[62 MY LIFE 



water-rockets, is wonderfully beautiful. To enjoy tin's valley 



and its surroundings in perfection, a small party should conn' 



with baggage-mules and tents, as early in tin- season as pos- 

 sible when the falls are at their grandest and the flowers in 

 their Spring beauty, and where, by camping at different sta- 

 tions in the valley and in the mountains and valleys around it, 

 all its wonderful scenes of grandeur and beauty could be 

 explored and enjoyed. It is one of the regrets of my Ameri- 

 can tour that I was unable to do this. 



Returning- from the Nevada Falls on foot, I had the ad- 

 vantage of passing close to the lower Vernal Fall, where a 

 natural parapet of rock enables one to look over and almost 

 touch the water at the brink of the fall, which shoots clear of 

 the rock and falls four hundred feet. Here, with great skill 

 and daring, a series of ladders have been constructed from 

 ledge to ledge to near the foot of the fall, whence a thor- 

 oughly alpine path leads down to the main valley. Growing 

 in clefts of the rock, and wetted by the spray of the fall, was 

 the beautiful Pcntstcmon Ncwberryi — a dwarf shrub with 

 deep red flowers, more like those of some ericaceous plant 

 than a pentstemon. On the return journey I noted several 

 interesting plants. At Crockett's (where we dined), a little 

 beyond the summit, there was a vase full of the beautiful 

 orchis Cypripedium montanum, which they told me grew in 

 the bogs near; and I also found the brilliant scarlet Silene 

 California!. Lower down, the Calochortus venustus was 

 abundant and in richly varied colour, the curious Brodicoa 

 volnbilis, and the handsome blue B. grandiflora. 



On our way back I turned off at the foot of the hills to 

 visit the Calaveras Grove of big trees which my brother and 

 niece had seen before, and I had to sleep on the way. I 

 stayed three days, examining and measuring the trees, collect- 

 ing flowers, and walking one day to the much larger south 

 grove six miles off, where there are said to be over a thou- 

 sand full-grown trees. The walk was very interesting, over 

 hill and valley, through forest all the way, except one small 

 clearing. At a small rocky stream I found the large Saxi- 

 fraga peltata growing in crevices of rocks just under water, 



