Due West: or, Round the World in Ten Months

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Ballou Maturin Murray. Due West: or, Round the World in Ten Months

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

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To circumnavigate the globe in our day is only a question of time and money, the facilities being ample, and the inducements abundant. Intelligently and successfully to consummate such a purpose is an education in itself. The tourist will find all previous study enhanced in value by ocular demonstration, which imparts life and warmth to the cold facts of the chroniclers, besides which a vast store-house of positive information is created which time cannot exhaust. Perhaps the majority of travelers see only that which comes clearly before them; but this they do most faithfully, being possessed of a stronger sense of duty than of imagination. The clear, direct vision of such people has its merit. There are others who both see and feel, to whom the simplest object in its suggestiveness may be full of beauty. It is the latter who pluck delightful mysteries out of travel; and who, after viewing nature, it may be in her calmest moods, bring away with them upon the tablets of memory a Claude Lorraine. The eyes will operate automatically, but it is of little avail unless one exercises the observing power; then they become luminous. You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you, says Joubert. If the author succeeds in imparting to the reader but a share of the great and varied pleasure he realized in the ten months of travel herein recorded, his object in transcribing these experiences will have been fully consummated.

Any divergence from the prescribed route was to be at an additional charge, according to expenses incurred. The money was paid at the outset, and the agreement on both sides fulfilled to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. Thus much it has seemed well to premise for the information of the reader who proposes to follow our course due west, as presented in these pen-and-ink sketches of many lands. It should also be mentioned that the season of the year had been judiciously chosen, so as to bring us into each country at the most favorable period for its healthful and agreeable enjoyment, a calculation which is imperative for any one contemplating a journey of this character. Otherwise, the intense heat of the tropics, as well as the Arctic chills of the north, may render such a trip a hardship rather than a season of pleasure.

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After hours of upward struggle the crowning point was reached. The driver remarked, with a flourish of his whip: "It's all down hill from here;" soon after which we emerged from the forest road and came to the open plateau known to tourists as Inspiration Point. Here the first comprehensive view of the valley is obtained. We paused briefly to behold and to realize, as far as possible, such a scene as might never again be afforded us. Though we were now at an elevation of over seven thousand feet above the plains, the Yosemite Valley itself, from this point, was but about three thousand five hundred feet below us, into which we gazed with uninterrupted view. Running nearly due east and west, it looked small and circumscribed from this great height, but was really a gorge of about eight miles in length by two miles in width. On either side rose vertical cliffs of granite, varying from four to five thousand feet in height, the lofty gorges here and there discharging waterfalls of transparent beauty.

The precipitous mountains which wall in the valley are composed of seventeen distinctive formations, the loftiest of which is Mount Starr King, 5,600 feet in height; but the Three Brothers, with an average height of less than 4,000 feet, and Sentinel Dome, 4,500 feet, are quite as prominent, so far as the ordinary power of vision goes; while El Capitan, which is but 3,300 feet high, seems, from its special position, more striking and effective than the other three. From the gorges above and between the precipitous cliffs, eleven falls, of greater or less magnitude, come tumbling into the valley, the loftiest of which is Sentinel Fall, 3,000 feet high. To our taste, the fall known as the Bridal Veil was the finest of them all in effect, though but a little over 600 feet in height, or say four times as high as Niagara. The lofty Yosemite Fall, over 2,600 feet, can be seen from the piazza of the hotel to good effect, where one can sit and watch the current of air, which sweeps up the valley, play fantastic tricks with the broad glittering sheet of flying water. No pen can adequately describe this scene, and no American who can possibly do so should fail to visit the spot. The abundant moisture of the locality and the vertical rays of the sun carpet the valley with a bright and uniform verdure, through the midst of which winds the swift flowing Merced River, altogether forming a scene of most entrancing beauty.

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