Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent
to be seen on all sides, and the fat, brown prairie dogs kept popping in and out of their holes, and, for the first time, too, we noticed the cacti that grow in such wild profusion on the prairie. We were imperceptibly mounting the Great Divide, and as we reached the small lake at the summit, the country grew fresher and greener, and the broad grass expanse, with groups of trees, gave to it the appearance of a vast park. The remainder of the way lay through cultivated fields, the great barrier of mountains on one side always leaving to the imagination the pleasure of the great unknown beyond. We were soon at Colorado Springs.
Here there was no sign of a village; we could only see the large hotel, "The Antlers," through the over-arching trees of a long avenue. In the afternoon we took a buggy and drove over to Manitou. The clear, dry climate of this high altitude, draws many invalids to Manitou, and there are several large hotels clustering in the neighbourhood of the springs of soda, iron, and sulphur; also numerous boarding-houses, where we observed many little white tents pitched in their neighbourhood, to allow for an over-flow of boarders. One was very aptly called, "The Rocky Rest," and was "to Rent."
Manitou lies under the shadow of the great Range. The rocks seem ready to fall and crush the little village, and the pine forests cast their gloom into the valley. From the many surrounding peaks, Pike's Peak raises its giant head towering above the others, and the little black speck just distinguishable on the summit if the clouds are not down, is the signal station, whence three times daily weather reports are telegraphed to all parts of the States, and the storms forwarded across the Atlantic to us. The picturesque ascent of ten miles on mules is soon to be no more, for a syndicate of four speculators are making a railway, taking a circuitous route of thirty miles to the top, and already the dark line of earth and the rows of telegraph poles tell of its progress.
We drove on, up the Ute Pass to the Rainbow Falls, but there were, unfortunately, no iridescent beams from the sun that afternoon. If we could have gone on climbing that beautiful cañon (pronounced canyon) for 120 miles, we should have come suddenly upon one of those vast open spaces or "parks" that form Colorado's greatest beauty. They are comparatively unknown at present, owing to the want of railway communication.
We had tea with Dr. and Mrs. Bell, who have built themselves a charming house in Manitou; they live there all the year round, and say the winters are comparatively mild.
We stayed so long that it was late before we drove on to the "Garden of the Gods," but I was glad, for nothing could have been more beautiful than the evening shadows creeping up the mountains, the blue gloom of the pines, and before us a park with stunted oaks and masses of light red sandstone. They are curled, twisted, writhing masses, strewn in wild confusion on the ground, forming the most incongruous series of objects. There was the old Scotchman in his Highland bonnet, two sheep kissing each other, their idiotic noses distinctly seen in the act of touching, the Newfoundland dog, the old man's cellar, the semicircle of mushrooms, very perfect in form, and the magnificent outline of the lion cut out on the face of the rock. You irresistibly give play to the imagination—people this little kingdom with fairy fancies entering at the Gate Beautiful.
A storm has swept down from the mountains, bringing a dark mist peopled by the demons, dwelling in its hidden caverns. Whilst the storm rages and the thunder crashes through the echoing mountains, and the lightning flashes on the rugged peaks, the works of darkness are done, the destruction wrought—the Garden of the Gods is so no longer. The name is ironical. Some such dim idea floated through our minds, I suppose, as the three glorious piles of the brightest red sandstone, rose before us 300 feet in height, forming the entrance called the Gate Beautiful; and the cathedral is near by with delicate spires pointed heavenwards. Monuments, they stand to last throughout eternity; and as we passed through the portals and left the land of enchantment, what a dull, cold feeling gathered round us! The warmth of the red glow inside was superseded by gloom added to by that formation of cold white rock outside. Though it was growing dark, we ventured up the weird gorge to Glen Eyrie, with General Palmer's residence guarded by the three pillars, the one called major domo being in the centre. We spied an eagle's nest built into a split in the rock.
Then home we galloped across the plains, the horses hardly touching the ground, darkness creeping over the prairie, clouds on Pike's Peak, and Manitou in gloom.
After dinner we went out to see the stars, which are so beautiful in this clear atmosphere, with the Milky Way, a trailing cloud across the sky.
Tuesday, August 16th. In the train going to Salt Lake City.—We have been spending the day in the Rocky Mountains, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, awed and struck by the grandeur of the scenes we have passed through.
We began in the early freshness of the morning with a drive up the Cheyenne Pass, a wild gorge, penetrating for some miles into the heart of the mountains. We passed first through prairie fields, where pink anemones, wild larkspur, bluebells, sunflowers, large white poppies, cornflowers, and a delicate pink flower, called here a primrose, grew in wild luxuriance, over a very roughly-laid road, where only a carriage of such light build as ours was could have been driven. The bridges over the many freshets were made of the stems of pine-trees loosely laid together, and as often as the horses stepped on one end the other rose up.
It was a scene of the wildest beauty as we penetrated ever deeper into the contracting gorge. One of the great charms of this range is the rich colour of their red sandstone masses, blackened and weather-stained in parts by the action of centuries. We were surrounded, hemmed in, overhung by those stupendous fragments, and masses of rocks leaning towards each other, and leaving only a narrow streak of sky as a relief to the surrounding gloom, which was heightened by the dark pines that clung and found a footing on every narrow ledge. When we reached the end of the cañon which by this time was so deep and dark as to form only a chasm amongst the rocks, we were fairly spell-bound, breathless almost from the astounding magnificence of the scene before us. Seven waterfalls falling down the face of the black cliff, seven clouds of spray falling one under each other, each into its dark pool below. We climbed up a frail, wooden staircase, hung out from ledges in the rocks, looking into every little hollow, following the fall of the water over each, till we traced it to its source, where it first comes gliding over from the quiet, green pool lying hid in a rocky basin above. This pool takes the reflection of the dark pines on its calm depths.
We lingered, and tried to go—turned back, and at last left it, with a gnawing pang of regret. We shall not soon forget that quiet spot away from the haunts of man. We passed into the darkness of the chasm below, retraced our steps, and were soon out in the open, under the bright sunshine once more; and, before an hour was over, were speeding many miles away in the train.
We found the train leaving Colorado Springs very crowded, adding to the discomfort of the narrow gauge, with a proportionally narrowed car.
We kept the backbone of "the Rockies" in sight for a long way, now and then drawing near to one of the outlying spurs. We dined at Pueblo, a town standing on a bluff of bare rock destitute of vegetation; and its Spanish origin is still evidenced by the fine breed of mules, brought from their colonies in Mexico. We saw here the arrival of the "Pony Express," with the leather mail-bags slung across the peak of the saddle, to be carried on by the train; but its arrival now is very different to that described by Mark Twain in his reminiscences in "Roughing It:"—
"In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the 'pony rider'—the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters 1900 miles in eight days. He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business letters in it, mostly. The little flat mail-pockets, strapped under the rider's thighs, would each hold about the bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf. There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattered precession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty towards the west, and among them making 400 gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood.
"'Here he comes!'
"Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider,