popular usage insists upon saying “up the valley.” Acres and acres of already harvested grainfields are seen on both sides, crossed by roads at right angles; here and there are stacks of grain which have not yet been threshed, or heaps of straw, where the threshing engine has done its work; on almost every section of land we see a farmhouse and barn, a few gum-trees or cottonwoods, and many a windmill and elevated tank informs us where the farmer gets his water for his house and his scanty trees. All this we see under a blazing sun and a quivering air.