the southwest, half way down the mountain side, we see a lovely little lake, which seems the abode of fairies. No human habitation is within miles of it, and it is the haunt of wild game, hare, rabbits, quail, doves, even grizzly bears it is said, are sometimes to be found there. As we look down upon it, we see a herd of brown deer wading around in its clear waters, or lying at ease under the broad spreading live oaks around it. We could sit and gaze and dream for days, if we had the time to spare, and even then not be able to recount the half of the glories and the beauties of the wondrous panorama of mountain, plain, river, ocean, city, village, bay, forest, and boundless valley spread before us.
But the sun is already climbing high overhead, and approaching the meridian, and we have at least forty good miles ride yet before nightfall; so we hastily discuss our luncheon, wondering all the time, as we look down from the heights to which we have climbed, at the stupidity of those who dwell in the land below us. Of the two hundred and fifty thousand people who glance up at the peak where we are sitting, every day of their lives, not a thousand ever stood where we are standing, and beheld what we behold. And yet people leave San Francisco by every steamer to travel over Europe, or climb the pigmy heights of Mount Washington or the Catskills in search of the grand and beautiful in nature, and the "Colfax party" crossed the continent in search of wonders, and missed the grandest scene of all. Well, this is a very queerworld.
Luncheon finished, we make a punch from the last
