Glenwood Springs.--The Pool.--The Vapor Baths.--Through the Canons.--
Leadville.--Colorado Products.--Canons in New York.
When we reached Glenwood Springs, it was in the early morning. The
place from the railroad station does not look inviting, and so it was
decided to push on to Denver.
This was a loss, for Glenwood Springs has many advantages, worth
seeing, and a hotel of real comfort and elegance. The hot springs there
are quite extensive, and the medicinal baths are delightful. The
bathing places are in the highest style of art, elegantly fitted up
with all that modern appliances, following ancient models, can
accomplish. There is also a huge, open-air swimming-pool, filled with
water, from the hot springs, giving most luxurious enjoyment.
It was my good fortune, on a former visit, to enjoy both it, and the
further pleasure of a natural vapor bath within the rock recesses of
one of the mountains. It was a weird experience. It was late one
evening, and I happened to be the only bather there. The negro
attendant, a most obliging fellow, took me in charge. Under his
directions, after disrobing, he gave me a shower bath of cold water,
and then, with a wet towel on my head, he ushered me into a rocky
cavern. Some boards extended over fissures in the ground, from whence
one could hear the gurgling of the boiling springs far beneath. The
rocks overhead leaned against one another, and their great crevices
were dark with shadows. There were a few plain wooden benches,
blackened with the sulphur fumes; but, as if to assure one that the
savage-looking place was really tame, after all, an electric light, in
full glare, hung down from above, making the strange surroundings
visible in all their mystery of heat beneath, and blackness below and
beyond. I watched the experiment of the vapor upon myself, and soon was
in a profuse perspiration. My faithful negro cautioned me not to be too
long in my first attempt, so I was soon out again to get the protection
of another wet towel on my head. After that, all was enjoyment. The
whole experience was unique, and in due time I had the further luxury
of a good rub down, and a lounge for some time on a couch, helped on
also, by a cup of good, black coffee. I could scarcely tell which was
best; to float in sulphur water in the open air, with others, under the
bright light of day, in the big pool; or, to be utterly alone in the
clefts of the everlasting mountains, surrounded by their mysterious
warmth, and melted by their embrace. It seemed to me the last ought to
have the preference.
As I have said, our party decided to press on from Glenwood. Hours were
precious on the homeward run, and to have a whole day for the wonders
of the Colorado mountains was something.
We first passed through the canyon of the Grand River, a fitting prelude
to all that was to come. Then we travelled along the Eagle River Canon,
and, last of all, experienced the wild wonders of the Royal Gorge. It
was a day of continued excitement and exalted pleasure. It is hard to
put in words the impressions of these immense rocky passes.
One may think of the giant forces which cleft asunder their rugged
sides in times so far removed as to be scarcely conceivable.
Then, as one sees the detached rocks, and the great moraines at the
mountain bases, and notes the clinging trees, and wild shrubs, and many
flowers, one must think of the rolling seasons, the heat, the frost,
the forces of the wind, and the storm, and the constant changes which
come with rain and sunshine, with growth, and with decay.
And then, wherever one looks, there, at right hand, or at left of the
railway track, is the rushing river, roaring on without stop or
stay--day and night--forever. It was these streams which gave a hint of
the pathway; first, to the red man, and then to the frontier trapper,
and gold-hunter, and last of all, to the engineers who built the iron
track over which we were speeding, swiftly, and in peace.
The picturesque effect of all is as varied as the thoughts which must
come in such a place. The rapid motion of the train, the ever-changing
point of view, as the track winds its sinuous way by the tortuous
river-bed--all gives a sort of motion to the vast, overhanging cliffs,
which seem to dance past one, like giants on a frolic.
I remember once making the journey through these passes, going west
from Denver. The view from the car windows was not enough for me. I
planted myself on one of the car platforms, linked my arm round the
railing, and with my feet on the steps, sat on the floor, swinging out,
as far as I safely could, to take it all in. Thus, oblivious of the
dust, I sat for an hour, and at last, satiated by the views on views,
returned contented to my seat. Just then a brakeman said to me, "We are
now entering the Royal Gorge." I had almost surfeited myself with the
mere prelude to the repast. The best was brought on, when my appetite
was, so to speak, appeased. But, what did appear, was too good to
neglect, so I was soon at it again as before, and did not leave my
perch until we had passed through all the glories which the Royal Gorge
contained.
