(for they stand not squarely opposite one another, but with somewhat
overlapping ends only) each vertically faced and uprightly seamed on the
river side, but sloping away into a grassy ridge behind. The southern
end of the bluffs, which also is the farthest up stream, is narrow and
tower-like, but the other, rounding out and swelling high, in the center
has a breadth of half a mile or more, the river washing its bowed base.
Of about the same height as the Palisades of the Hudson, and like them
marked with vertical lines of cleavage, this bluff of reddish volcanic
rock would bear a striking resemblance to that great monument of the
Plutonic reign on the Atlantic slope, did its façade present a straight
front; but in this swelling front is where it exceeds its eastern rival,
for one gets added pleasure from the perspective of the massive
battlement retreating right and left in grand curvature.
The gap is wide enough not to pen the water into a very narrow flood, so
that only a slight exaggeration of the always lively current occurs.
This is enough, however, to make these ripples a favorite spot for the
splendid trout in which the whole upper part of the river abounds, and I
suppose four or five thousand pounds of these gamy fish are taken every
year.
Right at the foot of the talus stands a group of connected log-cabins
forming a comfortable hotel. As we are bound for the hot springs, we do
not remain here, but climbing into the spring wagon in waiting ride
southward for a mile back into the hills to a second little _cuchara_ of
a valley where are the springs themselves and the hotel, bath houses and
accessories belonging to the sanitarium they have created. This hotel is
delightfully home-like in its excellence of bed and board.
Persons go to Wagon Wheel Gap seeking recreation and for recovery from
ill health. If the first is their object (as it has been in the case of
the late Secretary of the Treasury,--one of the hardest working men for
ten months in the year, in the United States) they have a pleasant home
and good company and no end of out-door fun from which to choose. There
are little hills near by which they may begin on, and taller bluffs
beyond, where they may make perfect their practice; while far away stand
the "ultimate heights" of the Sierra Madre,--unbroken masses of snow
when we last beheld their spear-pointed peaks. There are ponies they may
ride, and donkeys for the children. There are single buggies and phætons
for the ladies and carryalls for the whole family. There are
geologizing, botanizing and general natural history to invite study in
endless variety.
Then there is good sport. That noblest of the deer race,--the elk--still
haunts the upland pastures and mountain glades. The black-tailed deer is
to be found lurking in the aspens, and, if you are a good climber, you
may enjoy the very next thing to Alpine chamois shooting in the arduous
chase of the mountain sheep. As for fishing, there is no stint to it in
the proper season. I know no place in Colorado where the fly-fisher will
have better sport and the angler, though uninstructed in the wiles of
Walton, get better results.
But it is to invalids that the hot springs especially appeal, holding
out all these pleasures for their delectation as gradually they regain
their health sufficiently to practice and enjoy them. Long ago these
beneficent waters were resorted to by the Indians for healing. A trail,
not yet obliterated, ran across the hills to Pagosa Springs, which were
called The Big Medicine, while these waters were known as The Little
Medicine.
Though of less volume than single springs at Pagosa, the springs at
Wagon Wheel Gap pour out nearly as much water, since there are thirty or
more of them in the sheltered basin which makes a natural sanitarium.
Some are icy cold, others tepid, others extremely hot. They are diverse
also, in respect to their mineral constituents, nearly every known
variety of _spa_ water being represented more or less closely. Only a
few of the springs are utilized, however, those being selected which
seem to have the most powerful curative properties. These are
principally three,--and are known as Nos. One, Two and Three. The
analysis of them published, though imperfect, but serves to show the
general character of each, and reads as follows, the proportions being
thousandths of a given bulk of the water:
===================================================
| No. 1. | No. 2. | No. 3.
---------------------------------------------------
Sodium Carbonate | 69.42 | Trace. | 144.50
Lithium Carbonate | Trace. | Trace. | Trace.
Calcium Carbonate | 13.08 | 31.00 | 22.42
Magnesium Carbonate | 10.91 | 5.10 | 22.42
Potassium Sulphate | Trace. | Trace. | Trace.
Sodium Sulphate | 23.73 | 10.50 | 13.76
Sodium Chloride | 29.25 | 11.72 | 33.34
Silicic Acid | 5.73 | 1.07 | 4.75
Organic Matter | Trace. | Trace. | ......
