I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers."
Further up stream, a little way, are the homes of the citizens, and more
hotels and boarding places--the Cliff House, Barker's, and a dozen
others. Here, too, on the banks of the creek, boiling up in basins of
their own secretion, and hidden under rustic kiosks of a later date, are
the springs themselves. They are six in number, varying in temperature
from 43° to 56° F., and are strongly charged with carbonic acid. "Coming
up the valley," writes an authority, "the first is the Shoshone,
bubbling up under a wooden canopy, close beside the main road of the
village, and often called the Sulphur Spring, from the yellow deposit
left around it. A few yards further on, and in a ledge of rock
overhanging the right bank of the Fontaine, is the Navajo (shown in the
foreground of our picture), containing carbonates of soda, lime and
magnesia, and still more strongly charged with carbonic acid, having a
refreshing taste similar to seltzer water. From this rocky basin, pipes
conduct the water to the bath-house, which is situated on the stream a
little below. Crossing by a pretty rustic bridge, we come to the
Manitou, close to an ornamental summer-house; its taste and properties
nearly resemble the Navajo. Recrossing the stream and walking a quarter
of a mile up the Ute Pass road, following the right bank of the
Fontaine, we find, close to its brink, the Ute Soda. This resembles the
Manitou and Navajo, but is chemically less powerful, though much enjoyed
for a refreshing draught. Retracing one's steps to within two hundred
yards of the Manitou Spring, we cross a bridge leading over a stream
which joins the Fontaine at almost a right angle from the southwest;
following up the right bank of this mountain brook, which is called
Ruxton's Creek, we enter the most beautiful of the tributary valleys of
Manitou. Traversing the winding road among rocks and trees for nearly
half a mile, we reach a pavilion close to the right bank of the creek,
in which we find the Iron Ute, the water being highly effervescent, of
the temperature of 44° 3' F., and very agreeable in spite of its marked
chalybeate taste. Continuing up the left bank of the stream for a few
hundred yards, we reach the last of the springs that have been
analyzed--the Little Chief; this is less agreeable in taste, being less
effervescent and more strongly impregnated with sulphate of soda than
any of the other springs, and containing nearly as much iron as the Iron
Ute.
"These springs have from time immemorial enjoyed a reputation as healing
waters among the Indians, who, when driven from the glen by the inroads
of civilization, left behind them wigwams to which they used to bring
their sick; believing, as they did, that the Good Spirit breathed into
the waters the breath of life, they bathed and drank of them, thinking
thereby to find a cure for every ill; yet it has been found that they
thought most highly of their virtues when their bones and joints were
racked with pain, their skins covered with unsightly blotches, or their
warriors weakened by wounds or mountain sickness. During the seasons
that the use of these waters has been under observation, it has been
noticed that rheumatism, certain skin diseases, and cases of debility
have been much benefited, so far confirming the experience of the past.
The Manitou and Navajo have also been highly praised for their relief of
old kidney and liver troubles, and the Iron Ute for chronic alcoholism
and uterine derangements. Many of the phthisical patients who come to
this dry, bracing air in increasing numbers are also said to have drunk
of the waters with evident advantage.
"Professor Loew (chemist to the Wheeler expedition), speaking of the
Manitou Springs as a group, says, very justly, they resemble those of
Ems, and excel those of Spa--two of the most celebrated in Europe.
"On looking at the analyses of the Manitou group it will be seen that
they all contain carbonic acid and carbonate of soda, yet they vary in
some of their other constituents. We will, therefore, divide them into
three groups of carbonated soda waters: 1. The carbonated soda waters
proper, comprising the Navajo, Manitou and Ute Soda, in which the soda
and carbonic acid have the chief action. 2. The purging carbonated soda
waters, comprising the Little Chief and Shoshone, where the action of
the soda and carbonic acid is markedly modified by the sulphates of soda
and potash. 3. The ferruginous carbonated soda waters where the action
of the carbonic acid and soda is modified by the carbonate of iron,
comprising the Iron Ute and the Little Chief, which latter belongs to
this group as well as to the preceding one."
