Likewise _Tallac_ is not pronounced with the accent on the last
syllable (as is generally heard), but _Tal['x]-ac_.

While these niceties of pronunciation are not of vast importance, they
preserve to us the intonations of the original inhabitants, who, as
far as we know, were the first human beings to gaze upon the face of
this ever-glorious and beautiful Lake.

When Mark Twain and Thomas Starr King visited Tahoe it was largely in
its primitive wildness, though logging operations for the securing of
timber for the mines of Virginia City had been going on for some time
and had led to the settlement at Glenbrook (where four great saw mills
were in constant operation so long as weather permitted), and
the stage-road from Placerville to Virginia City demanded
stopping-stations, as Myers, Yanks, Rowlands and Lakeside.

But to-day, while the commercial operations have largely ceased, the
scenic attractions of Lake Tahoe and its region have justified the
erection of over twenty resorts and camps, at least two of them
rivaling in extent and elaborateness of plant any of the gigantic
resort hotels of either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, the others
varying in size and degree, according to the class of patronage they
seek. That these provisions for the entertainment of travelers, yearly
visitors, and health seekers will speedily increase with the years
there can be no doubt, for there is but one Lake Tahoe, and its lovers
will ultimately be legion. Already, also, it has begun to assert
itself as a place of summer residence. Fifteen years ago private
residences on Lake Tahoe might have been enumerated on the fingers of
the two hands; now they number as many hundreds, and the sound of
the hammer and saw is constantly heard, and dainty villas, bungalows,