The Approach to the Valley
When I set out on the long excursion that finally
led to California I wandered afoot and alone, from
Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, with a plant-press
on my back, holding a generally southward course, like
the birds when they are going from summer to winter.
From the west coast of Florida I crossed the gulf
to Cuba, enjoyed the rich tropical flora there for
a few months, intending to go thence to the north end
of South America, make my way through the woods to
the headwaters of the Amazon, and float down that
grand river to the ocean. But I was unable to
find a ship bound for South America—fortunately
perhaps, for I had incredibly little money for so
long a trip and had not yet fully recovered from a
fever caught in the Florida swamps. Therefore
I decided to visit California for a year or two to
see its wonderful flora and the famous Yosemite Valley.
All the world was before me and every day was a holiday,
so it did not seem important to which one of the world’s
wildernesses I first should wander.
Arriving by the Panama steamer, I stopped one day
in San Francisco and then inquired for the nearest
way out of town. “But where do you want
to go?” asked the man to whom I had applied
for this important information. “To any
place that is wild,” I said. This reply
startled him. He seemed to fear I might be crazy
and therefore the sooner I was out of town the better,
so he directed me to the Oakland ferry.
So on the first of April, 1868, I set out afoot for
Yosemite. It was the bloom-time of the year over
the lowlands and coast ranges the landscapes of the
Santa Clara Valley were fairly drenched with sunshine,
all the air was quivering with the songs of the meadow-larks,
and the hills were so covered with flowers that they
seemed to be painted. Slow indeed was my progress
through these glorious gardens, the first of the California
flora I had seen. Cattle and cultivation were
making few scars as yet, and I wandered enchanted
in long wavering curves, knowing by my pocket map
that Yosemite Valley lay to the east and that I should
surely find it.
Looking eastward from the summit of the Pacheco Pass
one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that
after all my wanderings still appears as the most
beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the
Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery,
like a lake of pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles
wide, five hundred miles long, one rich furred garden
of yellow Compositoe. And from the eastern boundary
of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra,
miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so
radiant, it seemed not clothed with light, but wholly
composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.
Along the top and extending a good way down, was a
rich pearl-gray belt of snow; below it a belt of blue
