632 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1872, 
local irritation. And in the tendril the coiling below 
is just a continuation of the same movement or same 
change as that which incurved the tip in clasping, 
that is, a relative shortening of concave or lengthen- 
ing of the convex side of the tendril. Would you not 
infer that the action was propagated downward ? 
So you were astonished at Mrs. Gray’s audacity. 
Well, “toujours l’audace;” she is all the better for 
it. Some horseback work in getting to and into the 
Yosemite Valley was severe, but she bore it so well 
that I ventured, when we made our detour into the 
Colorado Rocky Mountains, to take her up to the sum- 
mit of Gray’s Peak, 14,300 feet, or thereabouts, where 
she acquitted herself nobly. The day was perfect, the 
success complete, and the memory of it one of the 
most delightful of the many pleasant memories of the 
whole journey. Our great trip was the round from 
San Francisco to Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, 
entering over Glacier Point, from which (tell your 
sons) is a new trail down the 4,000 feet into the 
valley ; made excursions from the valley during several 
days, and returned by a long sweep through the little 
Tuolumne grove, round foothills to Murphy’s and the 
Calaveras Grove, and so back to San Francisco. 
Afterwards Mrs. Gray and I went to Santa Cruz and 
up the San Lorenzo Valley among noble redwoods, 
rivaling the Sequoia gigantea. On return we made 
one stretch to the east base of the Rocky Mountains, 
then down to Denver, and up into the mountains, to 
8,400 feet, where we had a pleasant week or more (just 
the climate to give strength to an invalid), whence 
I climbed a high mountain or two, among them Gray’s 
Peak, the highest, as already mentioned. Thence we 
came down to Dubuque and hot weather, on the Mis- 
