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The
next morning was gray and sour, but brightened and warmed as the
day
went on. After riding twelve miles I got bread and milk for
myself
and
a feed for Birdie at a large house where there were eight
boarders,
each
one looking nearer the grave than the other, and on remounting
was
directed
to leave the main road and diverge through Monument Park, a
ride
of twelve miles among fantastic rocks, but I lost my way, and
came
to
an end of all tracks in a wild canyon. Returning about six miles,
I
took
another track, and rode about eight miles without seeing a
creature.
I then came to strange gorges with wonderful upright rocks
of
all shapes and colors, and turning through a gate of rock, came
upon
what
I knew must be Glen Eyrie, as wild and romantic a glen as
imagination
ever pictured. The track then passed down a valley close
under
some ghastly peaks, wild, cold, awe-inspiring scenery. After
fording
a creek several times, I came upon a decayed-looking cluster of
houses
bearing the arrogant name of Colorado City, and two miles
farther
on, from the top of one of the Foot Hill ridges, I saw the
bleak-looking
scattered houses of the ambitious watering place of
Colorado
Springs, the goal of my journey of 150 miles. I got off, put
on
a long skirt, and rode sidewise, though the settlement scarcely
looked
like a place where any deference to prejudices was necessary. A
queer
embryo-looking place it is, out on the bare Plains, yet it is
rising
and likely to rise, and has some big hotels much resorted to.
It
has a fine view of the mountains, specially of Pike's Peak, but
the
celebrated
springs are at Manitou, three miles off, in really fine
scenery.
To me no place could be more unattractive than Colorado
Springs,
from its utter treelessness.
I
found the -----s living in a small room which served for parlor,
bedroom,
and kitchen, and combined the comforts of all. It is
inhabited
also by two prairie dogs, a kitten, and a deerhound. It was
truly
homelike. Mrs. ----- walked with me to the boarding-house where
I
slept, and we sat some time in the parlor talking with the
landlady.
Opposite
to me there was a door wide open into a bed room, and on a bed
opposite
to the door a very sick-looking young man was half-lying,
half-sitting,
fully dressed, supported by another, and a very
sick-looking
young man much resembling him passed in and out
occasionally,
or leaned on the chimney piece in an attitude of extreme
dejection.
Soon the door was half-closed, and some one came to it,
saying
rapidly, "Shields, quick, a candle!" and then there were movings
about
in the room. All this time the seven or eight people in the room
in
which I was were talking, laughing, and playing backgammon, and
none
laughed
louder than the landlady, who was sitting where she saw that
mysterious
door as plainly as I did. All this time, and during the
movings
in the room, I saw two large white feet sticking up at the end
of
the bed. I watched and watched, hoping those feet would move, but
they
did not; and somehow, to my thinking, they grew stiffer and
whiter,
and then my horrible suspicion deepened, and while we were
sitting
there a human spirit untended and desolate had passed forth
into
the night. Then a man came out with a bundle of clothes, and then
the
sick young man, groaning and sobbing, and then a third, who said
to
me,
with some feeling, that the man who had just died was the sick
young
man's only brother. And still the landlady laughed and talked,
and
afterwards said to me, "It turns the house upside down when they
just
come here and die; we shall be half the night laying him out." I
could
not sleep for the bitter cold and the sound of the sobs and
groans
of the bereaved brother. The next day the landlady, in a
fashionably-made
black dress, was bustling about, proud of the
prospective
arrival of a handsome coffin. I went into the parlor to
get
a needle, and the door of THAT room was open, and children were
running
in and out, and the landlady, who was sweeping there, called
cheerily
to me to come in for the needle, and there, to my horror, not
even
covered with a face cloth, and with the sun blazing in through
the
unblinded
window, lay that thing of terror, a corpse, on some chairs
which
were not even placed straight. It was buried in the afternoon,
and
from the looks of the brother, who continued to sob and moan, his
end
cannot be far off.
The
-----s say that many go to the Springs in the last stage of
consumption,
thinking that the Colorado climate will cure them, without
money
enough to pay for even the coarsest board. We talked most of
that
day, and I equipped myself with arctics and warm gloves for the
mountain
tour which has been planned for me, and I gave Birdie the
Sabbath
she was entitled to on Tuesday, for I found, on arriving at the
Springs,
that the day I crossed the Arkansas Divide was Sunday, though
I
did not know it. Several friends of Miss Kingsley called on me;
she
is
much remembered and beloved. This is not an expensive tour; we
cost
about
ten shillings a day, and the five days which I have spent en
route
from Denver have cost something less than the fare for the few
hours'
journey by the cars. There are no real difficulties. It is a
splendid
life for health and enjoyment. All my luggage being in a
pack,
and my conveyance being a horse, we can go anywhere where we can
get
food and shelter.
GREAT
GORGE OF THE MANITOU, October 29.
This
is a highly picturesque place, with several springs, still and
effervescing,
the virtues of which were well known to the Indians.
Near
it are places, the names of which are familiar to every one--the
Garden
of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Pike's Peak, Monument Park, and the Ute
Pass.
It has two or three immense hotels, and a few houses
picturesquely
situated. It is thronged by thousands of people in the
summer
who come to drink the waters, try the camp cure, and make
mountain
excursions; but it is all quiet now, and there are only a few
lingerers
in this immense hotel. There is a rushing torrent in a
valley,
with mountains, covered with snow and rising to a height of
nearly
15,000 feet, overhanging it. It is grand and awful, and has a
strange,
solemn beauty like death. And the Snowy Mountains are pierced
by
the torrent which has excavated the Ute Pass, by which, to-morrow,
I
hope
to go into the higher regions. But all may be "lost for want of a
horseshoe
nail." One of Birdie's shoes is loose, and not a nail is to
be
got here, or can be got till I have ridden for ten miles up the
Pass.
