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.
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