VACATION 
 
 > * * 
 
 EXCURSION 
 
mm 
 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 m, 
 
 
 
AX- 
 
 AC AT ION EXCURSION, 
 
 FROM MASSACHUSETTS BAY TO 
 PUGET SOUND. 
 
 Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the 
 threshold thereof. Fuller, 
 
 Traveling is no fool's errand to him who carries his eyes and itinerary 
 along with him. Alcott. 
 
 ^MANCHESTER, N. j-f. : 
 
 PRESS OF JOHN B. CLARKE. 
 1884. 
 
 ^ a 
 
Bancroft Library 
 
 EXPLANATORY. 
 
 The letters composing this book were written to 
 the Manchester, N. H., MIRROR by a member of the 
 Raymond Excursion Party which left Boston, May i, 
 1884, for a trip across the continent and to the 
 Pacific Northwest. They are brief notes and impres- 
 sions of the most salient points of interest embraced 
 in visits to Colorado, New Mexico, California, 
 Oregon, Washington Territory, Puget Sound, Van- 
 couver's Island, Idaho, Montana and Utah, addressed 
 to a newspaper constituency with no thought of other 
 publication, and are necessarily of a casual and 
 rambling nature. That they are permitted to make 
 another addition to the fast-increasing multitude of 
 books of travel is due to the urgent desire of mem- 
 bers of the party and numerous readers of the letters 
 as they appeared in the MIRROR to have them put 
 before the public in this form. 
 
 o. R. 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H., Dec., 1884. 
 
PERSONNEL. 
 
 In Charge : 
 MR. LUTHER L. HOLDEN, of Boston, Mass. 
 
 Assistant : 
 MR. C. H. BAGLEY, of St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
 
 Billings, L. F., M. D. 
 Bloomer, Mr. A. F. 
 Brown, George, M. D. 
 Chapman, Mr. Faulkner 
 Clark, Mr. Merritt 
 Clark, Mrs. Merritt 
 Clough, Mr. J. H. 
 Clough, Mrs. J. H. 
 Clough, Miss Bertha H. 
 Comstock, Mr. A. W. 
 
 * Craddock, Miss Ida C. 
 Curtis, Mrs. Mary S. 
 Darling, Mr. L. B. 
 Darling, Mrs. L. B. 
 
 * Decker, Mrs. Lizzie S. 
 Dewey, Mr. R. W. 
 
 t Dodge, Mrs. J. A. 
 Eastham, Miss A. E. 
 Eastham, Mrs. W. W. 
 Enos, Mr. Thomas B. 
 Ensign, Mr. Charles A. 
 Everett, Mrs. T. H. 
 
 Barre, 
 
 Chicago, 
 
 Barre, 
 
 Charlestown, 
 
 Northampton, 
 
 Northampton, 
 
 Chicago, 
 
 Chicago, 
 
 Chicago, 
 
 Essex, 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Pawtucket, 
 
 Pawtucket, 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 Canton, 
 
 Plymouth, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 New York, 
 
 Maiden, 
 
 Franklin, 
 
 Mass. 
 
 111. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 
 111. 
 
 111. 
 
 111. 
 
 Conn. 
 Penn. 
 Mass. 
 R. I. 
 R. I. 
 Penn. 
 
 111. 
 
 N. H. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 N. Y. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 
8 
 
 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Fisher, Mrs. Eben S. 
 Fisher, Mr. Herbert 
 Fisher, Mrs. Herbert 
 Gould, Mr. Chas. H. 
 Gould, Mrs. Chas. H. 
 Griffiths, Rev. Edwin C. 
 Holden, Mrs. Luther L. 
 Hollister, E. O., M. D. 
 Hollister, Mrs. E. O. 
 Hyde, Miss R. W. 
 Johnson, Miss C. C. 
 Johnson, Miss Mary E. 
 Lane, Mr. George F. 
 Lawrence, Miss C. W. 
 Moore, Miss Annie 
 Moore, Mr. John 
 Moore, Mrs. John 
 Neale, Mr. H. 
 Neale, Mrs. H. 
 Park, Mrs. W. R., Jr., 
 Rand, Miss Olive 
 Ripley, Mr. Thomas W. 
 Silsbee, Miss E. W. 
 Spalding, Miss Ellen R. 
 Stearns, Mr. John M. 
 Stearns, Mrs. John M. 
 f Taylor, Mrs. E. S. 
 Thorndike, Mrs. J. H. 
 Townsend, Miss Annie P. 
 Townsend, Mrs. E. M. 
 
 * Turner, Mr. Sidney 
 
 * Turner, Mrs. Sidney 
 Worrell, Mr. William 
 
 * * Joined the party at San Francisco. 
 
 t Joined the party at Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Danvers, 
 
 Danvers, 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Mass. 
 Penn. 
 Mass. 
 
 East Bloomfield, N. Y. 
 East Bloomfield, N. Y. 
 Brookline, Mass. 
 
 Danvers, Mass. 
 
 Danvers, Mass. 
 
 West Medford, Mass. 
 Danvers, Mass. 
 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 London, England. 
 
 London, England. 
 
 Plymouth, N. H. 
 
 Manchester, N. H. 
 
 Melrose Highl'ds, Mass. 
 Salem, Mass. 
 
 Salem, Mass. 
 
 Williamsburgh, N. Y. 
 Williamsburgh, N. Y. 
 Lake Village, N. H. 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 Norwich, Conn. 
 
 Norwich, Conn. 
 
 Philadelphia, Penn. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST NOTES. AT CHICAGO. 
 
 A FAMILIAR object to the traveling public dur- 
 2~\ ing the past four or five years has been the little 
 shipping-tag attached to numerous trunks, grip-sacks, 
 bags and parcels, bearing the legend : - 
 
 Raymond's Vacation Excursions, 
 
 All 
 
 Traveling Expenses 
 Included. 
 
 To the initiated that little label is very significant. 
 It means all the delights of travel, nice, agreeable 
 companions, first-class accommodations, beautiful 
 scenery, interesting places, freedom from care, anx- 
 iety and "fuss," and as complete exemption from 
 annoyance as is possible in the present stage of our 
 civilization. 
 
 It is now five or six years since Messrs. Raymond 
 & Whitcomb initiated their "personally conducted" 
 excursions over the Boston, Concord & Montreal 
 and Passumpsic roads to Newport and Lake Mem- 
 phremagog. Later they arranged trips to Montreal, 
 to the White Mountains, to Saratoga, Niagara Falls, 
 the Thousand Islands and other points, winter trips 
 to Washington and Richmond, and three years ago 
 began a series of transcontinental excursions to Cali- 
 fornia, acquiring everywhere a reputation for making 
 
10 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 good all their promises for first-class accommodations, 
 and for that careful attention to small details the 
 performance or the neglect of which has so much to 
 do with the comfort and happiness of the traveler. 
 
 It was the writer's good fortune to be a member of 
 the first of these excursions to the Capital, and the 
 happy memories of that tour have always awakened a 
 desire, with each new announcement of a "Raymond 
 Excursion," to again join the company of sight-seers. 
 
 This is the fourth season that Raymond & Whit- 
 comb have conducted parties to California, taking out 
 two or three each spring. Mr. Luther L. Holden, 
 formerly of the Boston Journal, has been associated 
 with them in the conduct of these excursions. This 
 year they arranged for three to cover the usual Cali- 
 fornia route, and a fourth embracing all the points of 
 interest covered by the others and extending to Ore- 
 gon, Washington Territory, Puget Sound, British 
 Columbia, Montana, Idaho, etc., occupying a period 
 of seventy-three days and including more than ten 
 thousand miles of travel. 
 
 This party, conducted by Mr. Luther L. Holden, 
 assisted by Mr. C. H. Bagley of St. Johnsbury, Vt., 
 left Boston, May i, from the Fitchburg station, via the 
 Hoosac Tunnel line, the New York, West Shore & 
 Buffalo road, and the Chicago & Grand Trunk to 
 Chicago. 
 
 Our party consists of fifty-three members, besides 
 the conductors, booked for the full trip, and three or 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 
 
 four others who will stop in Kansas or Colorado. We 
 have representatives of all the New England states, of 
 New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, and two from 
 London, England. There are twenty-two gentlemen 
 and thirty-one ladies in the party. There are three 
 M. D. 's, one reverend, and one or more learned in the 
 law. Bankers, merchants, manufacturers and print- 
 ers have their representatives, and the coupon-cutter 
 is probably not omitted. Most of the party have 
 reached or passed the prime of life, though fair young 
 womanhood is not without some of its brightest rep- 
 resentatives. The bride of the party was one of Man- 
 chester's comeliest maidens three weeks ago. We are 
 fast becoming acquainted with one another, and shall 
 be a very happy family for the next ten weeks. Mrs. 
 Holden, who has already made three of these trans- 
 continental trips, enters upon her fourth with all the 
 enthusiasm of a novice. A nature like hers will never 
 grow old. 
 
 Our first stop was at Greenfield, Mass., where we 
 had supper at the Mansion House, and a rest of a 
 couple of hours. It was too late to get any idea of 
 the scenery, but the hotel commends itself. Thursday- 
 night some of the tourists had their first experience 
 of a sleeping-car berth. All who had not traveled 
 the route before determined to keep awake till they 
 went " through the tunnel," but the drowsy god was 
 too potent for some of them. Others, who could not 
 so well accommodate themselves to their new envi- 
 
12 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 ronment, amused themselves in counting and classi- 
 fying the various snores that proceeded from the sev- 
 eral berths. 
 
 An excellent breakfast at the station dining-rooms 
 in Syracuse put all in good trim for the second day's 
 ride. The scenery of the Mohawk valley is tame to 
 a New Englander. The low hills seen on either hand 
 a part of the distance are formed like big snow-drifts, 
 and are merely drifted sand-heaps covered with turf. 
 A strong gale was blowing all day, which retarded the 
 very heavy train, so that our arrival at Clifton and 
 dinner was somewhat delayed, and to save time the 
 latter was served in a dining-car. It was put down in 
 the book that we were to have supper at London, 
 P. O. One young lady, perhaps not familiar with the 
 names of the different provinces in the Dominion of 
 Canada, declared we were to eat our supper at the 
 post-office. 
 
 We arrived in Chicago on Saturday about 10 A. M., 
 and were conveyed by omnibus to the Sherman 
 House. Each tourist was provided with a ticket, 
 giving number of his room, before leaving the station, 
 and thus on arrival had nothing to do but show his 
 ticket to be immediately located. The day was bright 
 and beautiful and was improved by each one in ac- 
 cordance with his or her inclination. It is not my 
 purpose to attempt any description of this big city, 
 whose stupendous growth is the wonder of the cen- 
 tury. The figures, as one looks over the statistics, are 
 
CHICAGO. 13 
 
 appalling. And yet, no matter how much one reads 
 or hears about it, we are not quite prepared for the 
 reality. A flat country is not interesting in a scenic 
 view, and I suppose it has disadvantages in the way of 
 sewerage and drainage ; but it does admit of beautiful 
 streets, straight and level as a house floor, and when 
 we think of the miles and miles of these streets, lined 
 with tall buildings of brick and stone and iron, cov- 
 ering a territory of fifty square miles, and of the rest- 
 less energy which animates the three-quarters of a 
 million people who occupy these structures and pushes 
 on the vast traffic of the food storehouse of the con- 
 tinent, and of the tens of thousands of others who 
 come here daily for business or pleasure, we are over- 
 whelmed, as when we try to count the stars or meas- 
 ure the illimitable. 
 
 Saturday is "shopping-day" in Chicago, and State 
 street, where the large retail stores are chiefly located, 
 was gay with elegantly dressed ladies coming and go- 
 ing. One who enjoys "seeing the styles" could not 
 fail to find pleasure here. I have always been inter- 
 ested in the way in which Chicago secured her water 
 supply by tunneling two miles under the bed of Lake 
 Michigan, and as we drove near the pumping-station 
 and stand-pipe, two very ornamental buildings of 
 granite at the foot of Chicago avenue, I was glad to 
 enter and see the huge machinery which pumps this 
 exhaustless supply of pure water from the bottom of 
 the lake. The immense engines have a combined power 
 
14 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 of three thousand horses, pumping the water into the 
 tower to a height of one hundred and thirty feet, 
 whence it is distributed throughout the city. There are 
 two of these water tunnels now, with a combined ca- 
 pacity of one hundred and fifty million gallons daily, 
 but the growth of population is so rapid that another 
 is contemplated. 
 