Such are the medicinal fountains that not only have proved themselves
blessings to thousands of invalids, sick of pharmacy, but cause the
summer days here to be haunted by pleasure seekers, who make the health
of some afflicted friend, or weariness from overwork in them selves,
excuse for coming; or boldly assert themselves here purely for
pleasure. Time was when this entrance to a score of glens was a
rendezvous for game and primitively wild. Even a dozen years ago it
would answer to this description, and now one need not go far in winter
to find successful shooting. "In summer time," to quote the Earl of
Dunraven, "beautiful but dangerous creatures roam the park. The tracks
of tiny little shoes are more frequent than the less interesting, but
harmless footprints of mountain sheep. You are more likely to catch a
glimpse of the hem of a white petticoat in the distance than of the
glancing form of a deer. The marks of carriage wheels are more plentiful
than elk signs, and you are not now so liable to be scared by the
human-like track of a gigantic bear as by the appalling impress of a
number eleven boot."
[Illustration: THE MINERAL SPRINGS.]
Do not imagine, however, that all the boot-tracks mark "the appalling
impress of a number eleven." The Madame tells me they dress as well at
Manitou as at Saratoga; to me this seems a doubtful kind of compliment,
but she intended it to cover the perfection of summer toilets. At
Manitou, indeed, you do all you think it proper to do in the Green
Mountains, or at White Sulphur, or any other upland resort, but in far
more delightfully unconventional ways, and the enjoyment is
proportionately increased.
No Eastern watering-place affords opportunity for so many desirable
excursions, each distinct from the other in interest, each superb and of
itself a sufficient inducement to come to Colorado. Just overhead towers
the glorious old crest of Pike's Peak, the beacon of '59, and ever since
the type of American mountains. He who does not ascend the Peak (if he
is in fair health) can never get a good character from Manitou. Of
course all of the present party went. Moreover we went fancy-free and
note-book forgotten--a happiness as great as Patti's when she saw there
was no piano on the ocean steamer in which she was to take passage. "How
was this?" do you ask? Lillian Scidmore had been there before us, and
reaped with her keen sickle every spear of wheat in the whole field. To
show our gleanings would amount to nothing; so here is her whole sheaf:
"The tenth of June having left the world upon its axis, a little band of
heroic spirits made ready to mount the bony bronchos, and toil upward
from the green and lovely vale of Manitou to the rocky height above. The
noonday sun was sending down its most scorching rays, and the idlers on
the hotel piazza were mopping their brows and repeating the wearisome
formula of 'the hottest day ever known in Colorado.' The sun was ardent,
to say the least, but the crisp breeze that came rustling down from the
higher cañons tempered its effects.
"The sympathetic chambermaid of the Beebee House had been hovering in my
doorway for a half hour before the start, urging me to take more and
more wraps, and relating horrible anecdotes of the Chicago lady 'who had
her nose burned to a white blister and her face so raw, ma'am, that we
could hardly touch it with a feather for three days.' With such gentle
admonition there was no struggle when the kind-hearted one proceeded to
apply her preventive, and under a triple layer of cold cream, powder and
barege veils we made the trip, and returned rather fairer in skin for
the bleaching process. The perspiration ran off the guide's forehead
before he had strapped on the first bundle of overcoats, ulsters,
shawls, rugs and furs, but the grateful sensation they imparted to us a
few hours later will cheer me through many midsummer days. The party
included, among others, a gentleman and his wife from St. Louis, and the
same wicked Colorado editor who is the author of all the fine spun yarns
about the Pike's Peak volcano and the mountain lions.
"Such horses as we rode can be raised and trained only on a mountain
trail, and if they could but speak, what tales of timidity, stupidity
and absurdity they might relate. My own Arabian was a tan-colored beast,
shading off to drab and old gold, known in the vernacular of the country
as a buckskin horse, and rejoiced in the sweet name of 'Bird.' It was a
veritable misnomer, for birds do not generally sit down and roll at
every piece of green grass or cool water that they come to, nor try to
shake their riders off over their necks. My sudden flights to earth were
heralded in all the turgid and flamboyant rhetoric of the circus ring,
and equestrian feats, each outrivaling the other in novelty and
unexpectedness, diversified the route. It was proposed to call the
creature Jordan, because she rolled; and again it was suggested that as
it was 'sinched' out of all shape it had mistaken itself for an
hourglass, and concluded that it was time to turn. Another horse for a
lady rider answered to 'Annie,' and this gentle beast was only kept
from lying down in every stream by energetic pullings and vigorous
thrashings. The good son of St. Louis, bidden, like Louis XVI at the
guillotine, to 'mount to heaven,' when he leaped upon his dappled gray,
in a linen coat, broad-brimmed hat and full-spread umbrella, had a truly
ministerial air as he preceded the line up the road. The editor rode a
pensive nag that hung its head and coughed timidly now and then, but
chirruped to as 'Camille' would push forward and crowd the other horses
off the trail, until a kicking and lashing from the heels of 'Bird'
brought things in order.