Birdie amuses every one with her funny ways. She always follows
me
closely, and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlor
door
open. She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder,
licking
my face and teasing me for sugar, and sometimes, when any one
else
takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious bronco
soul
comes into her eyes. Her face is cunning and pretty, and she
makes
a funny, blarneying noise when I go up to her. The men at all
the
stables make a fuss with her, and call her "Pet." She gallops up
and
down hill, and never stumbles even on the roughest ground, or
requires
even a touch with a whip.
The
weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun, and
the
snow is all off the plains and lower valleys. After lunch, the
-----s
in a buggy, and I on Birdie, left Colorado Springs, crossing the
Mesa,
a high hill with a table top, with a view of extraordinary
laminated
rocks, LEAVES of rock a bright vermilion color, against a
background
of snowy mountains, surmounted by Pike's Peak. Then we
plunged
into cavernous Glen Eyrie, with its fantastic needles of
colored
rock, and were entertained at General Palmer's "baronial
mansion,"
a perfect eyrie, the fine hall filled with buffalo, elk, and
deer
heads, skins of wild animals, stuffed birds, bear robes, and
numerous
Indian and other weapons and trophies. Then through a gate of
huge
red rocks, we passed into the valley, called fantastically,
Garden
of
the Gods, in which, were I a divinity, I certainly would not
choose
to
dwell. Many places in this neighborhood are also vulgarized by
grotesque
names. From this we passed into a ravine, down which the
Fountain
River rushed, and there I left my friends with regret, and
rode
into this chill and solemn gorge, from which the mountains,
reddening
in the sunset, are only seen afar off. I put Birdie up at a
stable,
and as there was no place to put myself up but this huge hotel,
I
came here to have a last taste of luxury. They charge six dollars
a
day
in the season, but it is now half-price; and instead of four
hundred
fashionable guests there are only fifteen, most of whom are
speaking
in the weak, rapid accents of consumption, and are coughing
their
hearts out. There are seven medicinal springs. It is strange to
have
the luxuries of life in my room. It will be only the fourth night
in
Colorado that I have slept on anything better than hay or straw.
I
am
glad that there are so few inns. As it is, I get a good deal of
insight
into the homes and modes of living of the settlers.
BERGENS
PARK, October 31.
This
cabin was so dark, and I so sleepy last night, that I could not
write;
but the frost during the night has been very severe, and I am
detained
until the bright, hot sun melts the ice and renders traveling
safe.
I left the great Manitou at ten yesterday. Birdie, who was
loose
in the stable, came trotting down the middle of it when she saw
me
for her sugar and biscuits. No nails could be got, and her shoe
was
hanging
by two, which doomed me to a foot's pace and the dismal clink
of
a loose shoe for three hours. There was not a cloud on the bright
blue
sky the whole day, and though it froze hard in the shade, it was
summer
heat in the sun. The mineral fountains were sparkling in their
basins
and sending up their full perennial jets but the snow-clad,
pine-skirted
mountains frowned and darkened over the Ute Pass as I
entered
it to ascend it for twenty miles. A narrow pass it is, with
barely
room for the torrent and the wagon road which has been blasted
out
of its steep sides. All the time I was in sight of the Fountain
River,
brighter than any stream, because it tumbles over rose-red
granite,
rocky or disintegrated, a truly fair stream, cutting and
forcing
its way through hard rocks, under arches of alabaster ice,
through
fringes of crystalline ice, thumping with a hollow sound in
cavernous
recesses cold and dark, or leaping in foam from heights with
rush
and swish; always bright and riotous, never pausing in still
pools
to
rest, dashing through gates of rock, pine hung, pine bridged,
pine
buried;
twinkling and laughing in the sunshine, or frowning in "dowie
dens"
in the blue pine gloom. And there, for a mile or two in a
sheltered
spot, owing to the more southern latitude, the everlasting
northern
pine met the trees of other climates. There were dwarf oaks,
willows,
hazel, and spruce; the white cedar and the trailing juniper
jostled
each other for a precarious foothold; the majestic redwood tree
of
the Pacific met the exquisite balsam pine of the Atlantic slopes,
and
among them all the pale gold foliage of the large aspen trembled
(as
the legend goes) in endless remorse. And above them towered the
toothy
peaks of the glittering mountains, rising in pure white against
the
sunny blue. Grand! glorious! sublime! but not lovable. I would
give
all for the luxurious redundance of one Hilo gulch, or for one
day
of
those soft dreamy "skies whose very tears are balm."
Bergens
Park
Up
ever! the road being blasted out of the red rock which often
overhung
it, the canyon only from fifteen to twenty feet wide, the
thunder
of the Fountain, which is crossed eight times, nearly
deafening.
Sometimes the sun struck the road, and then it was
absolutely
hot; then one entered unsunned gorges where the snow lay
deep,
and the crowded pines made dark twilight, and the river roared
under
ice bridges fringed by icicles. At last the Pass opened out upon
a
sunlit upland park, where there was a forge, and with Birdie's
shoe
put
on, and some shoe nails in my purse, I rode on cheerfully,
getting
food
for us both at a ranch belonging to some very pleasant people,
who,
like all Western folk, when they are not taciturn, asked a legion
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