Sulphureted Hydrogen | Trace. | 12.00 | ......
|---------+---------+---------
Total | 152.12 | 71.39 | 218.77
---------------------+---------+---------+---------
The largest of these is the "Number One," and from it is drawn the water
for the plunge-bath and to the private bath-rooms, which is used in the
largest number of cases where the disease affects the nerves, blood or
skin. An oval basin twenty feet or more in length has been excavated and
tastefully walled up. Here the spring bubbles up most copiously, at a
temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and sends off an incessant cloud
of steam if the air is at all cold. From this tank the water is
conducted in an open trough to the bath-houses, losing about 30 degrees
of its heat on the way. This introduces it into the baths at the quite
endurable temperature of 120 degrees, but fills the compartment with a
cloud of vapor, so that the patient breathes in the chemically-laden
moisture with every inhalation. Besides this, while in the bath, the
fresh hot water is drunk in big draughts. The invalid is thus soaked out
and in with the healing fluid; the pores of his skin, all the passages
of his head and chest, his stomach and secretory organs feel the touch
of the water and eagerly absorb the medicinal elements it contains.
Astonishing results have come from a steady continuance of daily baths
and sweatings. They will tell you instances--and vouch for them, too, by
incontestable testimony--of men brought there utterly helpless and full
of agony from inflammatory rheumatism or neuralgia, who, in a week, were
able to walk about and help themselves, in a fortnight were strolling
about the valley erect and comfortable, in a month went to work. Three
months of faithful self-treatment, it is confidently promised, will set
straight the most chronic and painful cases of such invalidism. Many a
miner now digging in the wintry mountains passed from almost certain
death to exuberant strength through this Siloam, and evidences are being
multiplied of the startling efficacy of these springs with every
additional season.
Then there is the dreadful list of cutaneous diseases and disorders of
the blood, headed by the fiendish heritage of syphilis. To such cases,
because their disease is communicable, are set apart separate baths.
Here, again, utter helplessness and the awful suffering which tempts to
suicide, are relieved by a few weeks of steady application; and not
merely relieved, as the druggist's medicines might in some cases do,
but, it is claimed, thoroughly and healthfully cured. But this last
claim, in the case of pronounced syphilis, needs the confirmation of
longer trial. I am willing to admit that the two or three, or four years
which have elapsed since certain persons have gone away restored to
health, have shown no recurrence of the symptoms; but I should like to
know that the same thing could be said indisputably half a century hence
before I would be willing to admit as proven that this spring or any
other could lay low forever the head of a malady which it has hitherto
baffled medical science to eradicate wholly from an infected system. But
even if this final, full glory shall never be attained by the Wagon
Wheel Springs, it is enough joy for the present that they are able to
alleviate its miseries and even temporarily check the havoc of body and
soul. I have said so much upon this point, because, it being impossible
to deny the existence of the evil, it is every man's duty to aid in
spreading a knowledge of any method of relief or cure.
[Illustration: WAGON WHEEL GAP.]
It is in the two classes of diseases above mentioned that the little
cold spring comes into play as a useful beverage. Dyspeptics, however,
bathing with less assiduity than their more unfortunate brethren, affect
the hot soda water (Number Three), which bubbles up in a strong, hot
fountain at the head of the gulch, and surrounded by chalybeate springs
of various qualities. This is the water, too, which the mildly ailing
like to sip, perhaps mingling a little lemon juice and sugar with it to
make a foaming compound grateful both to the taste and the system,--a
union rare in these days of doctors.
So, thanking God, we were in no need of the Little Medicine for health,
but could enjoy its delicious warmth and fragrance as pleasure
unalloyed; but profoundly grateful that for humanity in worse luck there
was such an Elim in the desert of our degeneracy, we bade adieu to
pleasant, sunny, warm-hearted Wagon Wheel and its jolly landlord,--Mr.
McClelland, our compliments, and your good health, sir, in something
stronger than mineral water!
Down at the station we went fishing, partly for fun, partly with the
urgency that set the boy digging out the woodchuck. Marvelous
stories--regular fish stories of eight-pound trout caught on a
seven-ounce rod,--had been dinned into our ears; and as for me, I half
believed them (for I remembered the splendid fellows we used to snatch
from the White Water at pretty Irene cañon, up above Antelope park). Our
ambition was not to repeat such performances, but to get one or two of,
say a pound and a half each; while the Madame said she'd be thankful if
we had a few little ones not worth weighing, by dinner time. So Chum and
I went down stream rod in hand.
