In the midst of all here, lie such beautiful contrasts as the sunken
basins of the North, Middle, and South Parks, (the latter I am now on
one side of, and overlooking,) each the size of a large, level, almost
quandrangular, grassy, western county, wall'd in by walls of hills, and
each park the source of a river. The ones I specify are the largest in
Colorado, but the whole of that State, and of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and
western California, through their sierras and ravines, are copiously
mark'd by similar spreads and openings, many of the small ones of
paradisiac loveliness and perfection, with their offsets of mountains,
streams, atmosphere and hues beyond compare.