I was informed by one of the few ladies who had been to the Valley, whom I met in San Francisco, that it was next to an impossibility to accomplish the journey without arraying myself in a Bloomer costume. Pardon me that I recoiled at this. I feel that my charms are not so numerous that I can afford to lessen them by the adoption of this most ungraceful and most unbecoming of dresses; but when she assured me that it was almost a necessary precaution against being thrown from the horse to ride astride, I saw at once that my time had come, and a Bloomer costume I must wear. The dressmaker to whom I applied had made others, and needed no instructions when I told her I was going to the Yo Semite. She carved me out a costume; but pardon me once more if I shrink from the task of describing it. It was simply hideous. . . . To California women who think nothing of jumping astride an unbroken horse and riding him bareback, the trip to Yo Semite presents few hardships. I refer to women who live in the mountain towns, for California city women are, like most city women, dainty and delicate. Very few of these visit Yo Semite, believe me. . . . |