Having floundered round on the slipping bowlders for awhile without
sitting down, we struck a couple of good-sized pools at the head of a
riffle; Chum took the upper, I the lower. Making my way out near to
mid-stream, I took up my station behind a large flat rock that stood
about a foot out of water, and busied myself sending a "coachman" and a
"professor" out into my domain with a little hope that I might induce
something out of the inviting pool. Before I had been there five
minutes, a yell from Chum caused me to look his way. His Bethabard was
beautifully arched, and at the end of twenty feet of line something was
helping itself to silk.
"I've got him; he's a whopper."
"That's the pound and a half I promised you," I answered, as a beautiful
fellow shot across stream not three yards above me. "But you'll lose him
in that current."
"I know it, unless I work him down your way."
"Come on with him--don't mind me." I reeled in, climbed on the rock, and
sat down to see the fun. The noble fellow made a gallant fight, but the
hook was in his upper jaw, and it was only a matter of time when he
would turn upon his side. Working him down stream, through my pool and
round into the quieter water near shore, was the work of ten minutes at
least, the captive, seeming to readily understand that still water was
not his best hold, kept making rushes for the swift current; but each
time he was brought back, and soon began to weaken under the spring of
the lithe toy in Chum's hand. Fifteen minutes were exhausted when the
scale hook was run under his gills and he registered one pound twelve
ounces.
Apologizing for creating a row in my quarters, Chum went back to his old
place, while again I tried my luck. About five minutes elapsed when I
heard another not to be mistaken yell.
"I've got another--he's bigger than the first."
"Yes, I see you have--I think it's infernally mean."
"I know it is, but I can't help it. I've got to come down there again."
"Well, come on," and I sat down again to watch the issue. The struggle
was not so brave, though the fish, when brought to scale, weighed half a
pound more than the first. While we were commenting on this streak of
luck, we noticed a change in the water, its partially clear hue began to
grow milky, and in less time than it takes to tell it, a bowlder six
inches under the surface was out of sight.
"We might as well go to dinner, no trout will try to rise in that mud,"
and I reeled up with the reflection that the next best thing to catching
a trout is to see one captured by one who knows how.
The next day we had another try. Chum crossed the river, and then we
slowly walked down to a magnificent pool a mile below. Here were a party
of half a dozen gentlemen, to one of whom I called out just as we came
within hearing.
"Have you got him?" The inquiry was made on the score of good
fellowship; the bend of his split bamboo, the tension of his line, and
the whirr of his reel indicated the first stage.
"I've hooked him, and he's no sardine, I tell you--whoa, boy, gently
now," as a sudden rush strung off full twenty feet of line. "Whoa, boy,
be easy now; gently, now; come here; whoa! confound your picture! whoa,
boy, gently, so, boy."
"May be you think you are driving a mule," came from one of the anglers.
"Oh, no! I'm trying to lead one--whoa, boy, whoa, boy, gently, now, none
of your capers--whoa! I tell you!" as a renewed and vigorous dash for
liberty threatened destruction to the slender tackle. "No you don't, old
fellow, so, boy, that's a good fellow," and showing his back near the
surface, the captive exhibited twenty inches (at a guess) of trout.
"By George, he's a beauty," came from behind us.
I had allowed my flies to float down stream and had backed out to give
room for fair play. It was a long fight, but his troutship finally
showed side up, and was gently drawn ashore, the water turned out of
him, and he drew down the scale three pounds to a notch.
These are only "pointers" for the angling fraternity. As for our own
luck that day--well, we had good trout left in the ice-box for a week.
It was our fortune throughout this trip to mix experiences by the most
sudden transitions. It did not seem strange to us, therefore, that from
the gold-fields and trouting and jollity of this beautiful valley, we
should go at a jump into the coal districts east of the range.
XVII
EL MORO AND CAÑON CITY.
For Knights no more in modern days bestride
Their Rosinante and across the hills
Ride, by my halidome, to succor maids
Or couch a lance against an amorous foe;
Instead, within a Pullman Palace Car
At ease reclining and at peace with all,
We conquer space while romance groweth dull
Under the languor of the April air.
--WILLIAM E. PABOR.