"The Pike's Peak trail is one series of picturesque surprises. All that
green cañons, tremendous boulders and turbulent little streams can do
for beauty are there, and from the rustic spot where a small bandit on
the rock demanded toll, there was a succession of grand and lovely
scenes. The trail, worn deep into the grassy places by the procession of
horses that goes up and down it from May to October, winds on between
great rocks, along the steep and dizzy sides of cañons, past cascades
and waterfalls (one of which is the subject of a sketch), and
continually upward, opening boundless views out upon the broad plains
that stretch like a yellow sea from the foothills of the Peak eastward.
With every rise there came a greater one beyond, and above it all,
seeming to move and rise further and higher from us, was the rose-red
summit, with streaks and patches of snow bringing out its beautiful
colors. Over giant boulders, creeping a cramped path beside and under
them, or along a narrow ledge of sliding sand with colossal rocks
miraculously suspended above our pathway, the panting horses toiled
along. Ascending into higher and rarer air it was necessary every few
minutes to stop and give the poor creatures a chance to breathe.
"As we rose higher on the mountain side more extended views were opened
backward over the plains. The lowering sun fell fiercely on the red
sandstone gateways of the Garden of the Gods, until they burned in
flame-colored light against the yellow-gray grass. The hotels and
cottages of Manitou were tiny dots in a green hollow far below, and the
courses of the winding streams could be traced for miles over the plains
by their green borders of cottonwood and willow trees. Wild flowers grew
luxuriantly all the way, and in a little park half way to the summit,
where the guides rest by a spring and wait for ascending and descending
parties to pass, the ground was thick with big columbines, wild roses,
harebells, white daisies, pale lavender geraniums with their petals
streaked with maroon, and the beautiful blue-eyed penstemon of early
June. At timber-line the wild box covered the sandy slopes with a thick
and tangled mat of green, and higher than the hardiest pines stretched a
rolling mountain meadow, a mile of emerald turf jeweled with the
brilliant blossoms of bluebells, buttercups, dwarf sunflowers and dainty
little Quaker-lady forget-me-nots.
"Sixteen people passed us in the half-way park on their way down. The
terrified countenance of one lady on a mule would have made the
hard-hearted to laugh. She pitched back and forth in her saddle, and
shot a pitiful gaze at us as she went by that plainly indicated her
estimate of us and mountain climbers in general. The twelve miles of
steep, hard riding to the summit is trying to the most practiced rider;
and for women, who have never sat a horse before, to attempt to make the
trip up and down in one day is a folly that fully deserves the
punishment it gets. Twenty-four miles of horseback riding on a level
road even is apt to be remembered by the inexperienced. Added to the
fatigue is the sea-sickness consequent upon the great altitude, and few
who make the ascent escape that ill. It is a certificate of a rock-bound
constitution to spend a night on the summit and not be grievously ill.
After the mountain meadow come three miles of broken and ragged rock,
the most wearisome and discouraging part of the road. The horses' sides
throbbed frightfully, the keen winds made a halt for overcoats
necessary, and the scramble over these steep rocks is a fearful thing in
a nipping sunset breeze. The rocks of the summit, that seem only reddish
brown from below, are of the softest pink and rose-red shades, dotted
with black and golden moss-patches until they strongly remind one of the
exquisite colors of speckled trout. Above this sea of loose and broken
granite a low, square house of stone at last arose, and over the
ultimate rock we finally stood on the highest inhabited point on the
continent.
