1860.]

CLOUDS BREAKING ONCE MORE.

317

ting before the flames in gloomy contemplation, like Marius amid

the ruins.

On the third morning we breakfasted morosely, sore and stiff in every joint. Less than half the journey was accomplished, and

hausted; but they would not for a moment entertain the idea of turning back.

By seven o'clock we are again climbing the slippery rocks.

318

FEARS OF FEVER AND DELIRIUM.

[1860.

The rain ceases; the breaking clouds once more turn forth their silver linings,

'And genial Morn appears,

Like pensive Beauty, smiling through her tears.'

Behind, at our feet, stretches an ocean of pure white cloud with mountain summits dotting its vast surface in islands of purple and emerald. Before, towers the stupendous peak.

In the genial sunlight we begin to feel the comfort of dry clothing, for the first time in twenty-four hours, and press cheerily on. The hills, swept for miles and miles by vast conflagrations, are black, and bristling with tall dead trunks of pine and fir, like the multitude of masts in a great harbor. The valleys are shaded by graceful aspens, whose leaves quiver in the still air; and carpeted by luxuriant grass, rising to our chins and variegated with flowers of pink and white, blue and purple. Fallen tree-trunks abound, held by their broken limbs three or four feet above the ground. Climbing over them is very laborious, and tears to shreds the meager skirts of the ladies. The bloomer costume is better than full drapery; but for this trip women should don trousers.

After five hours of climbing slippery rocks, we dine luxuriously in a raspberry patch, drinking tea from our cups and water from a spring.

Thus far our journey has been only among foot-hills. Now we reach the base of the Peak itself, and climb wearily up the rocky canyon which extends from base to summit. The thin air makes breathing very difficult.

At five o'clock we encamped, utterly exhausted. With wild eyes and flushed faces, which excited fears of fever and delirium, the ladies fell asleep the instant we stopped; and one of the masculines also sank upon the ground. Two of us started for water down to the stream-bed ten yards distant, but found it dry as Sahara. So we limped down the gorge for half a mile, and in more than an hour reached camp again, each bearing two cups. My companion had barely strength to articulate that he would only repeat the walk to save his dearest friend from dying; I succeeded in gasping out an injunction to take precious care of the costly fluid, and we lay down utterly exhausted.

1860.]

ALL. VEGETATION LEFT BEHIND.

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But the strong tea, as usual, revived us all; and we started on just as the clouds broke, revealing the mountains and vast green prairies far behind us—a dream of beauty.

Two of the party suddenly yielded to illness, accompanied by vomiting fits; and reaching the verge of vegetation we camped for the night. As we rolled ourselves in blankets upon the ground beside our roaring fire, another shower drenched us, and then turned to hail. At nine o'clock our guide reaped the harvest of his exposure and fatigue in a distressing rheumatism, which drove him from his earth-bed and held him writhing in pain during the night, but disappeared with daylight's return.

On the fourth morning ice was lying thick about our camp. All the party wore a lean and hungry look; but our scanty larder allowed to each only a little biscuit, a bit of meat as large as a silver dollar, and ample draughts of tea. At five o'clock we left our packs behind and resumed the march.

In climbing Mount Washington, the vegetation grades down regularly from tall pines to stunted cedar shrubs with trunks five or six inches thick, and branches not more than three feet high, running along the ground like grape-vines. Pike's Peak affords a sharp contrast. We started in a dense forest of pines and firs; but vegetation ceases so abruptly that in ten minutes we stood upon the open, barren mountain side, with no green thing about us except a few flowers, and beds of velvety grass among the rocks.

The remainder of the ascent is very abrupt. We followed the line which in the distance had appeared like a path, but now proved a gaping gorge a mile in width.

The summit seemed very near; but we toiled on and on for hours, up the sharp hight. The thin air made it impossible to go more than a hundred feet without pausing for breath; but amid the grand scenery we forgot our fatigue and remembered our weariness no The ladies, imbued with new life, could only find expression in singing the old hymn:

more.

'This is the way I long have sought,

And mourned because I found it not.'

Tufts of wool indicated the haunts of the mountain sheep

320

ON THE CREST AT LAST.

[1860.

an animal of unequaled agility. He leaps incredible distances down the rocks, and is even reputed to strike upon his broad horns which receive the most violent concussion without injury.

The sky assumed a deeper and richer blue; and the fields of snow and ice began to enlarge. Even here, hundreds of tulipshaped blossoms of faint yellow mingled with purple, opened their meek eyes beside the freshly-fallen snow! It was worth all our toil to see the cheek of June, with its purple flush, nestle among the silver locks of December.

Finally the last flower and blade of grass were left behind, and only rocks and snow ahead. It became difficult to avoid falling

asleep during our brief pauses.

Just below the top we turned southward to look down a tremendous chasm known as the 'Crater.' It is half a mile wide, nearly circular, inclosed by abrupt walls of rock, and fully twelve hundred feet deep. Creeping to the verge of the dizzy hight, while our comrades clung to us with desperate clasp to save us from tumbling over, we dislodged huge rocks into the abyss. Down they leaped, bounding from ledge to ledge, striking sparks and scattering showers of fire, with great crash and roar that came rolling up to us like peals of thunder, long after they were out of sight.

One overhanging rock affords to the spectator, lying flat upon his face, an excellent view of the yawning gulf, though its uncomfortable trembling disquiets his nerves. At last, just before noon, passing two banks of snow which have lain un-melted for years, perhaps for centuries, we stood on the highest point of Pike's Peak, thirteen thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. The ladies of our party-one a native of Boston, the other of Derry, N. H.-were the first of their sex who ever set foot upon the summit.

Pike's Peak was named in honor of General Zebulon M. Pike, a gallant young officer, who discovered and ascended it in 1806 while at the head of an exploring expedition sent by Jefferson's administration. A few years later, before he had reached the prime of life, he fell in defense of his country's flag, at the battle of Toronto.

1860.] AN INDESCRIBABLY GRAND VIEW.

321

The summit embraces about fifty acres. It is oblong, and nearly level, composed wholly of angular slabs and blocks of coarse disintegrating granite. We found fresh snow several inches deep in the interstices, but the August sun had melted it all from the surface.

We were fortunate in having a clear day which gave us the view in its full sublimity. Eastward for a hundred miles, our eyes

over dim, dreamy

prairies, spotted by dark shadows of the clouds, and the deeper green of the pineries; intersected by faint, gray lines of road, and emerald threads of timber along the streams; and banded on the far horizon with a girdle of gold.

ON THE SUMMIT.

At our feet, below the now insignificant mountains up which we had toiled, stood Colorado, a confused city of Liliputs; but with the aid of glasses we could distinctly see its buildings and our own carriage, with a man standing near it.

Further south swept the green timbers of the Fontaine qui Bouille, the Arkansas and the Huerfano; and then rose the blue Spanish Peaks of New Mexico a hundred miles distant. Eight or