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Show 150 WESTERN WILDS. to the very walls of the inclosure the dirt is washed away down to an unsightly mass of bare, gray rocks, leaving the church- yard by rare grace perched upon an eminence ten feet above the placer flats. There the rude forefathers of this mountain hamlet dead miners by scores lie in " pay dirt'- fit resting place and their living com-panions seem to have barely respected their last repose. Over all this region, with rare exceptions, is a peculiar air of abandon and decay; worked- out placers, deserted cabins, dry flumes and sluice-boxes falling to pieces, look as though the site were haunted by the ghost of former prosperity. Fifteen miles of comfortable staging in the valley of the Tuolumne bring us to Chinese Camp, originally set-tled by Mongolians working " old diggings," but since mining gave place to agriculture, settled by the whites. A few hundred Chinese remain, and as we pass the outskirts of the town, we note a rude " frame tent and beside it a dozen China women chattering and howl-ing alternately, and learn that a sick Chinaman has been removed there to die. These people never allow one to die in their cabins, if it can be decently prevented. Here we change again to the stoutest of mountain wagons; for, we are kindly assured, all the pounding we have suffered is child's play to what is to come. Fifteen miles of stony up- grade bring us to Gar-rote, which we reach at nine P. M., and gladly sink to sleep. It seems that we have but closed our eyes to half forget in sleep the beauties or toils of the way, when at three A. M. the call comes to take a fresh start. We take the invariable " eye- opener " of ice- cooled Cal-ifornia white wine, and after a hasty breakfast are off into a dense forest, the daylight breaking grandly through the green arches and casting great scallops of light and shade to cheer the still sleepy trav-elers. We are out of the foothills, and upon the spurs of the mount-ains. The streams are clear as crystal and delightfully cold, for we are far above the mining districts and near their snowy sources. Vast forests of redwoods and sugar pine, the trees from two to eight feet in thickness, shade the way. At every pause we hear a strange, solemn murmur from far above our heads, a gentle swell as the mount-ain breeze thrills the tree tops, like the far- off diapason of a mon-strous organ, or a gentle tremulo stealing upon the senses with a music all the more subtle that it can not be described. My compan-ion, Mr. J. W. Bookwalter, of Springfield, Ohio, compares the scenery to that of a Florida forest of a winter morning. One by one all who started with us have stopped to rest, but being old travelers, we have held on, and to- day have the coach to ourselves. |