 A drive through the boulevards, Michigan avenue, 
 with its lake front and beautiful residences, the street 
 broad and smooth, Prairie avenue, Drexel boulevard, 
 Lincoln park, South park, and the others, is some- 
 thing not to be omitted. We met many handsome 
 equipages and several ladies on horseback on the 
 boulevards, and were informed by our driver that on 
 almost any other day in the week we should meet 
 hundreds of them, but Saturday is devoted to 
 shopping. 
 
 One of the finest public buildings is the new city 
 and county court-house, which occupies the square 
 bounded by Clark, Randolph, La Salle and Washing- 
 ton streets and is directly opposite the Sherman House 
 where we are staying. It is probably not surpassed in 
 the beauty of its architecture by any similar building 
 in the United States. This corner, Clark and Ran- 
 dolph streets, is the busiest in the city, and lots here 
 are rated higher than anywhere else. The site of the 
 Sherman House, in a sworn valuation, was placed at 
 four thousand dollars a front foot, the lot being 186 
 feet square, the value of the buildings not being in- 
 
CHICAGO. 15 
 
 eluded. This house, which is every way a satisfactory 
 one, accommodates from five hundred to a thousand 
 guests, according to circumstances. Mr. Pearce, the 
 landlord, gave us some very interesting facts concern- 
 ing the great fire and its results. Himself the loser 
 of two hundred thousand dollars by it, he said his 
 chief regret was that he should never live to see the 
 beautiful city, whose growth he had watched for 
 twenty-five years, restored, as he could not hope that 
 his life would be prolonged for another twenty-five 
 years. It is now thirteen years, and the city is larger 
 than ever. The twenty-one hundred acres of ashes 
 are covered with tall structures of brick and stone, if 
 not more beautiful than those destroyed, at least, as a 
 rule, more substantial. There is a pathetic side to the 
 story of the great fire not generally known. The 
 chief sufferers \vere the once rich men who lost their 
 all and were never able to recover from the blow. 
 These victims are filling the graveyards and asylums 
 year by year. 
 
 An immense new building, nine stories high, is that 
 of the Pullman Car Company, just being completed. 
 A restaurant is in the top story for the convenience 
 of the employes. 
 
 But I must desist ; for, as I said, I do not intend to 
 attempt any description of this great and wonderful 
 city, and only allude to a few of the objects that 
 interested me. 
 
1 6 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 This, Sunday, morning is rainy and not favorable 
 to sight-seeing. It may be more conducive to church- 
 going. To-morrow morning we start via the Chicago, 
 Rock Island & Pacific Railway for Kansas City, 
 thence via the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe anji 
 Denver & Rio Grande railways. Our first stopping- 
 place will be Manitou, Col. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM CHICAGO TO COLORADO. PUEBLO. 
 
 I AM very grateful to Mr. Pullman. I saw his 
 house in Chicago. It is elegant and beautiful. I 
 am glad he can afford to live in it. We have been 
 living in one of his palace cars several days it 
 seems weeks and we like it. Talk about fatigue of 
 travel is meaningless under such conditions as environ 
 us. Why, it is rest, 
 
 " Rest from the sorrows that greet us, 
 Rest from all petty vexations that meet us," 
 
 and several other things. 
 
 It is a marvel how so excellent and elaborate a bill 
 of fare can be served as we find on the dining-cars of 
 the Chicago & Grand Trunk and the Chicago, Rock 
 Island & Pacific railways. Thirty to forty articles 
 are embraced in the menu, and everything cooked 
 and served in an unexceptionable manner. Think 
 of finding a bouquet of hot-house roses at your plate 
 as you sit down to dainty little tables with the snow- 
 iest of linen, of eating your strawberries and cream 
 in one town, your beefsteak and omelet in the next, 
 and perhaps taking your final sip of coffee in a fourth ! 
 What a genius it must be who can evolve all these 
 delicious viands from a bit of a kitchen at one end 
 
1 8 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 of ^the car, where there is not room enough " to 
 swing a cat ! ' ' 
 
 I am afraid I shall have to surrender one of my 
 pet prejudices. Born almost within the shadow of 
 the mountains, with an outlook from the paternal 
 acres commanding a view circumscribed only by the 
 fringe of blue hills in the far distant horizon, and 
 covering a vast expanse of hill and valley, forest, 
 lake and stream, I had ever felt with Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, - 
 
 "Hills draw like heaven, 
 
 And stronger sometimes ; stretching out their hands 
 To lead you from the vile flats up to them, " 
 
 and that a home on the prairie would be of all things 
 most dreary. But the ride through Illinois and Kan- 
 sas (the other states were traversed in the night), 
 particularly Kansas, with their miles on miles of 
 gently undulating fields, the rich black soil, blacker 
 than any I have seen since as a child I cultivated 
 " bachelor's buttons " and " lady's delights " (these 
 are not synonymous) in the home garden, in con- 
 trast with the rich green of the upspringing grass and 
 grain, the cheerful looking farm-houses at not infre- 
 quent intervals, the pleasant villages, the flower-bor- 
 dered streams, have shaken my prejudice somewhat, 
 and forced me to admit that possibly one might live 
 happily for a time out of sight of the blue hills 
 and gray rocks of o.ld New England. I draw the 
 line at rolling prairie, however. 
 
CROSSING THE PRAIRIES. 19 
 
 At Joliet, 111., we came in view of the extensive 
 limestone quarries, whence much of the building 
 stone used in Chicago is taken. The absence of any 
 dip in the strata is in noticeable contrast to our own 
 geologic formations. These limestone layers are 
 placed upon each other as horizontally as in a wall 
 of masonry. 
 
 The old Michigan and Illinois canal was in sight 
 most of the way from Chicago to La Salle, a distance 
 of one hundred miles, but no mules or horses were in 
 the tow-path, the railroads now doing all the trans- 
 portation. As we approach La Salle the face of the 
 country changes, and for several miles presents a 
 broken surface with numerous hills, some of them of 
 quite respectable proportions. All along the route 
 till we reached the Colorado plains, the streams were 
 full to overflowing, the ground was saturated with 
 moisture, and, as a consequence, little or nothing had 
 been done upon the farms. Very few fields had been 
 plowed, and the season seems much later than in New 
 England. At rare intervals we saw a man, with two 
 or three horses abreast attached to a plow, riding his 
 vehicle with as much ease as a lady's coachman. 
 Poor Richard is obsolete here, and the saying, 
 
 " He who by the plow would thrive 
 Himself must either hold or drive, " 
 
 no longer has meaning. In Kansas the grain and 
 grass were more advanced, and apple trees were in 
 full bloom. Herds of cattle were seen and numerous 
 
20 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 black pigs along the route. Whether these western 
 people have a prejudice against any swine but Berk- 
 shires and Poland Chinas, or whether nothing but 
 color will thrive in the black soil, we don't know, 
 but not a single white pig has appeared in sight in 
 the whole journey. 
 
 We arrived in Kansas City Tuesday morning and 
 partook of an excellent breakfast at the station din- 
 ing-rooms. I commend this restaurant especially to 
 lovers of good coffee. Kansas City is built upon a 
 high, precipitous bluff, the perpendicular sides, like 
 a wall of masonry, showing the stratification of the 
 rocks. The business part of the town and the rail- 
 roads are below the bluff. Kansas City is the great- 
 est railroad center in the West and its population is 
 nearly one hundred thousand. It is the market from 
 which nearly all the mining regions of Colorado, 
 New Mexico and Arizona procure their food supplies. 
 
 Re-entering the cars we pursue our way through 
 the Garden State. Kansas is a goodly land, and may 
 well boast. As the train stopped at Lawrence I 
 stepped off for a moment, and felt that I was on sa- 
 cred soil, as I recalled that here the first battle against 
 the encroachments of slavery was fought, and that 
 here was really the beginning of the bloody struggle 
 which emancipated a race and made this vast country 
 free in fact as well as in name. " Bleeding Kansas " 
 is now smiling Kansas, and her wonderful growth is 
 a marvel even in this wonder-working W r est. Every 
 
SMILING KANSAS. 21 
 
 foot of government land has been taken up, and the 
 population now numbers a million souls. The Atch- 
 ison, Topeka & Sante Fe Railroad, with its numerous 
 branches, has been largely instrumental in this rapid 
 development. Topeka, where we dined, the capital 
 and most populous city in the state, is the headquar- 
 ters of this road, the general offices and shops being 
 located here, cars, engines and complete trains being 
 manufactured. It was a matter of regret that we 
 could not stop to view the elegant public buildings 
 and beautiful residences. 
 
 The coal mines of Kansas, which are numerous in 
 Osage county, were so unlike our conception of any 
 kind of a mine that I could at first scarcely believe 
 that thd wooden shafts occasionally seen were the 
 entrances to real mines. All above was green turf ; no 
 debris, no sand, nor rocks, nor rubbish. Newton, our 
 stopping-place for supper, is near the location of the 
 Russian Mennonites, who came here about ten years 
 ago to escape the oppression of the Russian govern- 
 ment. There were about fifteen hundred of them 
 settled in Kansas, and their success in farming is said 
 to be something wonderful, particularly in fruit-rais- 
 ing. They also give a good deal of attention to 
 silkworm culture. 
 
 Soon after leaving Newton we sought our berths, 
 and when at dawn I again looked out upon the world, 
 the Arkansas river, up whose valley we had traveled 
 since leaving Newton, was flowing close beside the 
 
22 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 track, and a broad plain covered with brown grass, 
 stretching as far as the eye could reach, was spread 
 out before me. Frequent herds of cattle were seen, 
 and an occasional dug-out or shanty which furnished 
 shelter for the ranchman. At one watering-station 
 near the Colorado line there is a little village of these 
 dug-outs sheltering nearly a hundred people, with no 
 frame buildings except those belonging to the rail- 
 road. They are simply cellars with a roof over 
 them slightly inclined, and a window in the upper 
 half of the door by which they are entered. 
 
 About six o'clock Wednesday morning we reached 
 Coolidge, a railway town, and two miles further on 
 crossed the state line into Colorado. We had now 
 attained an altitude of 3,400 feet above the sea level, 
 having ascended 2,500 feet since leaving Topeka, yet 
 so gradually that the ascent was scarcely perceptible. 
 For the next five hours there was little variation in 
 the scene. The broad plain still stretched before us, 
 the brown buffalo grass gradually giving way to sage- 
 bush and cactus, the Arkansas with its fringe of 
 cottonwoods still slowly meandered along, herds of 
 cattle still browsed, though less numerous as the sage- 
 bush and cactus became the only growth, but what 
 the poor creatures found to sustain life we could not 
 guess. Indeed, many had starved during the winter, 
 as the corpses along the way bore witness. " Putre- 
 fy? " Oh, no ; nothing putrefies in this Colorado air. 
 Notwithstanding the sameness of the prospect it was 
 
PUEBLO. 23 
 
 not tiresome as such monotony usually is, for the 
 brightest, bluest sky, the most exhilarating atmos- 
 phere, lent a charm to everything. 
 
 Our only stop was at La Junta (pronounce it La 
 Hoonta), for breakfast. I doubt if any of my read- 
 ers had a breakfast that morning equaling in variety 
 or excelling in quality and cooking that served to us 
 on these arid plains, where not a green thing grows, 
 hundreds of miles from any market. Crisp water- 
 cresses, beefsteak, omelets, chicken, fish, ham, rolls, 
 coffee and numerous other articles were spread before 
 us, and all of the nicest quality. It was such a gen- 
 uine surprise to everybody that our French host, who 
 was most assiduous in his attentions, was almost over- 
 whelmed with compliments. 
 