"El Moro, sir,--breakfast nearly ready, sir!"
I had only closed my eyes an instant before, I was sure, yet then I had
been lying quietly in the station at Alamosa, away over on the other
side of the Sangre de Cristo. I couldn't remember anything of the
transition. Then it was night; now it was morning. Time and space had
been an utter blank for ten hours and a hundred miles.
Drawing aside my window curtain and gazing out over gray plains, my eyes
caught instantly the bluish outlines of a grander castle and fortress
than ever traveler on Rhine or Danube glanced upon. Almost a
twelve-month before the Madame and I had spent a sunny day at St.
Augustine, where the old square, four-bastioned fort stood grim on the
shore of a foam-flecked and laughing sea. Here was a copy of that
fortress a thousand times as large,--sloping walls, outer works,
bastions, towers and all; you might almost see the huge guns, standing
rigid and ready on the magnificent parapet. This was _El Moro_. It was
miles and miles away, and a hundred cities had room to cluster about it
and take its name without crowding one another. It is the most
magnificent model of a half ruined, antique, but altogether glorious
fortress in the whole wide world.
At El Moro are some of the great coal mines of this carboniferous state;
but to put the matter Hibernically, they are half a dozen miles away up
in the hills. We went up there on an engine which drew behind it a
box-car load of Mexicans, men and women, who all squatted down on their
heels on the car floor and were quite happy, chattering like magpies. It
is a very miserable class of Mexicans, for the most part, that one sees
in this part of the state. The fathers and mothers of most of them were
_peons_ of the wealthy Spaniards, who, under the old _regime_, owned all
this region as pasturage for their flocks and herds.
The coal-bed is some hundreds of feet higher than the valley of the
Purgatoire, where the village is; and it can be traced for thirty miles
east and west, cropping out frequently and used all along by the farmers
who live near it, as a supply of fuel. Throughout this extent it varies,
of course, in thickness and quality, though in no great degree. Where
the El Moro mines are opened, it runs from a vertical thickness of
thirty feet to thirteen, nearly all of which is solid, merchantable
coal. There are two thin streaks of what the miners term
"bone"--something neither coal nor slate--and little patches of refuse,
now and then, but no great amount.
I do not know how many hundreds of yards of underground tunnels we
walked through, but it was an immense distance, yet the foreman said we
had not been half way through it all. Everywhere the roof was high
overhead and the walls solid coal, so that the men did not have to crawl
on all fours or lie prostrate and dig, as I have seen done in some
eastern mines, but could stand full height. All the product of the mine
is taken by the pick, except a small amount cut by machines, which dig a
horizontal trench, level with the floor, for five feet or so under the
breast of the coal and across its whole breadth. This machine works with
extreme rapidity, and after it is done, a couple of blasts will topple
down as much coal as can be carted out in a day.
[Illustration: UP THE RIO GRANDE.]
The output each month is nearly twenty-five thousand tons, about two
hundred and seventy-five miners working. The piece-work method is
adopted in paying, and though a smaller rate is paid per ton in mining
than is usual in the Pennsylvania or Illinois mines, the earnings of the
miners aggregate much larger than the average in the East. This is due
to the superior ease with which this coal can be taken out, because of
its softness and the roominess of the working chambers, rather than to
anything better in the miners or greater diligence in working. One
difficulty, indeed, arises from the ease with which high earnings can
be made here, namely, that desirable workmen will labor only during the
winter, or until they have made a "grub-stake," as they say, when they
will go into the mountains prospecting for mines until their funds are
exhausted, for, thus far, none of them have become suddenly wealthy.
At the mines, the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, which owns this
property, have built a small village of _adobe_ and wooden houses, in
which the miners reside. About two hundred men were employed, many of
whom had families. They were of almost every nationality, including some
sixty Mexicans.
The El Moro coal is a true bituminous coal, producing a coke of
excellent quality. It is asserted by its owners to be the best coal for
making gas and for blacksmithing in the state; and it is used
extensively for steam and metallurgical purposes. It is also said to be
the only coal yet discovered in Colorado, lying east of the mountains,
which can be profitably used for heating iron in furnaces, and for this
it is equal to the best grades of eastern coal. About two-thirds of the
product is made into coke.
