Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. II (of 2)

remont-Manitou, the Garden of the Gods-Desperadoe

and oranges, and great bunches of grapes. In this happy valley there are cares as in the rest of the world. The Colonel told us he was in the midst of a great litigation affecting his claim to a large tract of land in which there are said to exist the richest tin-mines in the American Continent. Yet why should he care about his tin-mine? There were rol

ources of art in the shape of ice and preparations of limes and cocktails; but the temperature would not be baffled. We could just read, and were aware that we were living, and some of us had strength enough now and then to execute forays against flies with napkins to drive

there was a great growth of Spanish bayonets and cactuses of all kinds among the stones and sand, and that snow was to be seen on all the hill-tops in the distance. For 107 miles there was no water to be met with going along this plain; but the mirage, of which I have spoken in th

eter, on which huge bubbles, varying in size from an orange to a hogshead, were continually forming and bursting. There was a faint sulphurous smell, and the ground around the liquefied portion of the surface, where the bubbles were breaking, was hot and cracked. The conductor said that all attempts to reach the bottom of the holes through which the bubbles arose had failed. Two of these geysers were in ac

the prairie, for which they make claims of surpassing beauty in the matter of sunsets. As it died out, I felt that "thing of beauty" could n

his case it was), and he doesn't want a bodyguard with him!" But the conductor sent him away about his business without trouble. On the platform at Benson a few miners asked "the Duke to come out and show himself." The people at the stations were generally satisfied with a quiet peep; now and then an enthusiastic Scotchman claimed a shake hands, which w

at one o'clock in the day, and it was little comfort to us t

t in the United States. Who some twenty years and more ago had not heard of General Fremont, "the Pathfinder," the adventurous traveller, the energetic politician, the dashing soldier? He had gone at the outbreak of the war to take up the chief command in the west with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. I was somewhat astonished to find that h

quare miles. Its flag now floats over 1,272,239 square miles of States and over 1,800,000 square miles of Territory governed by the central power at Washington. "We cannot think," exclaims a Republican writer, "that the war of rebellion settled all our troubles and made us secure in our Republic. This enormous growth of the practically unknown West reveals to us the grave dangers that threaten our nation. We meet there the tremendous influences of alien races and alien religions." The Americans of New England and of the Eastern States do not feel anxious on that score, because their institutions are thoroughly founded, their character formed, and they trust to the great power of accomplished facts to assimilate the alien elements and sustain the fabric of the Republic. The bugbear of a great Chinese immigration has ceased to practically influence Californian politics, and it may be safely assumed that the bulk of the future immigrants from the Celestial Empire will only come from the same sources as those which have hitherto supplied the stream. No wonder, however, that thoughtful Americans-and there are many who think of the future of their country as something quite apart from dollars-are filled with grave anxieties when they see such floods of purely foreign material, which will in all probability exercise a preponderating influence over the politics of the Great Republic, surging into the States. Particularly have the home missionary clergy, as they are styled, been struck by the enormous influence which this foreign immigration has exercised. According to one authority, the Rev. Mr. Stimson, of Worcester, "it is not a question of spreading any particular form of Christianity or of Church government, but a momentous struggle of American institutions with alien civilisations and religions for the control of the great Western country. The problem is not a matter of cleaning door-yards, but of saving a continent for freedom." The Chinese Question and the Indian Question are, they think, as nothing compared with the Irish Question and the German Question. "The Republic," we are told, "stands on a foundation as broad as humanity itself," whatever that may mean, "but its condition of existence is a universal regard for the interests of all." Often during the course of the Duke of Sutherland's excursion it was our good fortune to fall in with men of great political and social knowledge. The future of the Republic is

is the most remarkable in-fidel in the United States, and I really think he believes what he preaches. A good man to look at, too, and, they say, first-rate in his family." I had a glance at the believer in unbelief, and saw a very presentable-looking person, of fine appearance and good features, busily engaged in making the most of his time at one of the tables in the refreshment-room. He was the observed of all observers, and appeared to like it; and I understood from one of the crowd that

s established for the observance of travellers. Certes narrow-gauge railways need an apology. Their raison d'être is, at the best, that they are better than nothing. "If you won't have us, you can have nothing else." And in such a mountainous region as we were about to visit, the difficulties and expense connected with a broad-gauge line would have been enormous, if indeed it could be constructed at all. The narrow-gauge carriages, with seats to match, with which we were made acquainted for the first time, were of course much less commodious and comfortable than those we had quitted, but far superior to those on the Indian lines of the same gauge, and Indian engineers had been over to take a lesson from the Americans for the use of their carriage-builders. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Company and Denver and Rio Grande Company have been at daggers drawn and pistols cocked-ay, and fired-and at battles waged, in times gone by; and now our friends on the former line were, like ourselves, the guests of the latter, which was represented by several official gentlemen anxious to do the honours to the Duke. The scenery becomes grander and wilder every mile as the special hurries on as well as it can over the sinuous line, which is piercing a mountain region savage and sterile, and climbing by the sides of ravines and creeping upwards in rocky valleys with pine-clad hill-tops and frowning cliffs above. The engineer who designed the line is a Scotchman named McMurtrie-or at least o