 Soon after leaving La Junta the beautiful Spanish 
 Peaks and the Green Horn Mountains began to appear 
 in sight, and a little later the snowy summit of Pike's 
 Peak. We reached South Pueblo about noon, where 
 unexpected attentions awaited us, the mayor and a 
 delegation of the South Pueblo Board of Trade meet- 
 ing the party at the station and tendering the cour- 
 tesy of a carriage ride through the city. There are 
 three Pueblos, Pueblo, Central Pueblo and South 
 Pueblo, each with its own mayor and city govern- 
 ment, and, two miles from South Pueblo, the little 
 village of Bessemer where the steel and nail works 
 are. It is claimed that there are twenty thousand 
 inhabitants in these villages, which are practically one 
 
24 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 town, and the dwellings are of all degrees, from the 
 tent and dug-out to the mansion costing $125,000. 
 And not a green thing is to be seen anywhere except- 
 ing in a few yards which are irrigated with water from 
 the city water supply, which is drawn from the Arkan- 
 sas river. Everywhere is the dull Quaker drab soil, 
 and the prevailing color of the wooden houses is about 
 the same shade. The only growths are cactus and 
 sage-bush, and the cottonwood trees, not yet in leaf, 
 which skirt the river and have been set out in many 
 of the streets. Bessemer and the principal business 
 portion of Pueblo are in a sort of basin ; the streets 
 where most of the residences are situated run up the 
 hill-sides and spread out upon the broad table- land 
 above. These command a fine view of the distant 
 mountains, the Spanish Peaks, Green Horn range and 
 Pike's Peak, and a wide expanse of plain. The view 
 from "Tenderfoot Hill," where, it is said, new- 
 comers are required to walk barefoot till they can 
 trample the cactus without wincing, is particularly 
 good. This hill in some respects resembles " Libby 
 Hill," overlooking the James river at Richmond. 
 Five bridges span the Arkansas between the Pueblos. 
 Here, as elsewhere in the West, the school buildings 
 are especially fine, being built of brick or stone, and 
 are among the best structures in the town. The 
 churches are numerous and some of them quite hand- 
 some. Three artesian wells supply drinking-water 
 and are said to possess great medicinal qualities. A 
 
BESSEMER STEEL-WORKS. 25 
 
 horse-railroad extends two miles through the town. 
 Hon. Alvah Adams, president of the board of trade, 
 one of the gentlemen who accompanied us, does a 
 business of half a million a year in hardware, and is 
 a good specimen of the push and enterprise which are 
 building up these cities of the plain as if by magic. 
 Nothing is left undone which effort and energy can 
 accomplish to set forth the advantages offered for the 
 investment of capital, and to invite immigration. 
 Pueblo is the natural outlet of a large mining region, 
 and hopes to rival Denver in the near future. 
 
 Our visit to the steel and nail works and smelting 
 furnaces was exceedingly interesting, and to most a 
 novelty. We were shown the whole process, from the 
 melting and " puddling" of the crude ore in the big 
 furnace till it came out pig iron ; then the heating of 
 the pigs in other fiery furnaces till they came out 
 ingots of steel, the passage of these glowing ingots 
 through successive rollers till they were reduced to 
 long bars, and then by still another machine cut and 
 formed into perfect steel rails for the track of the 
 locomotive. These Bessemer steel-works, which are 
 owned by the Colorado Coal and Iron Co., are said 
 to be the best in existence, the machinery being all 
 of the very latest improved patterns. They have a 
 capacity of three hundred tons a day. They have 
 been in operation about four years. At the nail-works 
 close by, eighteen different sizes of nails are manufac- 
 tured. The smelting-furnace for the reduction of 
 
 3 
 
26 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 gold and silver ores is the largest in the state, and 
 another is in process of construction. 
 
 When the excursionists had returned to the station, 
 Mr. Stearns of Williamsburgh, N. Y., made a little 
 speech expressing the gratitude of the party for the 
 attentions bestowed, which was supplemented by 
 cheers for the board of trade, and we departed for 
 Manitou bearing pleasant memories of this hospitable 
 Pueblo. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MANITOU AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 PUEBLO is the center of the Denver & Rio 
 Grande system of narrow-gauge railroads which 
 radiate from that point in all directions among the 
 mountains. Colorado Springs is forty-four miles from 
 Pueblo, on the direct line to Denver, and Manitou is 
 six miles from Colorado Springs by a branch road 
 from there. It is in a narrow valley at the junction 
 of Ruxton creek and the Fountaine qui JSouille, close 
 up to the foot-hills of Pike's Peak, and near the 
 entrance to Ute Pass. Pike's Peak, 14,336 feet high, is 
 but ten miles distant. The village has about five 
 hundred inhabitants. Besides the attractions of the 
 scenery, there are mineral springs here of great medi- 
 cinal value and of delicious flavor, the Ute iron spring 
 and the Navajo soda spring being especially noted. 
 There is also a sulphur spring. Williams' Canon, the 
 Cave" of the Winds, the Ute Pass and Rainbow Falls, 
 the Pike's Peak Trail and Ingleman's Pass, and, last 
 and greatest, the Garden of the Gods, are all near 
 by. I suppose that most readers of Mrs. Blake's " On 
 the Wing," have thought her glowing description of 
 the Garden of the Gods colored by that poetic imagi- 
 nation and subtile grace which lend a charm to all 
 
28 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 she writes, and that there were revealed to her vision 
 beauties which more prosaic eyes would never dis- 
 cover. But no description can over-rate the scene. 
 No wonder that the red man found this the fitting 
 abode of Manitou, the Great Spirit. The first thing 
 you observe on entering Manitou is the color, 
 brilliant terra-cotta or deeper red everywhere. The 
 roads, the rocks, the mountain sides, all have the same 
 glowing hue. In the great upheaval which raised 
 this rocky wall which divides the continent, the red 
 sandstone here came to the front. 
 
 It was morning when we rode to the Garden of the 
 Gods. The sky was without a cloud. We are over 
 six thousand feet above the level of the sea, high as 
 the summit of Mt. Washington, and the air, so clear 
 that objects ten miles away seem scarcely more than 
 a mile distant, was blowing soft and cool. As we 
 enter the Garden we are surrounded by forms in the 
 likeness or caricature of man and beast, bird and 
 reptile, forms beautiful, fantastic, monstrous or gro- 
 tesque, all of the ever prevailing red color, sculptured 
 by the action of the weather upon the sandstone rocks. 
 " Mushroom Park " contains scores of forms like huge 
 mushrooms, the stem of dark red and the cap of a 
 light gray or mushroom color. A kneeling woman, a 
 fat Dutchman, a bull-frog, an immense turtle, "the 
 lady of the garden" with her white apron and 
 kerchief, an elephant, a lion couchant, these and a 
 hundred other shapes greet the eye as we proceed. If 
 
THE GARDEN OF THE GODS. 29 
 
 it were not irreverent to think of the Divine Artist as 
 experimenting, we could imagine that here He had first 
 tried his hand at modeling the form of everything into 
 which He was to breathe the breath of life. These 
 forms are all wonderful, but we must pass through the 
 gateway a rectangular opening some fifty feet wide 
 in a wall of solid red sandstone three hundred and 
 thirty feet high, the portals guarded by lofty senti- 
 nels, then turning, look back through the opening 
 upon a picture whose sublime beauty and grandeur 
 no pen can fitly describe. First, these massive Walls of 
 red rock, then the monumental sentinel guarding the 
 entrance, beyond the Garden the foot-hills with their 
 glowing color subdued by a thin growth of brown 
 grass, and merging into tawny shades, behind them 
 still higher hills and higher yet, peak beyond peak, 
 the dark green of the pines in cloudy patches on the 
 steep sides looking almost black in the distance, above 
 and beyond them all the snowy summit of Pike's Peak, 
 and over all the fleckless sky of intensest azure, 
 these are some of the outlines of a picture which 
 the most unimpressionable could not gaze upon with- 
 out emotion. It seemed as if we must be standing in 
 the very forecourt of heaven, and that the breezes 
 which fanned our cheeks were zephyrs from paradise. 
 Reluctantly turning from the picture we rode on 
 two miles farther, over a delightful road, with strange 
 groups of lofty red monumental rocks appearing on 
 either hand, crossed several times a shallow streamlet, 
 
30 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 and as we passed an attractive little porter's lodge, 
 where flowers are on sale, entered a winding avenue 
 through wild shrubbery, where new vistas are con- 
 stantly unfolding, till at length we reached Glen Eyrie, 
 an elegant modern residence, with balconies and 
 porches and turrets and all the angles and eccentri- 
 cities of an approved " Queen Anne " structure, built 
 close up to the rough, almost vertical mountain wall 
 towering many hundred feet above it, while tall red 
 pillars like giant sentinels keep watch and ward, the 
 loftiest, styled the Major Domo, I should judge not 
 less than two hundred feet in height. This residence, 
 so unique in its surroundings, so appropriately named 
 Glen Eyrie, is the home of Gen. Palmer, ex-president 
 of the Denver & Rio Grande railways. 
 
 Williams' Canon is a wild gorge with high perpen- 
 dicular or overhanging walls of red rock, built up 
 stratum upon stratum, in some places having as many 
 shades of color as a modern " Queen Anne " cottage, 
 but always the deep red at the base. The canon is 
 tortuous, and sometimes so narrow there is little more 
 than room for the carriage to pass. The walls are 
 several hundred feet in height, and their beauty of 
 color is comparable to nothing seen anywhere in the 
 East, unless it be the rocks at Gay Head, Martha's 
 Vineyard. The wildness and grandeur of the scenery 
 fill us with a strange awe, and as we stand in the 
 narrow cleft, and our eyes follow the lines of masonry 
 placed by the Infinite Builder, up, up, up, to the strip 
 
CAVE OF THE WINDS. 31 
 
 of blue overhead, we almost wonder if this be not the 
 strait and narrow way that leads up to heaven. A 
 solitary walk through this canon on a succeeding day 
 did not lessen its impressiveness. 
 
 A mile and a half from Manitou through this canon 
 is the Cave of the Winds, the entrance to which is 
 two hundred feet above the bottom of the canon. 
 This cave was discovered some four years ago, two 
 boys by the name of Peckett exploring about one hun- 
 dred feet. Since then Mr. George W. Snider, one of 
 the owners, has found one hundred and seventy cham- 
 bers, forty-seven of which are open so as to be seen by 
 visitors. Excavations are now being made by which 
 several others will soon be accessible. " Canopy 
 Hall," the largest chamber we saw, is two hundred and 
 twenty-five feet in length. "Grand Hall," not now 
 open on account of excavations, is said to be six 
 hundred and fifty feet in length, its average height 
 being one hundred feet and average width fifty feet. 
 There are some very strange and beautiful formations 
 to be seen. Canopy Hall takes its name from an 
 umbrella or canopy-like projection on one side. In 
 two chambers there are what look like petrified cata- 
 racts, the carbonate of lime being deposited so as to 
 give the exact appearance of water falling over rocks. 
 In one is a "Piece of Bacon" looking, with a light 
 behind it, just like a piece of smoked pork with a 
 "streak of fat and a streak of lean." The ceiling of 
 one chamber is thickly studded with beautiful coral- 
 
32 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 like forms. Stalactites of various sizes depend from 
 many. The "Bridal Chamber" and "Museum" 
 were the most interesting we saw. The ceiling of the 
 former is covered with beautiful stalactites, and 
 some of the stalagmites beneath have wonderfully 
 curious shapes. The bride sits there so perfect in form 
 that it looks like a real doll. The sides of the muse- 
 um are covered with tiny forms of bird and beast and 
 reptile, so perfect they resemble a toy-shop before 
 Christmas. There is considerable climbing up and 
 down, as well as stooping and in some places almost 
 creeping, to get into the several chambers. One 
 narrow passage, thirty feet in length and not more 
 than three feet high, is called "The Tall Man's 
 Misery." "Boston Avenue" is a long, narrow, wind- 
 ing passage, so named by Mr. Holden on account' of 
 its crookedness. Just over the entrance to the cave 
 is an opening in the cliff near the summit, called the 
 "Temple of Isis." The view from this cliff down 
 the canon and off to the distant mountains is very 
 fine. 
 
 The Ute Pass, the old Indian trail over the moun- 
 tains, if less impressive than Williams' Canon is more 
 picturesque, the swift stream that dashes madly over 
 the rocks in the narrow defile and forms the beau- 
 tiful Rainbow Falls giving it a fascinating interest ; 
 and there is not lacking an element of excitement as 
 we ride along the narrow wagon road which winds so 
 close to the perpendicular wall that towers far above 
 
THE MANITOU SPRINGS. 33 
 
 us that our wheels almost touch it, while on the other 
 hand we look down over another perpendicular wall 
 at whose base the rushing torrent seethes and foams. 
 
