It was a hot August day; the sun, in the zenith, shining with full power.  My blood was at boiling heat with exercise and vexation.  Alternately sliding and walking, catching hold of rocks and twigs, drinking at every rivulet, covered with dust, dripping with perspiration, skirts, gloves, and shoes in tatters, for four long hours I struggled down to the end, when I laid myself out on the grass, and fell asleep, perfectly exhausted, having sent the guide to tell Mr. Hutchins that I had reached the valley, and, as I could neither ride nor walk, to send a wheelbarrow, or four men with a blanket to transport me to the hotel.  That very day the Mariposa Company had brought the first carriage into the valley, which, in due time, was sent to my relief.  Miss Anthony, who, with a nice little Mexican pony and narrow saddle, had made her descent with grace and dignity, welcomed me on the steps of the hotel, and laughed immoderately at my helpless plight.

As hour after hour had passed, she said, there had been a general wonderment as to what had become of me; “but did you ever see such magnificent scenery?” “Alas!” I replied, “I have been in no mood for scenery.  I have been constantly watching my hands and feet lest I should come to grief.”  The next day I was too stiff and sore to move a finger.  However, in due time I awoke to the glory and grandeur of that wonderful valley, of which no descriptions nor paintings can give the least idea.  With Sunset Cox, the leading Democratic statesman, and his wife, we had many pleasant excursions through the valley, and chats, during the evening, on the piazza.  There was a constant succession of people going and coming, even in that far-off region, and all had their adventures to relate.  But none quite equaled my experiences.

We spent a day in the Calaveras Grove, rested beneath the “big trees,” and rode on horseback through the fallen trunk of one of them.  Some vandals sawed off one of the most magnificent specimens twenty feet above the ground, and, on this the owners of the hotel built a little octagonal chapel.  The polished wood, with bark for a border, made a very pretty floor.  Here they often had Sunday services, as it held about one hundred people.  Here, too, we discussed the suffrage question, amid these majestic trees that had battled with the winds two thousand years, and had probably never before listened to such rebellion as we preached to the daughters of earth that day.

Here, again, we found our distinguished statesmen immortalized, each with his namesake among these stately trees.  We asked our guide if there were any not yet appropriated, might we name them after women.  As he readily consented, we wrote on cards the names of a dozen leading women, and tacked them on their respective trees.  Whether Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Phoebe Couzins, and Anna Dickinson still retain their identity, and answer when called by the goddess Sylvia in that majestic grove, I know not.  Twenty-five