hich even in this country excite admiration. Mr. Bell is an Irish gentleman, a member of the medical profession, who has a delightful villa embowered in a garden in the environs of Manitou, where the Duke and his friends found a charming interior and an Irish-American welcome, and discovered that strawberries and cream were almost as good in Colorado as in Covent Garden. A quaint, odd place, Manitou-an American Martigny, with Pike's Peak rising (14,300 feet above the sea) over it in the clear sky, inspiring regret that we could not make the excursion to the summit, which is rewarded, we were told, and I can believe, by one of the grandest views in the world-the usual service of guides, horses, and mules, and calèches-a naturalist's store with skins, minerals, feathers, and stuffed "objects"-detached wooden houses and villas in small plots of garden-a straggling street, and large hotels for invalids. But there was the unusu

n the "Garden of the Gods," I was disappointed with Manitou. But then the visit was short, and the day was hot, and the way was long and dusty, and haply it might be that under different circumstances Manitou would deserve much warmer praise. It possesses indeed an abundance of curious springs, said to be full of health-giving properties; and in the course of our drive we halted s

g to wait on dem Denver Zouaves. Lor a messy on any enemy dey has! My nerve's all gone to pieces wid their wantin' everting at once at the dinner!" The hotel seemed far more clean and comfortable than the caravanserais in the land of William Tell; but our stay was short, for we were put under orders for a sight which has the most inappropriate name that could be invented-a valley in which the most extraordinary-looking columns carved out in a plateau by the agency of water, have been left standing, detached and in groups, to which the visitor enters through a cleft in a barrier of rock passing round the base of a pillar of sandstone as high as a house. The "Garden of the Gods" contains 500 acres, and is surrounded by mountains and cliffs. Th

around, and in view one most singular sandstone pillar, named the Major Domo, 120 feet high and only 30 feet round-a mountain stream brawling through tangled brushwood glades-a garden. But the heat! That must prove a terror by day to the inmates of Glen Eyrie Lodge or Ca

could be given to it by passengers in a very lively train-endless alps on alps, not sheeted with perpetual white, but rather flecked with snowfields, which contrasted finely with the sombre pine-forests, and the rich hues of the rocks, touched by the rays of the setting sun, that, ere it slid behind the mountains, cast a rose-coloured mantle on their summit. The evidences of a bustling city were not wanting in

s appeared a beautiful and widespread panorama of the hills we had seen the evening before, peak above peak, none very densely covered perhaps, or presenting continuous snowfields, but extending in billowy sweeps far away to the horizon, all capped with snow, now bathed in a flood of fervent sunshine, the snow lighted up by the peculiar crimson tints common in Alpine regions. There were duties in the way of sight-seeing and exploration of no ordinary nature to be done. First there were interviews and receptions, and the inevitable drive through the place as soon as the ordeal of breakfast was over; and ordeal in some sort it was for the strangers to file in to the public room and take their places at their table, aware that the morning papers had subjected them to exhaustive criticism, which was being verified by those around us. The morning papers too had given some topics for reflection, indications that in the newly created capital of Colorado desperate men, overtaken by the march of law and order, had refused to accept service, and were vindicating their rights as wild western outcasts to take or part with life as of yore, in reckless encounters and deliberate assassinations. There were, perhaps, at that moment some hundreds, if not thousands, out of the population of 37,000 or 38,000 of the city, who belonged to the adventurous classes-sporting

ndifferent road to the base of the Rocky Mountains, which appear to be close at hand, though they are thirteen miles away. But here and there in the well-dressed crowd may be seen a Bohemian pur sang, or a miner in his every day clothes, bent on a rig out and a good time of it. The streets, unpaved, dusty,

ddition to the objects to be seen in the vicinity of every house, and to the mounds of rubbish in the street of every village. How indeed could the first-comers in such regions keep body and soul together without the supplies in such a p

am not going to give a minute description, for more reasons than one, of what we saw at the works; but it was a very interesting exhibition of the processes by which the precious metals are extracted from the ores and delivered to commerce. The Argo Works simply assay and reduce ores on commission, but the business is on a very large scale. Immense piles, in fact small mountains, of brown, cinnamon and earth coloured dust and rock were heaped