 It is worth coming a long distance to taste the 
 delicious waters of the springs here. Nothing at 
 Saratoga compares with the Ute iron and the Navajo 
 soda in flavor, to my taste. I know nothing of their 
 comparative value as medicinal agents, though these 
 have a high reputation, but, as I came here "neither 
 for health nor wealth, but for fun," as one lady of 
 our party expressed it, the therapeutic quality is of no 
 consequence to me. The iron spring is very cold, 
 forty-four degrees, acid, sparkling, contains sulphates 
 of potash and soda,' chloride of sodium, and carbo- 
 nates of soda, lime, magnesia and iron. The Navajo 
 soda spring, but a few rods distant from our hotel, is 
 not quite so cold as the iron spring, but is equally 
 sparkling and refreshing. Add lemon and sugar an d 
 you have a drink fit for kings, yet none too good for 
 Raymond excursionists. 
 
 A large and elegant bath-house supplied with the 
 soda water is near the springs. It is very handsomely 
 fitted up, and either tub or plunge baths can be 
 indulged in. 
 
 We came here too early in the season to see Mani- 
 tou at its best. The cottonwoods and shrubbery on 
 the banks of the stream have not yet put forth their 
 leaves, and the mountain sides, which have a thin 
 growth of bleached-out buffalo-grass, will assume a 
 greener hue later in the season. 
 
34 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 The Manitou House, where we are staying, is a 
 delightful homelike hostelry, Bailey & Walker, pro- 
 prietors, with excellent beds, a good table, and 
 everything clean and tasteful. Mrs. Bailey, wife of 
 the landlord, is an artist, and the dining-room is deco- 
 rated with specimens of her handiwork. She has 
 copies of more than two hundred varieties of the 
 beautiful Colorado wild flowers, which she has painted 
 during the last four years, several of them being 
 blossoms which pushed themselves up through the 
 snow on the summit of Pike's Peak. Those of us to 
 whom she obligingly exhibited her collection enjoyed 
 a real treat. 
 
 I am getting very fond of this charming little 
 Manitou and shall leave almost with regret. Yet, 
 there is no rose without its thorn, and this retreat is 
 not quite perfect. The red dust, which everywhere 
 prevails, adheres so to shoes and clothing that it takes 
 a good deal of time and patience to remove it, 
 and ' ' What is that new building with the arched 
 roof?" I asked the driver. "A skating-rink," 
 was the reply. 
 
 Dr. Bell, an English gentleman, formerly vice- 
 president of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, now 
 a large stockholder in the Colorado Coal and Iron 
 Company, has an elegant residence a short distance 
 from the Manitou House. He purchased the cele- 
 brated picture of the Mount of the Holy Cross, 
 painted by Moran, paying ten thousand dollars for it, 
 
MANITOU TO DENVER. 35 
 
 and built an addition to his house on purpose for its 
 reception. By the owner's courtesy our party were 
 permitted to go and see it. One does not need to 
 have a knowledge of art to see that here is a master- 
 piece. Its beauty and perfection grow upon you the 
 longer you gaze. I have no time for any attempt at 
 description, but wish to put on record one of the 
 great and unexpected pleasures of this sojourn in 
 Manitou. 
 
 We arrived at this place Wednesday evening, yth 
 inst., and left for Denver Friday morning, returning 
 here Saturday night. It is eighty miles from here to 
 Denver, and after passing Colorado Springs there is 
 no place of any consequence till we reach that city. 
 Colorado Springs is a great resort for invalids. It 
 has about five thousand inhabitants and some of the 
 most elegant hotels in the country. It commands a 
 fine view of mountain scenery, but the springs are 
 here at Manitou, not one nearer. So popular has 
 the place become as a resort for consumptives, that it 
 is said the magpies there cough in ten languages. 
 
 The ride over the plains to Denver is an exceed- 
 ingly pleasant one. The course is almost due north, 
 and there is a gradual rise till we reach the divide, 
 fifty miles from Denver and 7,551 feet above the sea. 
 On the divide is Palmer Lake, covering some thirty 
 acres, the waters of which are drained both north 
 and south. A railroad station, a boat-house and two 
 or three fine residences are located here, and it is 
 
36 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 designed to make this a summer resort. For the 
 whole distance from Colorado Springs to Denver the 
 rocky wall bounds the vision in the west, a glori- 
 ous panorama, of which more than a hundred miles 
 can be seen at one view. After passing the divide 
 the Rockies recede somewhat till they, begin to look 
 blue in the distance, while beyond them rise, peak 
 after peak, the white crests of the snowy range. The 
 gradually rising foot-hills with their billowy forms and 
 ruddy tinge, the blue-gray tint of the mountains 
 beyond them, and the snow white of the farther and 
 loftier chain form a picture on which the eye is never 
 tired of gazing, and give an idea of the vastness of 
 this mountain region that I have found nowhere else. 
 
 There is one peculiarity incident to these moun- 
 tains, or to the foot-hills, that is of frequent occur- 
 rence. The hill will rise with a regular but steep 
 inclination till near the apex, when suddenly a solid 
 perpendicular wall surmounts it like a huge fort or 
 castle ; sometimes this wall extends along the crest of 
 a ridge many hundred feet. 
 
 As we approach Denver signs of cultivatioi begin 
 to appear, though no cultivators and very few houses 
 are seen, but the grass grows greener and plowed fields 
 are in sight. It was noon when we reached the city, 
 of which I will write another time. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DENVER. CLEAR CREEK CANON. CENTRAL CITY. 
 THE GRAND CANON. MARSHALL'S PASS. 
 
 TT THAT ! a Raymond excursion in Denver and 
 
 y V no rain ! " was the exclamation that greeted 
 our arrival at the St. James on the 9th. It appears 
 to have been the rule hitherto that rain or snow should 
 greet every excursion to Denver from the East, so 
 that it had become a standing joke with the citizens, 
 and our arrival was the first departure from this rule. 
 We have indeed been exceptionally favored with fine 
 weather from the first, and the day of our visit to 
 Denver was very bright and warm. 
 
 I suppose there is no town west of the Mississippi 
 that has more of interest to the New Englander than 
 Denver, so many of her prominent citizens had their 
 early home in the East. Denver is beautifully situated 
 in a sort of basin at the confluence of Cherry creek 
 and South Platte river, the bottom of the basin, 
 where the business portion of the town is located, 
 being perfectly level, while the rim rises at a gentle 
 incline from two hundred to three hundred feet on 
 nearly all sides, affording delightful sites for resi- 
 dences, commanding a view of the Rocky Mountains 
 two hundred miles in extent. The number of hand- 
 
38 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 some and costly residences, and of fine, substantial 
 business blocks is very large. It is difficult to realize 
 that twenty-five years ago, where now stands this 
 beautiful city with sixty-five thousand inhabitants, 
 there was only a trackless plain with a few huts to 
 shelter gold hunters. 
 
 The one feature which makes Denver entirely dis- 
 tinct from an eastern city is the irrigating ditches 
 through which little streams flow along every street. 
 No green thing would ever appear in this dry climate 
 without irrigation, and the great drawback to beauty 
 is the lack of foliage, the cottonwood being the only 
 tree that thrives here. This tree resembles somewhat 
 our silver-leaved poplar. It grows quite rapidly and, 
 as one citizen remarked, " is a great deal better than 
 no tree at all." There are some nice lawns about 
 handsome residences, but they are kept up at great 
 expense, as they require constant watering, and water 
 rates are costly here. 
 
 One of the finest business blocks was built by Capt. 
 R. W. Woodbury, formerly of Manchester and the 
 MIRROR. He came to Denver eighteen years ago, 
 and has grown gray and rich here. Two years ago 
 he sold out the Times, which he had published ever 
 since he came here, and his son is now one of the 
 proprietors. 
 
 The court-house in Denver is a beautiful structure 
 of gray sandstone, in the center of a large square 
 on the hillside, green with alfalfa. A handsome 
 
DENVER. 39 
 
 fountain adorns the grounds, and an artesian well is 
 close by. The site for the new state capitol on 
 " Capitol Hill " is a commanding one, and the edi- 
 fice is soon to be erected. The public-school build- 
 ings in Denver, as everywhere else in this western 
 country, are among the finest structures in the city- 
 They have here a pretty custom of naming the dif-. 
 ferent schools for the poets, as " the Bryant School," 
 " the Whittier School, " "the Longfellow School," 
 and so on. The National Mining and Industrial 
 Exposition building, a little out of the city, is a very 
 large and handsome structure of brick. The streets 
 of Denver are broad, clean and in excellent condi- 
 tion, although unpaved, the soil being as hard and 
 firm as concrete. Fine opportunities for the exhi- 
 bition of speed are afforded, and we understand " fast 
 steppers " are not uncommon. The electric light is 
 in use for lighting the city, four towers having been 
 erected for the purpose. 
 
 I will not take space to give statistics in regard to 
 the industries of Denver, but will merely say that the 
 building done in 1882 amounted to over four million 
 dollars, and the sales of malt and spirituous liquors 
 to two millions. Nine railroads center here, and the 
 union depot is an elegant structure built of a beau- 
 tiful stone in pink and buff tints, a sandstone, or 
 perhaps of volcanic origin. There are numerous other 
 handsome buildings of the same material. Denver is 
 5,139 feet above the sea level, and the dry, clear air 
 
40 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 is undoubtedly beneficial to many people who cannot 
 endure the changeable climate of the East. Yet 
 there are sudden changes of temperature here quite 
 as extreme as in New England, as I am informed by 
 a lady who has lived in Colorado four years that she 
 had known the mercury to fall thirty degrees in thirty 
 minutes. 
 
 The guide-books speak of the air as very electric. 
 Of the truth of this I can bear witness, as on apply- 
 ing the brush to my clothing it crackles like a hem- 
 lock fire. If I don't lose it before I get home, I 
 shall have enough electricity stored up to furnish the 
 stock in trade of a " magnetic healer. " 
 
 We left Denver Saturday morning, May 10, by the 
 Colorado Central narrow-gauge, for a trip through 
 Clear Creek Canon to Central City. From Denver 
 to Golden, the former capital of the state, .the land 
 near the railroad is mostly under cultivation, irriga- 
 ting ditches being everywhere seen. Some plowing 
 had been done, but there were no signs of planting. 
 Our course is west from Denver, and we obtain a fine 
 view of the mountains in the distance, with a splendid 
 sweep of plain. Toward the north is seen the snowy 
 crest of Long's Peak, 14,300 feet high, and farther 
 to the west Gray's Peak, 14,566 feet above the sea 
 level. Hills crowned with perpendicular walls of 
 stratified rock looking like forts or castles are fre- 
 quently seen. At Golden we make no stay, but from 
 the train we see the elegant public-school building, 
 
CLEAR CREEK CANON. 41 
 
 the school of mines, the state reform school and the 
 court-house. Soon after leaving Golden we began to 
 enter Clear Creek Canon. As I looked upon the 
 dark, muddy stream I thought the name had been 
 given in irony until I learned that it was colored by 
 the washings from the stamp mills and mines. Pos- 
 sibly the creek may have been clear once, though I 
 have not seen a clear stream, such as we have every- 
 where in New Hampshire, since I left the East. The 
 nearest approach to it was a tiny rivulet running down 
 through Williams' Canon at Manitou. Clear creek 
 runs through one of the richest and oldest mining 
 sections of the state. The rugged wildness of these 
 rocky fastnesses is very impressive, and the constant 
 turns made by the railroad as it follows the tortuous 
 windings of the stream constantly open up new views. 
 I think this must be the crookedest railroad in the 
 world. So short and sudden are the turns that our 
 train frequently appears to be rushing straight to 
 destruction against the solid rock, and the next 
 instant the engine rounds a sharp curve and is hidden 
 entirely from sight of the rear of the train. Some- 
 times we shoot under an overhanging rock a thousand 
 feet abov.e us^; sometimes we are not more than three 
 feet above the surface of the water with just room 
 enough for the narrow-gauge track between it and 
 the vertical mountain wall, and sometimes the stream 
 is fifty feet beneath us. 
 
