Henry Chatillon, With Shaw And Myself,
Galloped Toward Them To Reconnoiter, When To Our Amusement We Saw The
Supposed Arapahoes Resolved Into The Black Tops Of Some Pine Trees
Which Grew Along A Ravine.
The summits of these pines, just visible
above the verge of the prairie, and seeming to move as we ourselves
were advancing, looked exactly like a line of horsemen.
We encamped among ravines and hollows, through which a little brook
was foaming angrily. Before sunrise in the morning the snow-covered
mountains were beautifully tinged with a delicate rose color. A
noble spectacle awaited us as we moved forward. Six or eight miles
on our right, Pike's Peak and his giant brethren rose out of the
level prairie, as if springing from the bed of the ocean. From their
summits down to the plain below they were involved in a mantle of
clouds, in restless motion, as if urged by strong winds. For one
instant some snowy peak, towering in awful solitude, would be
disclosed to view. As the clouds broke along the mountain, we could
see the dreary forests, the tremendous precipices, the white patches
of snow, the gulfs and chasms as black as night, all revealed for an
instant, and then disappearing from the view. One could not but
recall the stanza of "Childe Harold":
Morn dawns, and with it stern Albania's hills,
Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak,
Robed half in mist, bedewed with snowy rills,
Array'd in many a dun and purple streak,
Arise; and, as the clouds along them break,
Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer:
Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak,
Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear,
And gathering storms around convulse the closing year.
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