ests for dinner, let me offer you this menu of the 5.30 ordinary to-day (June 16). Soup, beef à l'Anglaise; fish, boiled trout, anchovy sauce; corned beef, leg of mutton, sirloin beef, chickens with giblet sauce, fricassee à la Toulouse, veal, kidneys sautés aux cro?tons, rice, croquettes, baked pork and beans, saddle of antelope, currant jelly, lamb, tongue, chicken salad, spiced salmon; innum

uch. Perhaps no town of equal size in an equal length of time has ever had so much money and money's worth flowing in and through it as Denver since the Colorado mines were worked. It is asserted that the trade of the town for 1881 will exceed 8,000,000l. Colorado in 1879 yielded ores to the value of more than 3,750,000l. The output in the present year will exceed that of 1880. In that year $35,417,517 worth of gold and $20,183,889 of silver (more than 11,000,000l.) was deposited in the United States Mint and Assay Office. There is, besides, vast wealth in flocks and herds, and Denver is the place where the people resort from Colorad

om Pueblo to Leadville the line is on the narrow-gauge principle, and our train, which left at seven o'clock in the evening, seemed to be driven on no principle at all; for, anxious to astonish a Duke perhaps, or Britishers generally, the driver did what certainly could not be called his level best to send us along up and down a very rough line, and round the sharpest curves, at the rate of forty miles an hour, so that when we turned in, our rest, if rest at all it were, was exceedingly broken, and we trundled about in our berths as if we were in a ship in a pretty heavy sea. Still this narrow-gauge was the only line which could be made through such a country as we were traversing. Peeps out of the window ever and anon revealed, high up amongst the stars, rugged mountain-tops, and for ever there came the sound of rushing water, near or remote, as the train "bounded" on its course. I do not know what stations we passed on our way, but the night was very long, and I greeted with pleasure the first gleam of light above the hill-tops. The Arkansas River was on our left, and at dawn we had glimpses of its turbid stream running madly in deep gorges far below us. At the South Arkansas station the train halted soon after daybreak, and then we diverged from the main line, and a light train took us over the Arkansas River by a fine bridge on its way up the Gunnison Extension to visit the highest mountain-pass traversed by a railway in the world. South Arkansas station is 217 miles from Denver, and is 6944 feet-and Marshall Pass (25 miles away), to which we were bound, is 10,760 feet-above sea-level. There were grades of 211 and curves of 24° on the way, and the railroad twisted in and out among the ravines like an iron Alexandrine, for ever ascending till we had passed the limits of forest life. There were stations at short intervals-Poncha Springs, Mears, Silver Creek-from each other. From the stations there is a good deal of cross-country traffic, and at one place we saw three stages laden

ness of wooden huts, "the Great Carbonate Camp"-where we leave the train-spread out over an undulating plateau, broken into mound-like hills and sharp hillocks-bustling streets filled with the most remarkable swarm of all nations that ever settled on any one spot in the world. The story of Leadville reads like a chapter out of some book of Oriental fable. It is a huge barrack of wooden houses, with some solid and important buildings, with masses of tree-stumps cropping up in the centre of the main thoroughfares, pitched over an undulating, rugged, dusty ledge. In the midst of blocks of houses sprout up the chimneys of furnaces and mining works, the clang of machinery fills the air, which is thick with clouds of dust. It was a few years ago an utterly wild, lifeless waste amidst the mountains covered with forests, when thre

lting Works, and then back to the Clarence Hotel and dined, strolling out afterwards through the town and visiting the billiard saloons, the Grand Central Theatre, and finally, where we were told Leadville life was to be seen in all its glory, the faro and the kino tables, which, however, were doing but very l

equate idea of its exceeding grandeur and wildness. The rocks-closing in so that the spectator in the car, looking forward, thinks the progress of the train must be arrested, and that it is not possible for it to get out of the cul de sac which appears in front, rising aloft for upwards of two thousand five hundred feet on each side-are coloured with the brightest hues, and present an infinite variety of form. The impetuous current of the Arkansas River, contracted at times to the breadth of some twenty or thirty yards, and penned into a space in which the waters boil and toss as if about to leap on and submerge the passing cars, roars wildly down below on our right at a depth varying as the line rises and falls. But it is at the Bridge-a triumph of engineering skill-that the horrors of the pass culminate. The sides of the ravine approach so near that the daring engineer was enabled to execute the idea of lowering from above a -shaped frame or trestle of iron; and, the ends catchi