42 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 A few miners were seen at work, and many 
 abandoned troughs (I don't know the technical name) 
 used for washing the sand from the ore. At Black- 
 hawk, twenty miles from Golden and 2,200 feet higher 
 in altitude, there are three stamping-mills (these are 
 mills for crushing the rock taken from the mines and 
 separating the ore), and one mile from here, by the 
 road, is Central City; but the railroad, which has to 
 make an ascent of five hundred feet from this point, 
 turns quickly about, and by the "switch-back" 
 method makes several tangents, leaps the two princi- 
 pal streets of the city on iron bridges, and at last, 
 after making a distance four miles from Blackhawk, 
 lands us away up on the rugged side of Mammoth 
 Hill, overlooking the entire gulch. Unfortunately 
 a sudden shower came upon us just as we commenced 
 this zigzag, necessitating the dropping of the curtains 
 of our observation-cars and preventing a good view 
 or a realization of the hazardousness of the situation, 
 which makes most travelers hold their breath as they 
 go over this track for the first time. 
 
 Central City is more like my preconceived ideas 
 of a mining town than any I have seen. Rough, 
 barren and rocky, with no green thing in sight, built 
 around the sides of the mountains, one street above 
 another, one wonders how even the greed for gold can 
 make one contented here. Yet it is seldom you meet 
 with an old settler, in any of these western towns, no 
 matter how forlorn the situation, who will not claim 
 
CENTRAL CITY. 43 
 
 that his particular location has some advantages over 
 any other in the United States. A bright boy, how- 
 ever, who was a volunteer guide to a few of us who 
 walked from Central City down to Blackhawk, and 
 who informed me that his father was killed in a mine 
 nine years ago, and that his mother had lived in Cen. 
 tral City sixteen years, was free to express his disgust 
 with the surroundings. "Your miners make good 
 pay here, do they not?" we asked. "Yes, but it 
 costs like thunder to live here. Why, we have to pay 
 thirty-five cents a barrel for water ! " I predict that 
 boy will not remain in Central City after he becomes 
 a man. 
 
 The Bonanza, the Bobtail and the German are the 
 principal mines now being worked here. About half 
 way from Central City down to Blackhawk is the 
 Bonanza, where a tunnel has been made into the side 
 of the mountain to the depth of five hundred feet, 
 and will be continued as far as ore is found. Our 
 party nearly all passed through this tunnel to see what 
 a mine was like. We next visited the stamping-mills 
 at Blackhawk, and then taking the cars at that station, 
 were soon on our way back to Denver and to Mani- 
 tou, arriving there late in the evening. 
 
 Sunday and Monday were passed in Manitou, and 
 Tuesday morning wa again started for South Pueblo, 
 where we took another branch of the Denver & Rio 
 Grande Railway for a ride through the Grand Canon 
 of the Arkansas, the Royal Gorge, and over Marshal} 
 
44 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Pass. The first town we reach is Canon City, 
 forty-one miles from Pueblo, where there is said to be 
 a population of two thousand, though I am beginning 
 to doubt the accuracy of the figures given in regard 
 to these western towns in some instances. The chief 
 industry here is coal mining. Directly we leave Canon 
 City we begin to penetrate the Grand Canon, the 
 most wonderful and celebrated of all the canons of 
 this wonderful region. The Arkansas river, whose 
 sluggish course over the Kansas and Colorado plains 
 we have followed for nearly five hundred miles, here 
 rushes and roars through the narrow confines of its 
 rocky walls, a reckless, foaming torrent. About a 
 mile beyond the entrance of the canon the opening 
 begins to grow narrower, the lofty walls loftier, and 
 the track is so crooked that the walls seem to close up 
 before and behind. There is barely room between 
 them for the stream and the railroad, which is built 
 close up to the wall on the left bank, until we come 
 to the narrowest portion of the Royal Gorge, where 
 the rocky sides of the chasm are only thirty feet apart, 
 and the track is laid over a bridge running lengthwise 
 of the stream for ten rods, and suspended from steel 
 rafters mortised into the rocks overhead. Here the 
 walls rise vertically nearly 3,000 feet in sublime and 
 awful grandeur. These walls are many hued and 
 beautiful, a red granite being at the foundation. Just 
 after passing this point the train stopped, and the 
 party all assembled on the bridge, where their photo- 
 graphs were taken. 
 
THE ROYAL GORGE. 45 
 
 There was a sharp struggle between the Atchison, 
 Topeka & Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande 
 roads to get possession of this canon, and the latter 
 company suspended men from the top of the awful 
 precipice while they drove the spikes with which to 
 hang the bridge, and a company of armed men stood 
 on the cliff to prevent any interference with their 
 work. This was done before a foot of the track had 
 been laid. 
 
 The whole length of the canon is eight miles, and 
 the Royal Gorge, or deepest and narrowest portion, 
 is about half the distance. Soon after emerging from 
 the canon we reach Salida, where we lunch. The 
 valley opens out here, forming a small park, as these 
 mountain plains are called. The scenery is very fine, 
 the beautiful Sangre de Christo range with its snow- 
 patched summits and purple sides ever attracting our 
 admiring gaze. Salida is the junction of the Salt 
 Lake and Gunnison divisions and the Leadville 
 division of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, and 
 has twelve hundred inhabitants. Four miles from 
 Salida we pass Poncha Springs, where there are 
 hot springs said to have valuable medicinal qualities. 
 Six miles farther west, at Mears, we begin the ascent 
 of Marshall Pass, the continental divide, the highest 
 railroad point in America, being 10,760 feet, or more 
 than two miles, above the level of the sea. The road 
 up this ascent is a triumph of engineering skill. The 
 distance from Salida to the Pass is twenty-five miles, 
 
46 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 but a direct road would probably be less than two-thirds 
 that distance. The track winds around the sides of the 
 successive mountains, back and forth, till sometimes 
 we look down upon four parallel lines of the road, 
 and ever as we turn westward the snowy summit of 
 Mt. Ouray rises before us. The views as we climb 
 upward are grand beyond description. Mountains 
 to the right of us, mountains to the left of us, moun- 
 tains before us, mountains beneath us, in billowy forms 
 and varying colors of brown and red and gray and 
 blue and shining white, the beautiful heights of the 
 long Sangre de Christo (blood of Christ) range in the 
 distance, and we look down into deep ravines filled 
 with snow and away to distant valleys. A large por- 
 tion of our party have visited the most celebrated 
 mountain scenery in Europe, but they are agreed 
 that nothing surpasses this in grandeur and magnifi- 
 cence. Up' we go around the spurs of Mt. Ouray, 
 whose snow-crowned summit, 14,043 feet high, towers 
 above us, till we at length reach the divide. Here 
 we all leave the cars for a few moments, and then 
 start down the western slope, whose waters find their 
 way at last to the Pacific Ocean. Long snow-sheds 
 conceal the view a good portion of the way, there 
 being six miles of them in all, but we get glimpses of 
 precipitous depths, of wild and rugged peaks. The 
 railroad makes loops and zigzags as on the other side, 
 and the Tomichi creek flows swiftly along a large 
 portion of our way. It is seventeen miles to Sar- 
 
MARSHALL PASS. 47 
 
 gent's, which we reach about dark, and after supper 
 spend the night in our sleeping-berths on the track. 
 Some of the dwellers here, who are mostly railroad 
 hands, amuse themselves by lighting a big bonfire 
 and firing off a few shots after we retire, perhaps to 
 frighten the timid ones. This road runs to Salt Lake 
 City, but in the early morning we retrace our way 
 over the divide to Salida, where we switch off upon 
 the Leadville track. Of our visit to this most im- 
 portant mining town in America, I will write in 
 my next. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 
 
 LEADVILLE. LA VETA PASS. OVER RATON MOUNTAIN 
 
 TO NEW MEXICO. 
 
 T EADVILLE is sixty-two miles from Salida and 
 I the road makes a gradual ascent from that point 
 until we reach the town, 10,025 feet above the sea. 
 The College range of mountains soon comes into 
 view on our left, and for the whole distance the scen- 
 ery is grand and beautiful. Leadville is situated on 
 a plateau, with lofty, snow-covered mountains to be 
 seen on every hand. We arrived about 3 p. M., and 
 were taken in omnibuses a mile or more about the 
 unattractive outskirts of the town before reaching the 
 main street and our hotel. The shabby, forlorn- 
 looking shanties, many of them vacant, the rusty tin 
 cans and other debris scattered about the dirty, dusty, 
 streets, made the term "God-forsaken" especially 
 appropriate. As we reached the business part of the 
 town, however, the aspect of the buildings improved, 
 and there were some very neat residences and excel- 
 lent stores. I have seen no markets since we came 
 West more attractive than those of Leadville, and one 
 dry-goods store that I entered was as well if not 
 better stocked than any store in Manchester. There 
 are nice brick school buildings with graded schools, 
 
50 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 and Congregational, Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, 
 Presbyterian, Christian and Catholic churches. The 
 story is told how a minister here was annoyed one 
 Sunday by the hammering in a blacksmith-shop close 
 by, and sent a man out to request the blacksmith to 
 desist from work till after the meeting, as the noise 
 disturbed the service. To this the smith replied that 
 he must work, as " he had agreed to shoe the deacon's 
 horse while he was at church." 
 
 A building on a street corner has a gothic porch 
 with the sign, " The Little Church Around the 
 Corner," but it is manifest that something quite other 
 than the gospel is dispensed there. The same grim 
 humor that puts the sign of a church over a drinking- 
 saloon crops out here in numerous ways. One of the 
 most prominent gambling-saloons in the city, which 
 some of our party visited during the evening under 
 escort of the chief of police, has a large, open Bible 
 on a high desk close by the entrance, and the well- 
 thumbed leaves show that it has often been handled, 
 and we were assured that it is much read. Across 
 the face of the clock on the wall above are the words 
 in large letters, "Please don't swear." Several 
 games of poker and faro were in progress here, and 
 although we couldn't " tell t'other from which " we 
 saw a pile of gold coins change hands very quickly 
 while we looked on. We also visited a saloon on 
 another street where the sign * ' Free Beer ' ' was over 
 the entrance, and a dance hall was connected with the 
 
LEADVILLE, 51 
 
 saloon. A piano and violin furnished music for a 
 quadrille, the dancing-room, which was separated 
 from the front part by a low fence, being sufficient 
 for only one set. The girls who participated in this 
 dance all wore print aprons of the style called "tiers," 
 reaching nearly to the bottom of their skirts, and 
 tied low down with broad strings. Two of them 
 wore straw hats, one wore a jockey cap, and the head 
 of the other was not covered. The men all wore hats 
 and had pipes or cigars in their mouths while dancing. 
 It was a rough-looking crowd truly, but I have seen 
 harder faces, both of men and women, far remote 
 from the frontier. 
 
 Apropos of a rough crowd, some of us were quite 
 amused at the remark of the colored porter of our 
 sleeping-car. As we left the train at the Leadville 
 station he was asked if he would take care of the 
 wraps and bags remaining in the car. Mindful of the 
 reputed desperate character of the denizens of Lead- 
 ville, and the possibility that unaided he would not 
 be able to cope with any plunderers who might assail, 
 he cautiously replied : " Me and God will take care 
 of them." 
 
 The mines of Leadville, from which over seventeen 
 million dollars in bullion were taken in 1882, a 
 greater amount than in any previous year, were an 
 object of interest to many, and several of our party 
 went down a shaft to see how the mines were 
 worked. There are fifteen smelting and reduction 
 
52 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 works, besides foundries, machine-shops, etc., and it 
 takes six banks to handle the money. 
 
 The aspect of Leadville is that of a place where 
 people come to make money and not to make homes, 
 and little is done toward beautifying or improving 
 the residences or streets; yet if the residents there 
 expected to remain, and had faith in its future, the 
 same money and taste expended that have made 
 Denver beautiful would render Leadville extremely 
 attractive. I am glad I have seen Leadville, but one 
 visit is enough. 
 
 We left this most elevated town in North America 
 about half past ten p. M., reaching South Pueblo 
 Thursday in season for breakfast. Our narrow-gauge 
 sleeping-car berths are not "as wide as a door nor as 
 deep as a well, but they will do ' ' better than none, 
 and what we lack in space we make up in fun over the 
 situation. 
 
