Between Pueblo and Bent's fort, southward, in a clear afternoon
sun-spell I catch exceptionally good glimpses of the Spanish peaks.
We are in southeastern Colorado--pass immense herds of cattle as our
first-class locomotive rushes us along--two or three times crossing
the Arkansas, which we follow many miles, and of which river I get fine
views, sometimes for quite a distance, its stony, upright, not very
high, palisade banks, and then its muddy flats. We pass Fort Lyon--lots
of adobie houses--limitless pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those
herds of cattle--in due time the declining sun in the west--a sky of
limpid pearl over all--and so evening on the great plains. A calm,
pensive, boundless landscape--the perpendicular rocks of the north
Arkansas, hued in twilight--a thin line of violet on the southwestern
horizon--the palpable coolness and slight aroma--a belated cow-boy with
some unruly member of his herd--an emigrant wagon toiling yet a little
further, the horses slow and tired--two men, apparently father and son,
jogging along on foot--and around all the indescribable _chiaroscuro_
and sentiment, (profounder than anything at sea,) athwart these endless
wilds.