see the efficient corps of Chinese employees who had proven themselves
such valuable servants. It is with some degree of trepidation that I
follow a desire which impels me to describe a bunch of grapes I saw in
this vineyard. I must beg my readers to free me from any taint of the
spirit of the renowned Baron Munchausen, whose intensely magnifying vision
threw its impress upon all objects, but, without the faintest degree of
exaggeration, I can say, that while I am no Lilliputian in size, I stood,
holding with great difficulty, the weight of a single bunch of grapes in
my extended hand, while the other end of it rested upon the ground, nor
would I dare to tell this grape story unless many of my readers were
familiar with the mammoth fruits of California.

After this delightful visit we took the horse car to Santa Clara, and
certainly the world cannot boast of a public route so redolent with beauty
as this. Both sides of the road are shaded with trees of almost a
century's growth; for this "Alameda" was planted by the Jesuit Fathers in
1799. These left the vines and olives of their native Spain, and planted
upon the soil of their new home this grove, which was, doubtless, intended
as a sacred haunt, never dreaming that its sanctity would be invaded by
the sacrilegious sounds of modern civilization, and, above all, by the
rumble of the horse car.

All along this beauteous line of shade, musical with the melody of birds,
are elegant villas, evidently the abodes of wealth and fashion.

Back again to Sacramento, we met Mr. Charles Cummings, who gave us a
general pass over the various stage routes of that portion of the State,
and we at once went to Stockton by rail, where we took the stage for the
celebrated Calevaros trees. So stupendous appeared every tree upon the
route, that a score of times we fancied ourselves nearing the world famed