 At South Pueblo we take the Durango & Silverton 
 branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway for a trip 
 to La Veta Pass. We were originally booked for Sil- 
 verton instead of Leadville, but the snow was still so 
 deep at the former place it was not considered safe to 
 take an excursion train there, and so we missed the 
 wonderful scenery of the Toltec Gorge. 
 
 The La Veta Pass is at the south end of the beau- 
 tiful Sangre de Christo range, at an altitude of nearly 
 10,000 feet. Our course is south from Pueblo to 
 Cucharas, fifty miles, thence in a southwesterly direc- 
 
LA VETA PASS. 53 
 
 tion along Cucharas river to La Veta at the base of 
 La Veta Mountain, where we begin the ascent, the 
 average grade for twenty-one and one-half miles being 
 two hundred and eleven feet to the mile. The lovely 
 Spanish Peaks are to the south of us, the Sangre de 
 Christo before us, and, as we ascend, the huge barren 
 mass of La Veta Mountain grows more and more 
 stupendous, and, as our course winds, new outlines 
 continually present themselves. W,e make the Mule 
 Shoe curve at the head of the glen, the most abrupt 
 curve known to railroad engineering, and wind our 
 serpentine course around the sides of Dump Mountain 
 and, reaching the summit, or Inspiration Point, our 
 panting iron steed pauses and we all leave the car to 
 gaze upon the scene before us, a scene so grandly 
 -beautiful that one enthusiastic gazer declared this one 
 view was worth coming the whole distance to see. 
 As no words of mine could convey any idea of the 
 magnificent panorama, I forbear the attempt. A mile 
 farther brings us to the summit of the pass, more and 
 more mountains coming into view as we rise, and at 
 the top we all get out and drink of the ice-cold water 
 drawn from the well, and gather little souvenirs of 
 the place. 
 
 Returning to La Veta we proceed to El Moro, 
 where the Denver & Rio Grande meets the Atchi- 
 son, Topeka & Santa Fe road. We pass the night 
 here in our sleeping-cars and Friday morning early 
 proceed on our way southward to Santa Fe over the 
 
54 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Raton Pass, which is the border land between Colo- 
 rado and New Mexico. A few miles from El Moro 
 is Trinidad, at the foot of Raton Mountain, an old 
 Mexican town, the center of a large mining business 
 and cattle trade. The whole country here seems to 
 be underlaid with coal. 
 
 It is fifteen miles from Trinidad to the tunnel at 
 the summit of Raton Pass, and I sit on the rear plat- 
 form as we ascend and look for the last time upon 
 Colorado. The morning is clear and cool, the deep 
 blue of the sky occasionally flecked by fleecy clouds. 
 Nearly a hundred miles away tower the twin crests of 
 my beautiful Spanish Peaks, radiant as when they first 
 met the sight on the morning of our entrance into 
 Colorado. Now as I gaze upon them for the last 
 time, through this bright morning air, their shadowy- 
 portions blue in the far distance, new radiance seems 
 to break from their snowy summits, and instinctively 
 recur the words of the Psalmist: "Lift up your 
 heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting 
 doors ; and the King of Glory shall come in. " 
 
 The grade of the road over Raton Mountain is one 
 hundred and ninety-five feet to the mile, and the 
 course is a comparatively straight one, following the 
 "old Santa Fe trail." A courteous and communica- 
 tive brakeman, who shared with me the rear platform 
 of the train, pointed out the great square adobe house 
 of " Uncle" Dick Wootton, who discovered this trail, 
 and who used to take toll of all who passed over it; 
 
THE RATON PASS. 55 
 
 also was pointed out the " Devil's Gap " where the 
 followers of Dick Turpin likewise took toll, and 
 sometimes murdered their victims. 
 
 As the brakeman noted the marked contrast of the 
 weather this fine morning with the snow-storm which 
 attended the previous Raymond party, I was reminded 
 of the remark of the colored porter of our sleeping- 
 car, who had been detailed to go into the mountains 
 with each of the excursions, but was not sufficiently 
 impressed by the scenery to be oblivious to bodily 
 comfort, that he had " no use for a country where 
 it snows in the middle of the summer." 
 
 The brakeman was enthusiastic over the beneficial 
 effects of Colorado air. He had been a semi-invalid 
 all his life, but had come here from the East two years 
 ago and had found new life and strength. "From 
 what part of the East did you come?" I asked. 
 " From Iowa," was the reply. And we recalled the 
 lines of Pope : 
 
 " Where is the North ? 
 At York 'tis on the Tweed." 
 
 Great, indeed, is Colorado ! great in her vast area, 
 great in her boundless plains, great in her exhaustless 
 mines, great in her matchless mountain parks, great 
 in her salubrious air and health-giving springs, great- 
 est and grandest in her wondrous scenery. We may 
 read of a chain of mountains three thousand miles in 
 length and three hundred miles in width without being 
 greatly impressed, but enter into this vast Rocky 
 
56 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Mountain region, climb any of the passes traversed by 
 the Denver & Rio Grande railways, and see as far as 
 the eye can reach in all directions mountain range 
 upon mountain range, peak beyond peak, in all their 
 varied forms, and diverse hues of brown or gray or 
 blue or snowy white, as they may be near or remote* 
 note the broad parks or table-lands, level as a prairie, 
 between the ranges, some of them large enough to 
 hold the state of New Hampshire, and we begin to 
 have some conception of the immensity of this back- 
 bone of the continent. The hardy pioneers who, led 
 by the thirst for gold, first explored these mountain 
 fastnesses builded better than they knew. They not 
 only paved the way for untold additions to the material 
 resources of the country, but for the opening up to 
 the knowledge and reach of mankind of a new world 
 of transcendent grandeur and sublimity. 
 
 When we emerged from the half-mile tunnel near 
 the summit of Raton Mountain we were in New 
 Mexico, at once the oldest and the newest part of our 
 country. Raton, where we stopped for breakfast, is 
 at the foot of the Raton Mountain, yet 6,686 feet 
 above the sea level. The population, some twenty-five 
 hundred, is largely made up of the employes of the 
 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, which has 
 extensive repair-shops here. Raton is also the center 
 of a large coal-mining industry. From Raton to Las 
 Vegas, one hundred and fourteen miles, we had an 
 uninterrupted mountain view on the west and limitless 
 
STARVATION PEAK. 57 
 
 plains on the east. Large flocks of sheep were feeding 
 on these plains. New Mexico has more sheep than 
 any other state or territory in the Union. At Las 
 Vegas we switched off on a branch road five miles to 
 Las Vegas Hot Springs where we spent an hour. 
 These springs are noted for their medicinal virtues 
 and the place is much resorted to for the sake of the 
 baths, prominent among which are the mud baths for 
 the cure of skin diseases. An elegant hotel here was 
 burned last winter, but a new one is in course of 
 erection on a more commanding site. 
 
 Soon after leaving Las Vegas the soil begins to 
 assume a terra-cotta hue and the hills are clothed with 
 trees of pine, pinon and cedar, their dark green 
 color being in pleasing contrast to the red soil. The 
 scenery is more varied and interesting, and the blue 
 and purple mountains, flecked with flying cloud 
 shadows in the afternoon light, are very beautiful. 
 Starvation, Peak is a prominent point in the landscape. 
 It is a conical-shaped mountain, standing by itself, 
 the apex being crowned with a parapet of solid rock. 
 From the summit gleam two crosses. These crosses 
 are to commemorate a party of Mexicans who were 
 driven to this mountain by Indians and were there, 
 while looking down upon their own irrigated fields, 
 surrounded till they perished of starvation and thirst. 
 The road makes many windings and turnings, as it 
 ascends Glorieta Mountain, and this lone peak may 
 be seen for a long distance as we look behind us. Not 
 
 5 
 
58 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 far south of Starvation Peak is a long elevation of 
 about the same height as that mountain, thrown up in 
 form like an earthwork, a straight wall of solid rock 
 surmounting the whole length. 
 
 The ruins of the old Pecos church, the subject of 
 numerous legends, are pointed out on our right, 
 on the former site of the Pueblo of the Pecos. The 
 Spaniards came here in 1536, and, as they made 
 converts with the sword, it is probable this church was 
 built not long after. The site of the ancient village 
 was a beautiful one, on a ridge in the valley of the 
 Pecos, but only these ruined walls and a mass of debris 
 remain to mark the spot. Having passed Glorieta 
 we descend through the Apache Canon, one of the 
 wildest and most beautiful we have seen, to Lamy, 
 reaching that point about sunset, and take a branch 
 road, running eighteen miles northward to Santa Fe, 
 where, after four days and nights of constant travel, 
 we are glad to rest. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SANTA FE. 
 
 OANTA Fe is very old. Everything in it, except the 
 ^j Palace Hotel and a few other modern buildings, 
 is very ancient also. It is the oldest town in America. 
 The Aztecs lived here in 1325, and nobody knows 
 how much earlier. The Spaniards came in 1583, 
 nearly twenty years after their occupation of St. 
 Augustine. They killed off all the Indians who would 
 not become converts to the true faith, and thus all 
 the Pueblo Indians in this region are nominally Catho- 
 lics. These Spaniards built " the oldest church " in 
 1640, the church of San Miguel, which was destroyed 
 by Indians, but rebuilt in 1710, and it is still used 
 for worship. It is built of adobe (bricks made of 
 mud, dried in the sun and then plastered together 
 with more of the same mud). Everything here is 
 adobe, except the few modern buildings before men- 
 tioned, the houses, the fences, the floors, the streets. 
 Some of the people look as if they were adobe, too. 
 You can't tell by the appearance whether an adobe 
 house is ten years old or a century. 
 
 The only palace in the United States is in Santa Fe. 
 It is three centuries old, having been built in 1581, 
 it is said, by the Indians, from material taken from 
 
60 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 an Indian pueblo. Its adobe walls are five feet thick. 
 It is on one side of the plaza, or public square. It is 
 one story high, with flat roof, and is built around a 
 central court or placita. A veranda or portal, as it 
 is called, extends the whole length of the building 
 on the street sides. It was a palace of the Pueblos 
 before the Spanish conquest of the Mexicans after they 
 separated from the Spanish crown, and has been 
 occupied by the chief ruler of the territory, to what- 
 ever nationality it owed allegiance, down to its present 
 occupant, Gov. Lionel A. Sheldon. This old palace 
 is full of historic interest. It has withstood many 
 stormy sieges, has been the prison of many important 
 personages, and doubtless many dark crimes have 
 been perpetrated within its walls. 
 
 The plaza is a small public square, containing a 
 few trees and a soldiers' monument, and covered with 
 alfalfa, whose rich, dark green is in pleasant contrast 
 to the ever prevailing adobe. The soldiers' monu- 
 ment commemorates those who fell in the war of the 
 Rebellion, and also those who died in contests with 
 the Indians. The inscription on one side reads : 
 ' ' To the heroes of the Federal army who fell at the 
 battle of Valverde, fought with the Rebels, Feb. 21, 
 1862. " This is said to be the only soldiers' monu- 
 ment in the country on which the word ' ' Rebels ' ' is 
 inscribed, and this has it on three faces. From the 
 plaza as a center the narrow, straggling streets, lined 
 with low adobe houses, radiate in all directions. 
 
SANTA FE. 6 1 
 
 Nearly all the houses are built after the same style as 
 the palace, one story, flat roof, one room wide, around 
 a central placita, a portal extending on all the street 
 sides. Originally there were no windows looking on 
 the street, and there are still no doors, a gateway only 
 leading to the placita. Some of the houses are plas- 
 tered on the outside, and those are not ill-looking. 
 In many of the placitas there are gardens, flowers, 
 shrubbery and fruits. Several of our party are in- 
 debted to the Rev. Mr. Stark, pastor of the Presby- 
 terian church in Santa Fe, for escort about the town, 
 and for valuable information. Santa Fe is a military 
 post, and the soldiers' quarters are quite near the 
 Palace Hotel, where we are staying. We visited the 
 ruins of old FortMarcy on the hill, which was erected 
 by Gen. Kearney in 1846, on the site of the encamp- 
 ment of De Vargas in 1693, and from this point ob- 
 tained a good view of the town. The flat adobe roofs 
 below us look like beds of dried-up ponds. The old 
 Spanish arsenal near by is now occupied as a dwelling 
 by some old women. We found them crouched on 
 the sun-baked earth, their bare feet looking the color 
 and texture of an elephant's hide, tattered shawls 
 partly covering the gray hair that straggled over their 
 dull, deep-wrinkled, leathery faces, which lighted up 
 wonderfully, however, when one of the ladies dropped 
 a coin in their palms. 
 