"The officer of the signal service, who lives in that lofty house, stood
in his doorway shooting at a tin can on a pole, and in that thin open
air the pop of the pistol was a short, faint little noise without crash
or echo. The red ball of the sun sinking down behind the snowy edges of
the mountains beyond Leadville sent strange lights and mists across the
tossed and uneven stretch of mountains and parks that lay between it and
the gaunt old Peak. The seventy acres of wildly scattered rock-fragments
that crown the top afford a vantage ground for views to every point of
the compass. Eastward across the vast prairie land there seems no limit
to the vision, and beyond the green lines of the Platte and Arkansas
rivers we amused ourselves by imagining the steeples of St. Louis in the
rose and purple vapors of the horizon. The clouds, mists, shadows and
faint opalescent lights on the plains, shifting, changing and fading
each moment, are more fascinatingly beautiful than the dark, upheaved
and splintered ridges of the mountains. Stretching out over the plains,
at first in a blue cone upon the grass, and then sweeping outward and
upward to the sky-line, the vast shadow of the mountain was thrown
sharply against the sky.
"Wrapped in furs and bundled in all the woolen warmth of heaviest winter
clothes, the chill air of evening penetrated like a knife-edge, and we
sat shivering on the rocks with pitiable, pinched and purple faces and
chattering teeth. The afterglow in the east, when the sky and the plains
melted in one purple line and a band of rose-color went up higher and
higher, was more lovely even than the pure crimson and gold and blue of
the sunset clouds.
"Around the crackling fire in the station we thawed our benumbed fingers
and watched the observations taken from the various instruments and sent
clicking off on the telegraph wires to Washington headquarters. The
sergeant wound the alarm-clock to rouse us at four o'clock the next
morning, and, giving up the one sleeping-room to the ladies, retired
with the gentlemen of the party to a bed of buffalo-robes in the
kitchen. The awful stillness, the stealthy puffs of wind, and the sense
of isolation and remoteness, were distressing at first; but the
tobacco-laden air dulled us to sleep. As the fire died out, dreams of
Greenland--glaciers and giddy snow-banks on impossible summits--seized
and held us, until a shivering voice gave the alarm: 'It is all red in
the east.'
"We had climbed all those miles purposely to see the spectacle of dawn,
but there was unhappiness among the pinched and pallid enthusiasts who
crept out on the rocks and watched the half-light on the plains deepen.
A pale and withered moon hung overhead, and miles away on the plain lay
a vast white cloud like a lake, until the rising sun touched it and sent
it rolling and tossing like angry waves. A crimson ball sprang suddenly
from the outermost rim of the earth, glared with a red and sleepy eye
upon the world, and pulled the cover of a cloud above it for a second
nap before it came forth in full splendor. The shadow of the Peak
projected westward fell this time on the uneven mountains, whose sides
and clefts were filled and floating with faint pearl, lilac and roseate
mists. The black patch where Denver lay on the plains, the snowy top of
Gray's Peak, the green basin of South Park, and seemingly everything
from end to end of the State, could be seen. Shivering, freezing, on
that mountain top, with a fur cloak about me, besides all the other
wraps, it seemed that there never was a winter day half as cold.
"In all the crevices of the rocks, wherever there was enough powdered
granite to form a soil for their roots, were tiny little white blossoms,
fairy stars or flowers, with just their heads above the ground, and an
exquisite perfume breathing from them. Bidding the guide to sinch up
quickly for the down trip, we partook of the signal sergeant's coffee,
and listened to his anecdotes of his lonesome life of two weeks on the
mountain and two weeks in town.
"'You are the best crowd that's been up,' said the brave man of
barometers. 'They all get sick when they stay over night. It took me a
month to get used to it. You ought to stay until noon and see the
tender-feet come up and get sick. Oh, Lord! there was an old lady up
here the other day, and she says to me: "Sergeant, don't people ever die
of this sickness up here?" "Oh, yes, ma'am," says I, "a lady died the
other day, and as there wasn't any one to identify her we just put her
over in that snow-bank there."'
[Illustration: PIKE'S PEAK TRAIL.]
"With a lot more of such mountain horrors he kept his rafters ringing,
and then bade us climb the ladder to the top of his house, which would
make up the difference of fifteen feet between his abode and Gray's
Peak. We looked at the grave of the imaginary child destroyed by
mountain rats, gave a last glance at the enchanted view, and left the
chilling region."