The climax was reached in a spot too narrow for a track by the side of
the raging torrent. Our railroad was suspended from the sides of the
towering mountains by a huge iron construction, over which we passed,
until wider space beyond, gave us again a hold on _terra firma_.
Through all this region there is also the evidence of energy and force
of another kind. One sees the deserted huts of the gold-hunters, who
prospected, it may be in vain, or made their "pile and cleared out."
There is a terrible fascination in this eager hunt for wealth, and
those who hunt all their lives, often get least, and die in misery.
I was once in Victor, the next town to Cripple Creek, and while there,
heard, in the most casual way, that Tom Brennan, I think that was his
name, had been found in the mountains, dead, by his own hand. His luck
was gone, starvation stared him in the face, and, old, and hopeless, in
his lone misery, he sought death, alone.
When one sees, away up on some apparently inaccessible height, an
indication of fresh earth, and a black aperture at the top of it, and
realizes that in that spot, some one, or it may be more, are digging
and delving for a wealth that may never come, the thought is inevitable
of possible ruined hopes, or of sudden wealth, as Fortune may frown or
smile. But here, as well as everywhere, and in all relations of life,
the poet's words come true,
"The many fail, the one succeeds."
It is well for us, however, that failures, which may be possible, never
daunt us from effort, and the search, for that which the soul longs
for. We picture to ourselves success ever. Failure, like death, too
often comes, unannounced.
It is the spirit of daring and adventure which still peoples the lonely
mines on the mountain-sides; which fills the mining towns on their
highest crests, and which keeps the miners busy, whether on their
highest heights, or in the closeness of their deepest depths.
While on my way, a gentleman met me on the train, and pressed me to
stop over at Leadville, promising that he would take me down the
deepest gold mine in the place. I could not stay, even for that
approach to the presence of all-powerful gold.
I am sure that the underground view of Leadville would be better than
that which the sun looks upon. It is not an inviting-looking place. It
lies on the great top surges of the mountains, having all the bleakness
of a plain, and the rarefied atmosphere of the mountain summit, which
it really is.
It is always a weird thing to look at the scenes of early mining days
in Leadville, when the fame of the fabulous wealth therein, entered
into men's brains, with an intoxication, like that of some Oriental
drug. California Gulch looks like the dried bed of a mountain torrent.
What must it have been when every inch of it was staked out in claims,
and men, by men, close together, but widely separate in their
interests, shovelled up the dirt, and peered with eager gaze therein
for the yellow gold.
It is well to realize that even in Colorado, which is considered more a
mining than an agricultural State, the farm products, at the present
time, far outweigh in value the entire annual output of the mines. The
prosaic toil, as some may deem it, of the spade, and the plough; and
the pastoral occupation of stock-raising and dairy farming, are better
wealth-makers than the pick of the miner, or the labors of the mining
engineer.
The great day of our run through the giant attractions of the mountains
comes to a close at Pueblo, a busy railroad centre, where our track
bends to the north, and brings us at nightfall to Colorado Springs.
When we remembered all the glories of the day, the great mountain
clefts through which we passed, the roaring torrents which accompanied
us, the fantastic coloring of the rocks, and the evidences of labor and
energy which we had seen on every hand; and remembered also the untold
wealth which lay concealed, whether gold and silver, or rock oil, or
the produce of ranch and cattle range, our thoughts gathered up a
splendid impression of opulence, actual, and future.
Yet, wild and vast as it all was, we could not help thinking also, that
the nearest approach we had anywhere seen, to the glories through which
we had passed, had been already presented to us by the streets of New
York. Yes, it is like seeing a Grand Canon, to look from Murray Hill on
some October afternoon, down Fifth Avenue. There it all is,--the
towering edifices at each side are the mountains, the crowd rushes on
like the river,--all is color, life, and motion; and the blue haze of
the autumn day gives vagueness and mystery to the descending
perspective, as it comes to a point in Washington Square.
One sees the same effect also on lower Broadway, where the huge
buildings, and the wealth and energy which they express, suggest ever
to my mind the splendors of the great canyons of the West.