Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/220

182 miles. (Stockton—Yosemite by Big Oak Flat or Coulterville, about 110 miles.)

The rail route to the Trees is via Oakdale (32 miles below Stockton), western terminal of the Sierra Railway. By the through afternoon train Stockton—Oakdale —Jamestown, the latter is reached about half past four. Two hours later the branch train from Jamestown arrives at Angels (stage to Calaveras Trees via Murphys, 22 m.). The main line continues from Jamestown to Tuolumne through Sonora.

It was to Sonora that Bret Harte, a native of Albany, New York, came soon after his arrival in San Francisco in 1852. He mined in a desultory way, then worked as messenger for the express company, then left Sonora (so named because of the many Mexicans in "the diggings") to teach at Tuttletown. Bret Harte's Country lies along the elbow and forearm of California's eastern frontier. Localities involved in his mining stories are scattered, according to his rather faulty geography, from Plumas to Tuolumne Counties, but the graphic names of the camps in the latter county and in its neighbour to the north, Calaveras County, are most familiar to his readers.

The way from Oakdale passes through the apple orchards of the valley to the Sierra foothills at Cooperstown, from which point Table Mountain, associated in the minds of scientists with ethnical