 The "oldest house in America " is a long, low, 
 adobe hut, on a narrow street on the banks of the 
 Santa Fe river, about the door of which several 
 
62 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 women and children were grouped as we approached. 
 These Mexican women all have fine eyes, and some 
 of the children are quite pretty. One child in arms, 
 some ten months old, had such a sweet, winning smile 
 as to call forth much admiration, seeing which a 
 woman near by darted into an adjoining hut and 
 brought out her own infant, a few weeks old, for our 
 inspection. She also invited us to enter her hut. 
 This, which is a sample of many others, was not more 
 than ten or twelve feet square, the rough adobe wall 
 the same inside and out, the door so low that we had 
 to stoop to enter it, and make one downward step to 
 the floor, which was only the hardened earth, as firm 
 and smooth as concrete. One small window less than 
 two feet square was near the roof. A sort of mattress, 
 on which several children were huddled, lay in one 
 corner, a Catholic picture hung upon the wall, and 
 that was about all the "furniture" in the room. 
 The house looked clean, however, and the absence of 
 any utensils or means of cooking is explained by the 
 fact that all cooking is done out of doors, in the 
 conical, or beehive-shaped, adobe ovens. 
 
 Besides the church of San Miguel there is another 
 very old church here, that of San Francisco. Around 
 and over this, completely inclosing it, is now being 
 constructed an elegant cathedral of sandstone, which 
 will cost $150,000. It has been some fifteen years in 
 building, but the walls are not yet quite completed. 
 It shuts out the sun to that degree that the candles, 
 
SANTA FE. 63 
 
 always to be found in Catholic churches, seem to 
 serve a useful purpose as well as a symbolic one. 
 This church, as well as that of San Miguel, is long and 
 narrow inside, the rough adobe walls uncovered, but 
 there is an attempt at decoration of the cross-beams 
 supporting the roof. The altar niche ' and those 
 devoted to Jesus and the Virgin have the usual array 
 of images, pictures, candles, paper flowers, et cetera. 
 The pictures are said to be very old. I don't doubt 
 it. Everything here, as I have before intimated, is 
 very old. Even a picture of Washington, which 
 hangs in the convent, one of the nuns assured a lady 
 visitor, is two hundred and fifty years old ! Some of 
 the Mexicans you meet on the streets look as if they 
 must be about the same age. I presume it is the effect 
 of the climate, but such deep .wrinkles I never saw in 
 the human face before. 
 
 The Santa Fe river, a shallow stream, runs through 
 the town, crossing several streets ; but the only 
 bridges are foot-bridges, and our first experience in 
 fording, which was after dark on the night of our 
 arrival, took us all by surprise. It is a curious sight 
 to see the burros (small donkeys), with great loads of 
 wood almost as large as themselves tied upon their 
 backs, plodding along the streets. These seem to be 
 the universal beasts of burden here, and it is said they 
 subsist mainly on tin cans and paper. A lady upon 
 whom we called said she pasted a piece of paper over 
 a broken window-pane, which soon disappeared, and 
 
64 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 she reprimanded her children for having, as she sup- 
 posed, torn it off; but again covering the broken 
 pane, she not long after discovered the real culprit, a 
 meek-eyed burro, in the very act of pulling the paper 
 from the glass. 
 
 The most charming spot in Santa Fe is the bishop's 
 garden, where is grown in great luxuriance every kind 
 of fruit that can be made to thrive in this climate. 
 The soil is very fertile here, and only requires irri- 
 gation to yield most abundantly. Peaches, apricots, 
 pears, plums, cherries and grapes are produced in 
 enormous quantities, in some of the orchards the 
 trees being set so close together that their branches 
 touch each other. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. John B. Lamy, the archbishop of a 
 Catholic diocese embracing all New Mexico, Colo- 
 rado and Arizona, has his headquarters in Santa Fe, 
 having been here since 1850, and is said to be a pro- 
 gressive man who is doing much for the advancement 
 of his people, and it is through his energy and influ- 
 ence that the new cathedral previously mentioned, 
 the Brothers' College, which is largely attended, the 
 Sisters' School, Orphan Asylum and other institutions 
 have been established, which are making Santa Fe 
 one of the great centers of Catholic education and 
 influence. 
 
 I have before me the second annual catalogue of 
 the University of New Mexico, incorporated May n, 
 1 88 1. It is of interest to New Hampshire readers 
 
SANTA FE. 65 
 
 from the fact that the Rev. H. O. Ladd, for several 
 years principal of the New Hampshire Normal School 
 at Plymouth, is at its head, and was the prime mover 
 in its establishment. It is a missionary enterprise, 
 and Prof. Ladd's whole soul is devoted to the work. 
 Its chief help has come from the Congregational 
 churches at the East, through Prof. Ladd's personal 
 solicitations, and it will need much more assistance 
 before it becomes self-sustaining. The school began 
 three years ago in a little adobe house, with half a 
 dozen pupils ; it now has a three-story brick building, 
 with the nucleus of a library and laboratory, and 
 the number of pupils enrolled last year was ninety- 
 eight. There are primary, intermediate and academic 
 grades. 
 
 Prof. Ladd having become greatly interested in the 
 Pueblo Indians, several villages of whom are located 
 near Santa Fe, has been studying how to do something 
 for tfreir advancement. He visited the Indian school 
 at Carlisle, Penn., but it did not seem to him that 
 the instruction there was the best for these people, as 
 those who are educated there are coldly received on 
 their return to their own race, and have learned such 
 different habits of life that their influence is less 
 effective than if they had not been so far removed 
 from their old associates. He has planned, therefore, 
 a school at Santa Fe, where these Indians may be 
 taught enough of the elementary branches to render 
 them intelligent, and given thorough instruction in 
 
66 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 the industrial arts, as shoemaking, carpentering, 
 blacksmithing, housekeeping, etc., and still not be 
 removed from their own people, so that as they 
 advance their influence will be continually exercised 
 upon those around them. Mr. Ladd communicated 
 with the Indian commissioner upon the subject, and 
 has received assurances of government aid, and it is 
 possible his philanthropic project will ere long have 
 opportunity for development. 
 
 A place of great interest to all tourists is an old 
 curiosity shop on San Francisco street. Here is 
 such a collection as can be found nowhere else, 
 Indian pottery of the most grotesque forms, old 
 swords and daggers, old costumes, Indian, Spanish 
 and Mexican, old utensils and an illimitable quantity 
 of curiosities, natural and manufactured, that all are 
 free to examine at their leisure. Other places, from 
 which visitors seldom go away empty-handed, are the 
 jewelry shops, where the most exquisite silver and 
 gold Mexican filigree jewelry is manufactured and 
 sold. The beauty and fineness of the filigree work 
 are marvelous. 
 
 I think we were all surprised to find it so cool 
 here. I expected the weather would be hot, but 
 need an extra wrap as I sit in my room to write. 
 Santa Fe is seven thousand feet above the sea level, 
 and the altitude offsets the southern latitude, so that 
 the climate is cool and equable the year round. The 
 town is protected by hills from the winds on all sides 
 except the north. 
 
SANTA FE. 67 
 
 There is much of fascinating interest in this curious 
 old place, so unlike anything we have known before, 
 of which I have not time to write. The town is 
 unique, but through the influence of the railroad and 
 the all-conquering Yankee it will, before many years 
 lose the distinctive characteristics which now consti- 
 tute its chief interest and charm to the traveler, and 
 those who would see the oldest town in America 
 in something of its pristine state should not delay 
 too long. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FROM SANTA FE TO LOS ANGELES. 
 
 WE left Santa Fe Monday morning, May 19, 
 bound for Deming, where the Atchison, Topeka 
 & Santa Fe road makes a junction with the Southern 
 Pacific. It proved rather a blue Monday for some of 
 our party, Shortly after entering the cars we learned 
 that there had been a washout on the banks of the 
 Rio Grande, which was liable to delay our train for 
 several hours, and also that some of the trunks, which 
 had been transferred from the hotel at a very early 
 hour, had been jolted off the wagon into the stream 
 in crossing, and their contents pretty thoroughly 
 saturated. Then "there was hurrying to and fro," 
 and the long baggage-car was immediately trans- 
 formed into a laundry. Fortunately, ours was a 
 special train and the car contained only baggage 
 belonging to the party, which left considerable room 
 for the suspension of clothes-lines and the wringing- 
 out and drying process. Not being one of the victims 
 I was affected only sympathetically by the accident, 
 and there was a comic side which the sufferers them- 
 selves did not fail to see, and they generally joined in 
 the merriment which their labors and the display of 
 linen called forth. 
 
70 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Our first stop was at Wallace's, a railroad town 
 about fifty miles from Santa Fe, where we had lunch 
 brought from Kansas City. The station was thronged 
 with Pueblo Indians men, women and children 
 bearing specimens of their pottery and bits of tur- 
 quoise for sale. There is a turquoise mine but a few 
 miles from here, which was worked by the Spaniards 
 two hundred years ago, from which it is said a part of 
 the crown jewels of Spain were obtained. These 
 Indians had their legs swathed in buckskin till they 
 looked like stumps, and wore blankets more or less 
 tattered and dirty over their shoulders. They all 
 wore "bangs." Noble Prentis says the Pueblo Indian 
 is the inventor of the bang. At all events, those we 
 saw, except the chief, had their coarse black hair cut 
 square across the forehead even with the eyebrows. 
 The chiefs was parted in the middle and tied behind 
 with a red string. He wore a gray flannel shirt also. 
 
 Learning that it would be some hours before the 
 break would be repaired, our train went on a couple 
 of miles to a point near the village where these 
 Indians live, affording us an opportunity to see them 
 at home. Their houses are made of adobe, two 
 stories high, the second story retreating from the 
 first like a terrace, and entrance is made by climbing 
 a ladder to the top of the first story and entering 
 "up-stairs" by a door. On the roof of the first 
 story in many cases are adobe ovens where the occu- 
 pants do their cooking, and here are kept most of 
 
PUEBLO INDIANS. 71 
 
 their utensils. Some of the houses have a door in 
 the lower story, however, and into one of these we 
 looked. The interior was whitewashed and the adobe 
 floor was swept clean ; a pile of beans lay on one 
 side of the room, a gun hung on the wall, and on 
 the floor at one end of the room was a large trough 
 divided into two compartments, in one of which was 
 a slab of hard rock on which the women grind their 
 corn with a rolling-pin. One of them ground vigor- 
 ously for a few minutes to show us how it was done. 
 It is estimated that there are a thousand Indians in 
 this village, though no one seems to know exactly. 
 I.f the dogs are counted in, I don't think the estimate 
 can be too low. These Indians generally speak the 
 Spanish language as well as their own, and are nomi- 
 nally Catholics. They have an old church here, 
 adobe like the rest, but it only receives an occasional 
 visit from some priest. We went to take a look at 
 the church but found it locked, and looking up the 
 janitor, he pretended that some one had the key who 
 was gone away. A quarter placed in his palm proved 
 an open sesame, however, and the door was soon 
 unfastened. . The church is long and narrow. It has 
 a bell and a cross upon the top. Before the door 
 there is a pavement of pebbles of different colors 
 arranged in circles. In the interior there is an altar 
 with images and candlesticks which look as if several 
 centuries must have elapsed since they were new. A 
 confessional box is on one side, and the janitor, to 
 whom we talked through an interpreter, who accom- 
 
72 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 panied us from Wallace's, asked if any of us " wanted 
 to confess." At our request he made a speech in his 
 own language, which, however, our interpreter could 
 not translate. Some little sticks in the form of a 
 cross, which were leaning against the wall, were used, 
 he said, to stick in the ground when they wanted it to 
 rain. As we were caught in a shower while there, we 
 concluded some one had been practicing with them 
 that day. These Pueblo Indians are farmers, and 
 keep cattle, hogs and hens. The stockades where 
 their cattle are corraled were near by. The women 
 make pottery of various forms and sizes, on which 
 there is a crude attempt at decoration. 
 
