Now we curve around high up above Emerald Bay, that small glacial Lake, the eastern terminal moraine of which was unfortunately torn through, so that the lake disappeared and became a bay of the great Lake itself.  Every moment of this portion of the ride is a delight.  The senses are kept keenly alert, for not only have we the Lake, the bay and the mountains, but part of the way we have flowers and shrubs by the thousands, bees and butterflies flit to and fro, and singing streams come foaming white from the snowbanks above, eager to reach the Lake.  As our car-wheels dash across these streamlets they splash up the water on each side into sparkling diamonds and on every hand come up the sweet scents of growing, living things.  Now Mt.  Tallac, in all his serene majesty, looms ahead.  Snow a hundred or more feet deep in places covers his rocky sides.  Here we can see where glaciers were born in the early days when Tallac was several thousand feet higher than it now is.

Below us is the emerald-ringed bay, with its romantic little island at the west end, and nearby the joyously-shouting Eagle Creek as it plunges over the precipice and makes the foam-flecked Eagle Falls.  Our road here was blasted through some fiercely solid and hostile rock.  One boulder alone that stood in the way weighed (it was estimated by the engineers) from 800 to 1000 tons.  Fifty cases of highly explosive powder were suitably placed all around it.  Excursion steamers took hundreds of people from all parts of the Lake to see the explosion, and at the proper moment, while everybody held his breath, the fuses were fired, the blasts took effect, the rock flew down to the level beneath, shattered into four great masses.  A new El Capitan now rises above us, though it lacks the smooth unbroken dignity of the great Yosemite cliff, yet it is sublime in its sudden rise and vast height.  Nestling at its feet is Eagle Lake, and beyond are the Velmas and a score of other glacial jewels calling for visitors to rhapsodize over their beauty.  Maggie’s Peaks are to our right, Eagle Falls to our left, with Emerald Bay, the Island, the Point and the Lake beyond all calling upon us to enjoy them to the full.

We decide to stay here for lunch, and under the shelter of a giant sugar pine a thousand years old, listening to the eternally buoyant song of Eagle Falls, we refresh ourselves with the good lunch put up for us at the Tavern.

Again we push ahead and soon have our first adventure:  The road gang was at work, and we did not expect to go much farther, but they assured us that, save for a few rough places here and there, which they would speedily correct, we need have no fear but that we could get through with ease.  In a score of places, since we left the Tavern, we had crossed little streams of snow-water that had come tumbling down from the banks above.  Suddenly we came to one with a larger volume than most of the others, and the road bed a