The Railway And Denver
City Itself Is About Thirty Miles Distant From The Mountains, But
The Atmosphere Is So Clear That They Look As If Quite Within An
Easy Gallop.
It is difficult to understand why the town has been built so far
from the mountains, situated as it
Is on a sandy, treeless plain.
It is growing, like most of the western towns, at a tremendous
pace, and we are lodging in a luxurious hotel, our room on the
fourth floor numbers 454. We found the avenues of trees lining
every street an immense boon this morning in going to church at
the cathedral.
The heat, though great, is not so oppressive as either at St.
Paul's or Omaha, but then we are at the height of 5,000 feet; and
this afternoon the air has been cleared by a thunderstorm preceded
by a great sand-storm, which we watched from our windows
encircling the town, so thick that mountains and all view was
obliterated for the time being.
Denver is a great resort for invalids, chiefly those suffering
with asthma.
* * * * *
August 22.
Before leaving Denver we went to a gunsmith and invested in a
fishing-rod and numberless flies, with which we intend to do great
execution. We also went to the exhibition, opened a month ago and
still unfinished; one of the leading men, to whom we had a letter
of introduction, showed us everything. It is chiefly interesting
to miners, as the display of minerals from Western America is
unrivalled. There seemed, in the specimens, enough gold and silver
to make us rich for ever; unfortunately our ignorance on the
subject of ore is too great to thoroughly appreciate it.
* * * * *
OURAY, August 24.
It is not easy to sit down and write after forty-eight hours
travelling, as we have been doing since leaving Denver on Monday night
at 7 o'clock; but in such scenery and air so exhilarating we do not
feel as tired as we expected. You should have seen the omnibus,
stage-coach, charridon, or any other name you please to give the
lumbering vehicle in which we performed our last twelve hours' drive;
it looked truly frightening when it drove up to Cimarron depot, one
tent, last night, to pick us up, intended for twenty passengers and
any amount of luggage, and swung on great straps. It was wonderfully
well horsed, and we changed our teams every ten miles; but only then
came at the rate of five miles an hour. We both of us started for our
sixty-four miles' drive on the box-seat with the driver, who happened
to be an extremely nice man and an experienced whip; in former days he
had driven the stage-coaches across from Omaha to San Francisco, a
journey of three weeks. But he took up much room on the seat, and
every time he had to pull up his horses his left elbow ran into me,
until "he guessed my ribs would be pretty-well bruised."
About midnight, when our only other fellow-passenger turned out
from the inside of the coach, I entered it, though I expected
nearly every moment would be my last, the bumping was so fearful.
I managed to get a few winks of sleep towards morning. E - - sat
outside all night, finding it very difficult not to drop off the
coach from drowsiness. The early hours of the morning, after the
moon went down until dawn, were truly wretched, what between the
outer darkness, the flickering of our lamps, the unevenness of the
road, and the clouds of dust, and one almost began to wonder if
the journey was worth so much trouble.
But with daylight we quite altered our opinions; as really I do
not think, if you searched the whole world over, you would find
anything more beautiful than the Uncompahgre valley and park
looked in the morning light.
Mr. W - - met us at 5 o'clock A.M. at the "Hot Springs," so called
from the boiling water that gushes out of the ground, and which is
said to give the name of "Uncompahgre" to the district, that being
the Indian word for hot water. He brought us out hot coffee and
food to refresh us, and drove us the last nine miles up the
valley. We came slowly, thoroughly enjoying the scenery. On either
side of the road are well-cultivated farms. Within two miles of
Ouray the park narrows into a magnificent gorge, bounded on each
side by precipitous cliffs of red sandstone, covered with pines
and quaking aspen, the whole crowned by arid peaks. From this
gorge you suddenly come upon the town, situated in an amphitheatre
of grand gray, trachyte rocks.
Our house is in Main Street. The ground floor is an office; our
four rooms are on the first floor, to which we ascend by a wooden
staircase outside.
Every nook and corner is filled with some curiosity or mineral
specimen. Our host being a great sportsman, there are various
trophies of the chase - a mountain lion, wild sheeps' heads, bears,
cranes, even to a stuffed donkey's head; there are also cabinets
of fossils, specimens of ore, etc., and great blocks of the same
piled on the floor.
Our family consists of our two hosts, Messrs. W - - and B - - , two
Indian ponies, a mule, two setters, and two prairie dogs, which
are reddish-buff marmots. We are only to remain here one night,
and, if thoroughly rested after our journey, go up to the log
cabin in the Imogene Basin, 3,000 feet higher. We are both looking
forward to it immensely. It is right in the heart of the
mountains, 10,600 feet, and with no one near us, as all the mines
surrounding the cabin belong to a company which had to suspend its
works last month for want of funds, so that they are not being
worked. The air is glorious, and we feel already perfectly
restored to our usual health, though we are warned that strangers
cannot walk much at first, the air is so rarefied, that one is
soon out of breath.
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