The coke-works lie five miles from the mines and near El Moro, where
there are three steam pumps, a fifty-horse power engine, crushing and
washing machinery and two hundred and fifty coking ovens. A charge for
each of these ovens, they told us, was about four and a half tons, and
the yield of coke from each, after forty-eight hours of burning, is
about two and a quarter tons, making a present total product of two
hundred and eighty tons of coal a day.
The following shows the analysis of this coal and coke, and also that of
the well known Connelsville coal and coke:
COAL.
Vol. Fix.
Water. Matter. Carbon. Ash. Sulphur.
El Moro 0.26 29.66 65.76 4.32 0.85
Connelsville 1.26 30.11 59.52 8.23 0.78
COKE.
Fix.
Carbon. Ash. Sulphur.
El Moro 87.47 10.68 0.85
Connelsville 87.26 11.99 0.75
This analysis of El Moro coal was made from selected specimens; the
average of ash in the coke will probably run up to twelve to fourteen
per cent.
When we were at Cucharas once before (I have omitted to mention it in
its proper place), we ran over to Walsenburg, a neat little settlement
in Huerfano Park, and a headquarters for a large sheep industry, and
visited the coal mines of this company near by. They own a large tract
of land there, containing three seams of coal, four, nine, and five feet
in thickness. Only the thickest of these has as yet been developed,
sending out about seventy-five thousand tons annually. This coal
analyses as follows, "No. 1" being the four-feet seam, "No. 2" the
nine-feet seam:
No. 1. No. 2.
Water 3.23 2.97
Vol. Matter 40.93 40.08
Fixed Carbon 49.54 48.67
Ash 6.30 8.28
-------- --------
100. 100.
Sulphur .62 .65
It was old traveled ground, for the major part of the distance between
El Moro and Cañon City, on the Arkansas, forty miles above Pueblo; and
as we were anxious to save all the time we could for the new regions in
the west, where we were sure the most romantic experiences awaited, we
decided for another night-run, disadvantageous as they were, compared
with day journeys. The next morning after our visit to El Moro,
therefore, found us at anchor in Cañon City.
"What is there to see about Cañon City?" Oh, quantities of things. Here
is a list of what its _Record_ keeps "set up" as its "advantages,
natural and otherwise:"
"Soda springs, iron springs, hot soda baths, wide streets, excellent
town site, immense water power, exhaustless coal fields, good water
works, best building stone, splendid lime rock, iron mines, mica mines,
lead mines, silver mines, oil wells, irrigating ditches, abundance of
shade trees, peaches, plums, pears, apples, walnuts, grapes, vegetables,
grain, flowers, bees, fifteen thousand dollar school house, twenty
thousand dollar court house, Masonic temple, city government, low taxes,
streets sprinkled, seven churches, theatre hall, first-class dentists,
two newspapers, excellent physicians, good teachers, brick and stone
stores, excellent society, protection from cold winds, immense stocks of
goods, railroad communication, good ranches, stock ranges, excellent
hotels, military college, and kindergarten."
Most of these items describe themselves, but others are worth mention.
Right at the mouth of the Grand Cañon, which suggested the name, this
site early attracted to a permanent home many of the earliest wanderers
whom the famous Pike's Peak immigration of 1859 brought to the country.
Half a century before them, though, Major Zebulon Pike had made a
station for part of his troops on this spot, whence he reconnoitered the
surrounding mountains.
Basing their calculations upon the fact that their settlement, which
from the first was called Cañon City, was the last place to which the
big emigration and freight wagons could come from the plains, the
pioneers had large hopes of their town as the one entrepôt and
supply-point for the mountains. Merchants came here and crammed great
sheds with stocks of goods sold at wholesale, while forwarders were busy
in organizing ox-trains to carry supplies into the mountains.
[Illustration: GRAPE CREEK CAÑON.]
Then came the War of the Rebellion. All travel along the southern trail
across the plains was cut off by the Indians, and immigration ceased,
particularly from the Southern states, whence had come into this part of
Colorado a large portion of the early settlers. More from lack of
anything else to do than because of strong convictions on the subject,
some two hundred and fifty young men enlisted from here into the Union
service and were sent to New Mexico on that campaign against Sibley,
wherein Colorado's regiments distinguished themselves. While the war
raged Colorado was at a standstill, and the settlers had hard shift to
live, all goods having to come by the way of Denver, subject to great
risk.