* * * * *
Another entertaining jaunt is a couple of miles or less up the Ute Pass
wagon-road to Rainbow Falls, one of the finest cascades in the
West--where such things are more of a curiosity than in wetter regions
of the world. The water comes down here with a more than ordinarily
desperate plunge, and it is great sport to climb about the angular rocks
that hem it in.
Ute Pass leads over into South Park, and before the days of railways it
was greatly traveled by passengers and by freight wagons to Leadville
and Fairplay. There is less transit there now, but in summer
pleasure-parties constantly traverse the Pass, partly for its own sake
and partly to enjoy a sight of Manitou Park on the opposite side, whence
a magnificent array of the snowy interior ranges is to be seen,
northward and westward, while Pike's Peak presents itself to superior
advantage from that point of view. In the park is a good little hotel
and dairy, and a trout stream and pond where the Eastern brook-trout has
been assiduously cultivated. In the fall Manitou Park is the resort of
deer hunters and grouse shooters.
Then there is the already mentioned Garden of the Gods, hidden behind
those garish walls of red and yellow sandstone, so stark and out of
place in the soberly-toned landscape that they travesty nature,
converting the whole picture into a theatrical scene, and a highly
spectacular one at that. Passing behind these sensational walls, one is
not surprised to find a sort of gigantic peep-show in pantomime. The
solid rocks have gone masquerading in every sort of absurd costume and
character. The colors of the make-up, too, are varied from black through
all the browns and drabs to pure white, and then again through yellows
and buffs and pinks up to staring red. Who can portray adequately these
odd forms of chiseled stone? I have read a dozen descriptions, and so
have you, no doubt. But one I have just seen, in a letter by a Boston
lady, is so pertinent you should have the pleasure of reading it:
"The impression is of something mighty, unreal and supernatural. Of the
gods surely--but the gods of the Norse Walhalla in some of their strange
outbursts of wild rage or uncouth playfulness. The beauty-loving
divinities of Greece and Rome could have nothing in common with such
sublime awkwardness. Jove's ambrosial curls must shake in another
Olympia than this. Weird and grotesque, but solemn and awful at the same
time, as if one stood on the confines of another world, and soon the
veil would be rent which divided them. Words are worse than useless to
attempt such a picture. Perhaps if one could live in the shadow of its
savage grandeur for months until his soul were permeated, language would
begin to find itself flowing in proper channels, but in the first stupor
of astonishment one must only hold his breath. The Garden itself, the
holy of holies, as most fancy, is not so overpowering to me as the vast
outlying wildness.
"To pass in between massive portals of rock of brilliant terra-cotta
red, and enter on a plain miles in extent, covered in all directions
with magnificent isolated masses of the same striking color, each
lifting itself against the wonderful blue of a Colorado sky with a
sharpness of outline that would shame the fine cutting of an etching; to
find the ground under your feet, over the whole immense surface,
carpeted with the same rich tint, underlying arabesques of green and
gray, where grass and mosses have crept; to come-upon masses of pale
velvety gypsum, set now and again as if to make more effective by
contrast the deep red which strikes the dominant chord of the picture;
and always, as you look through or above, to catch the stormy billows of
the giant mountain range tossed against the sky, with the regal
snow-crowned massiveness of Pike's Peak rising over all, is something,
once seen, never to be forgotten. Strange, grotesque shapes, mammoth
caricatures of animals, clamber, crouch, or spring from vantage points
hundreds of feet in air. Here a battlemented wall is pierced by a round
window; there a cluster of slender spires lift themselves; beyond, a
leaning tower slants through the blue air, or a cube as large as a
dwelling-house is balanced on a pivot-like point at the base, as if a
child's strength could upset it. Imagine all this scintillant with
color, set under a dazzling sapphire dome, with the silver stems and
delicate frondage of young cottonwoods in one space, or a strong young
hemlock lifting green symmetrical arms from some high rocky cleft in
another. This can be told, but the massiveness of sky-piled masonry, the
almost infernal mixture of grandeur and grotesqueness, are beyond
expression. After the first few moments of wild exclamation one sinks
into an awed silence."