The Driver Never Spoke Without
An Oath, And Though Two Ladies Were Passengers, Cursed His
Splendid Horses The Whole Time.
Formerly, even the most profane
men intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but
they "have changed all that." Every one I saw up there seemed in
a bad temper.
I suspect that all their "smart tricks" in mining
shares had gone wrong.
The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable
mountain resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a
superb team of six horses, with which we attained a height of
10,000 feet, and then a descent of 1,000 took us into Georgetown,
crowded into as remarkable a gorge as was ever selected for the
site of a town, the canyon beyond APPARENTLY terminating in
precipitous and inaccessible mountains, sprinkled with pines up
to the timber line, and thinly covered with snow. The area on
which it is possible to build is so circumcised and steep, and
the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there,
and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded
me slightly of a Swiss town. All the smaller houses are shored
up with young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown
away by the fierce gusts which sweep the canyon. It is the only
town I have seen in America to which the epithet picturesque
could be applied. But truly, seated in that deep hollow in the
cold and darkness, it is in a terrible situation, with the alpine
heights towering round it. I arrived at three, but its sun had
set, and it lay in deep shadow. In fact, twilight seemed coming
on, and as I had been unable to get my circular notes cashed at
Denver, I had no money to stay over the next day, and much feared
that I should lose Green Lake, the goal of my journey. We drove
through the narrow, piled-up, irregular street, crowded with
miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under the
verandas, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where I at once
inquired if I could get to Green Lake. The landlord said he
thought not; the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for
five weeks, but for my satisfaction he would send to a stable and
inquire. The amusing answer came back, "If it's the English lady
traveling in the mountains, she can have a horse, but not any one
else."
Letter XIII
The blight of mining - Green Lake - Golden
City - Benighted - Vertigo - Boulder Canyon - Financial straits - A
hard ride - The last cent - A bachelor's home - "Mountain Jim" - A
surprise - A night arrival - Making the best of it - Scanty fare.
BOULDER, November.
The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was
given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in
and asked my name and if I were the lady who had crossed from
Link's to South Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In
five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned
side-saddle, and I started at once for the upper regions. It was
an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. The evening
shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2,000 feet to
climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but
never the awfulness and hugeness of the scenery. I went up a
steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of frozen
waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen
sides looked 5,000 feet high. That is the region of enormous
mineral wealth in silver. There are the "Terrible" and other
mines whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in
the Times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to
25 discount.
These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their
stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have
been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub,
and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside
from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was
grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or
disappointments. Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining
destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside out, making it
hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights
man's heart and soul. There was mining everywhere along that
grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its
digging, burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the
seemingly inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log
supported, in which solitary and patient men were selling their
lives for treasure. Down by the stream, all among the icicles,
men were sluicing and washing, and everywhere along the heights
were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too steep even for
pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner packs
the ore on his back. Many a heart has been broken for the few
finds which have been made along those hill sides. All the
ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation,
where nature had made everything grand and fair. But even from
all this I turned. The last miner I saw gave me explicit
directions, and I left the track and struck upwards into the icy
solitudes - sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep,
pure and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine
forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in
deep snowdrifts. But the goal was reached, and none too soon.
At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep declivity,
and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with
mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was
Green Lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two
feet thick. From the gloom and chill below I had come up into
the pure air and sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned
works of God.
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