The valley is full of people; the hotels crowded, the camps overflowing.  From early dawn until the setting summer sun has cast long shadows over meadow and stream alike, there is a moving mass of restless people, either mounted on horseback, in vehicles or on foot, going out or coming in from the trails and side excursions.  The walker seemed to get the most fun out of life.  Man and woman are alike khaki clad and sunburned to a berry-brown.  They walk with the easy grace of perfect strength and long practice, and think nothing of “hiking” to the top of Yosemite Falls or Sentinel Peak and back.  One of the favorite trips is to Glacier Point by the Illilouette, Vernal and Nevada Falls, a distance of eleven miles, remaining there all night at a comfortable inn and returning by a shorter route by Sentinel Peak.

Looking up between the rocky walls of the valley, how far away the stars all looked at night!  In that pure atmosphere, how beautiful the sky!  How perfect each constellation!  Each star with peculiar brightness shone.  One’s view of the sky is circumscribed by the height of the cliffs.  Instead of the great arched vault of heaven one usually looks up to, one sees only that part of the sky immediately above the valley.  It was like looking at the heavens from the bottom of a deep, narrow shaft.  I looked in vain for well known beacon lights.  They were not in sight.  The towering cliffs shut them out.  The sky looked strange to me, yet how beautiful it was!  Through the gathering darkness we took one more look at the Yosemite Falls and betook ourselves to bed, to sleep the sleep once enjoyed in the long ago, when as children we returned, tired but happy, from some long outing in the woods.

We Visit the Floor of the Valley.

On the following morning we took in the sights of the floor of the valley.  We rode to Mirror Lake, which, however, did not come up to its reputation.  This summer the entrance to the lake has changed its channel from its west to its east side, and a long sand bar has been deposited in the lake proper, all of which our guide told us marred the reflections usually visible therein.

We passed hundreds of people of all ages walking through the valley.  In visiting the Yosemite you do not realize that the valley is several miles long, and has an average width of about one-half a mile.  The great height of the surrounding walls dwarfs your idea of distance.  Even the trees, many of which are of great size, look small and puny.

The Happy Isles.

We drove to the Happy Isles, small islands covered with trees, around which the river surges in foaming masses.  Standing at the upper end of the one of the Happy Isles, one gets a splendid impression of the cascade effect of the waters, rushing madly down a steep rocky channel, with an irresistible, terrifying force.  The descent of the bed of the stream is very marked.  The waters come over submerged, rocky masses.  Just as you think that maddened torrent must sweep over the island, engulfing you in its course, the stream divides, half of it passing to the right, and half to the left.  These divided waters unite again farther down the valley.