The following pages are the outcome of three Tourneys, two of them of considerable length, through the Yosemite region of the Sierra Nevada, and of a resulting desire to acquaint the nature-loving public with the attractions more particularly of the less known areas of the locality. The writer has preferred not to limit his work to the specific uses of a guide-book, but has allowed a natural propensity for a loose rein and discursive observation to dictate its range; with the result, he hopes, of a gain in variety and interest both to the general reader and to the prospective and retrospective wayfarer in the region. The volume will be found, however, to have also much of the value of a guide-book for the traveller on the ground, and with this point in view it is furnished with a map.

Especially it has been the design of the writer to direct the attention of mountaineers and lake-lovers to the fact, almost unknown even among devotees of the out-of-doors, that there exists in the Sierra Nevada a lake-land of incomparable richness and peculiar diversity of charm: where lakes are sprinkled like stars, exceeding the possibility of distinguishing them by name. The time is coming when the highlands of this great Californian range, which it is not too grandiose to call the Alps of our country, with its superb features of mountain, forest, river, glacier, lake, and meadow, and lying under a climate of unequalled regularity and perfection, will be the playground of America. It is largely the purpose of this volume to expedite the day.

Los Angeles, California.

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