towards us, with a current like that of a thousand Niagaras rolled into one, and the beholder expects every moment to see it come down the slope, cross over the intervening cañon, and overwhelm him; but stay as long as he may, for hours, days, months, or years, it comes never a rod nearer to him. As it meets the hot air ascending from the dry valleys, it is dissipated at a certain point and disappears. You behold a mighty avalanche, white and solid in appearance as Alpine snows, ever advancing to overwhelm you, but never reaching you. Two great eagles with snow-white heads circled around cañon and around over the dark canon below us, in which they had their nest. There was not a sound save that of our own voices to break the stillness of the evening, and, save what I have described, not a sign of life to mar the solitude of the scene. The high, rugged mountains of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, robed in deep-green chemisal and crowned with feathery redwoods, bounded the view on the south, and made a fitting frame for the glorious picture before us. What wonder that we gazed noon the enchanting scene, fairly reveling in the feast of beauty and sublimity nature had spread before us with such a lavish hand, until the gathering shadows of night admonished us that it was time to remount our impatient steeds and descend once more to the valley!
The full, round moon was in the heavens, throwing her mellow light o'er all that fairy landscape, as we descended from the mountain height, and in fancy we were once more wandering in the mountains of