 After dinner at Wallace's our train had orders to 
 move on to San Antonio, about one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles, where we passed the night in the 
 cars, crossing one washout, which had been repaired, 
 but with another ahead of us, fifteen miles farther on, 
 near San Marcial. There are two small hotels at San 
 Antonio, which were able to supply our party with 
 breakfast. The landlady, who was an intelligent 
 woman from the East, said she never realized what 
 the Bible meant by a "dry and thirsty land" until 
 she came to New Mexico. We could appreciate this, 
 notwithstanding we were detained twenty-four hours 
 on our journey by an overflow of the Rio Grande. 
 This stream has very shallow banks, and only a slight 
 rise is required to produce an overflow. The snow 
 melting on the mountains was the cause of the 
 present flood. 
 
THROUGH THE DESERT. 73 
 
 It was half-past ten before we received orders to 
 move, and when we reached the wash-out the bridge 
 was not quite completed. The stream, which was 
 greatly swollen, had forced a new channel under the 
 railroad track. Men had been at work day and night 
 for three days constructing a bridge, two pile-drivers 
 being employed, and it was one o'clock when we at 
 length crossed the swirling, seething torrent. Ours 
 was the first train to cross, having precedence of the 
 regular train. No dinner at San Marcial, travelers 
 going the other way having eaten everything out 
 clean, so on we speed to Deming, one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles farther. The country through 
 which we passed from Santa Fe to San Marcial is a 
 level one, but there is a low range of mountains in 
 sight nearly all the way, and there are cultivated 
 fields and vineyards occasionally seen on the banks 
 of the Rio Grande, and trees on the borders of the 
 stream. But soon after passing Valverde, a short 
 distance from San Marcial, we leave the course of 
 the river and strike the dreariest part of our journey. 
 The earth is the color of ashes and seemingly swept 
 up into little heaps or knolls, with sage-bush scattered 
 over it and relieving the utter monotony of the desert 
 through which we pass for the next eighty miles. 
 This sage-bush grows from one to two feet high, and 
 in color looks like our garden sage, but I see little 
 other resemblance. Occasionally we pass ragged 
 heaps of black, volcanic rocks ; indeed, all the hills 
 we have seen since leaving Santa Fe have signs of 
 
74 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 volcanic origin. The desert journey has been called 
 the "Journey of Death," from the fact that emigrants 
 who used to cross before the railroad was built were 
 often massacred by Indians at the only spring to be 
 found within the eighty miles. 
 
 At Rincon, seventy-five miles from San Marcial, is 
 the junction of the El Paso branch of the Atchison, 
 Topeka & Santa Fe, which connects with the Mexi- 
 can Central Railroad. We reached Deming, but a 
 few miles from the Mexican boundary line, about 
 sunset, and after supper took sleeping-cars on the 
 Southern Pacific Railroad, and arrived in Tucson, 
 Arizona, Wednesday morning about seven o'clock for 
 breakfast. We had half an hour to look about us 
 here. The sight of the hotel garden, after our long 
 ride through the desert, was a real treat. Tucson is 
 the largest town in the territory, having a population 
 of nearly ten thousand. As the principal part of the 
 town is some distance from the station we did not 
 see much of it, but it looked very pleasant where we 
 were. A gentleman whom we met, however, who 
 was asked by one of our party if he lived there, was 
 evidently homesick, as he answered, "No, I live in 
 God' s country." 
 
 Our course through the Arizona desert to Yuma 
 was much more pleasing than that through the 
 "Journey of Death." Flowers were everywhere 
 along the way, of numberless varieties and great 
 beauty ; cacti of many kinds, some of them huge, 
 bristling pillars, twenty to thirty feet high, the 
 
YUMA. 75 
 
 bayonet-pointed leaves of the yucca plant with its 
 tall spikes of white flowers, and many other strange 
 growths greeted our eyes. There is little doubt 
 that this soil, if cultivated and irrigated, would be 
 wonderfully productive. 
 
 At Casa Grande station a crowd of Indians gath- 
 ered around, upon whom were bestowed the remains 
 of various lunch-bags, much to their delectation. 
 Bangs and dirt were the prevailing fashion among 
 them, and all wore beads. 
 
 We arrived at Yuma at sunset. During the after- 
 noon we were in sight of the Castellated and Purple 
 ranges of mountains, crossing the former. Approach- 
 ing Yuma we came in view of the Colorado river, 
 and its luxuriant green banks bordered with trees, in 
 vivid contrast to the desert through which we had 
 passed, the beautiful color upon the purple hills in 
 the waning afternoon light, the gardens with tall 
 hollyhocks and other gorgeous flowers as we neared 
 the station, made our entrance to "the hottest place 
 in the country ' ' something extremely pleasant to 
 remember. 
 
 The noble red man was here to welcome our 
 arrival. The air was soft and warm and he didn't need 
 clothes, and so he put on paint instead. He used 
 the primary colors red, yellow and blue in full 
 brilliancy. One squaw was gorgeous in a piece of 
 bright yellow cotton cloth drawn about her shoulders, 
 streaks of yellow paint on her banged hair, and spots 
 of red and blue paint on cheeks and chin. She was 
 
76 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 selling knickknacks to the crowd. One tall brave 
 wore a coat and nothing more except his paint 
 and another was equally sumptuously attired in a 
 shirt. Some had more clothing, others less, but all 
 wore paint and bangs. These Yumas are the tallest 
 Indians we have seen anywhere, and bring to mind 
 the description of the red man learned in our earliest 
 study of history. The other residents of Yuma are 
 chiefly Mexicans. Fort Yuma, on the banks of the 
 Colorado, has been occupied by United States troops 
 until recently. 
 
 Apropos of the climate here, it is related that a 
 wicked soldier, who died and went to the place 
 where the wicked are supposed to find the weather 
 sufficiently warm, returned to Yuma the following 
 night after his blanket, his new quarters being too 
 cool after his experience at the fort. 
 
 After supper at the station dining-rooms (the first 
 poor meal we have had at a railroad eating-room since 
 we left home) we strolled about for half an hour, 
 looking at the sunset or the Indians, and, then, re- 
 entering the cars, crossed the river into California. 
 During the night we passed through a sandy desert, 
 going below the level of the sea, and when we looked 
 out the next morning we were near Colton station, 
 in a country where there were grass and grain and 
 trees, a glad sight to eyes so long unused to ver- 
 dure. Some sixty miles farther on is Los Angeles, 
 which we reached about eight o'clock on the 22d, 
 where we are to sojourn several days. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOS ANGELES. 
 
 LOS Angeles is the chief city of southern Califor- 
 nia, and perhaps is best known at the East as a 
 winter resort for invalids. It is the center of a won- 
 derful fruit-growing region, the Los Angeles and San 
 Gabriel valleys abounding in orange groves and vine- 
 yards. It has a population of about twenty-five 
 thousand, has two flour-mills, a large woolen-mill, 
 foundries, kerosene-oil refineries, railroad shops and 
 various other industries. It has plenty of churches, 
 schools, newspapers, an elegant new opera-house, etc. ; 
 what it chiefly lacks, in the eyes of the tourist, is 
 somebody who knows how to keep a hotel. It is very 
 pleasantly situated, a. portion of the town being on 
 high ground overlooking an extensive country of 
 beautiful and varied landscape. 
 
 It was a lovely summer day when we arrived in Los 
 Angeles, and the semi-tropical growths, the graceful, 
 fringe-like foliage of the pepper trees, the balmy 
 odors of the eucalyptus, the delicate verdure of the 
 acacias, the dark, rich, glossy green of the orange 
 and lemon trees, the feathery palms and the bayonet- 
 leaved yuccas, the luxuriant cypress hedges, and, 
 above all, the magnificent climbing roses and other 
 
78 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 beautiful and brilliant hued flowers growing lavishly 
 in every garden, made a scene altogether new and 
 delightful, and, coming upon it so suddenly, it seemed 
 to us almost fairy -like. There has been an extraordi- 
 nary amount of rainfall in California the past season, 
 showers occurring daily almost up to the time of our 
 arrival, so that everything is fresh and bright, The 
 barley and wheat (the main field crops) are being 
 harvested. Many wealthy people have their winter 
 home in Los Angeles, the temperature being remark- 
 ably equable and delightful, and it is claimed that the 
 summers are not oppressive, the nights being always 
 cool. We certainly have not found the heat too great 
 during our stay. There are many beautiful residences 
 here, with charming grounds, surrounded by thick 
 cypress hedges, the streets lined with long rows of 
 pepper and eucalyptus trees. The late Joseph A. 
 Dodge of Plymouth, manager of the B., C. & M. 
 Railroad, purchased a house here a few months before 
 his death, and Mrs. Dodge has spent the past winter 
 here. I had the pleasure of a visit to her charming 
 house and grounds in company with herself and 
 daughter, the latter being a member of our party. 
 The place is quite new, yet there are a grove of fifty 
 orange trees, with apricots, peaches, pears and other 
 fruits growing, a beautiful green lawn and shrubbery, 
 the loveliest roses and honeysuckles and ivies about 
 the veranda, and a wealth of floral beauty and per- 
 fume, and a hedge such as is never seen in the East. 
 
LOS ANGELES. 79 
 
 Among the most notable residences here is that of Mrs. 
 Longstreet. Her house is an elegant one, and the 
 grounds very extensive, and adorned with every kind 
 of tree and flower that can be grown here. The 
 driveway from the street, some fifteen or twenty rods 
 in extent, besides a row of palms has a border of 
 verbenas several feet in width, extending the whole 
 distance on each side, affording such a mass of lovely 
 bloom as to call forth exclamations of delighted 
 admiration. 
 
 There are charming drives in the vicinity of Los 
 Angeles. Ever to be remembered is that to the 
 orange groves and vineyards of Sierra Madre Villa, 
 Pasadena and San Gabriel. To say that the day 
 was bright and beautiful would only be repeating what 
 might be said of nearly all the days of our journey. 
 But this stands out as more soft and bright and beau- 
 tiful than most others. We are in 
 
 " The land where the lemon trees bloonij 
 Where the gold orange grows in the deep thicket's gloom, 
 Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows, " 
 
 so it seems to us, till we recall what has been told us 
 about storms and floods the past season, when houses 
 were carried down the Los Angeles river and the 
 streets were impassable, and we know that the "blue 
 heaven " must sometimes be obscured. Only the 
 lightest and fleeciest of clouds partially veil the azure 
 to-day, however, and the soft air, not too warm, is 
 heavy with the perfume of orange blossoms, of roses 
 
80 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 and heliotropes and a thousand other fragrant flowers, 
 as we take our way through Pasadena amid orange 
 groves or vineyards on either hand, or, entering 
 flower-bordered driveways of private grounds, ap- 
 proach beautiful villas decked in blossoming vines 
 and surrounded by gardens of gorgeous bloom. 
 
 Sierra Madre Villa, "beautiful for situation," 
 eighteen hundred feet above the sea, with the rugged, 
 rocky Sierra Madre Mountains rising precipitously 
 behind it, overlooks the whole valley of Los Angeles, 
 Wilmington and Santa Monica, with thousands of 
 acres of vineyards and orange groves stretching away 
 before it to the sea. The grounds about the hotel are 
 beautifully laid out, with lawns, flower-beds, shrub- 
 bery, fountains, etc. With fifty acres of orange trees, 
 there are many other fruits, lemons, olives, dates, 
 limes, figs, peaches, pears, apricots, pomegranates. 
 The last are just in blossom, and the rich vermilion 
 tint of the petals against the dark glossy leaves is very 
 beautiful. We are given full permission to pluck and 
 eat of the fruit of the trees before us, and not one of 
 the trees of the garden is forbidden to these sons and 
 daughters of Eve. It is wonderful how elastic the 
 human stomach sometimes becomes. There can be 
 no better conditions for testing its capacity than such 
 as environ us, and to appreciate the full deliciousness 
 of ripe oranges one must pluck and eat as we did. 
 
 The vineyard at Sierra Madre, over fifty acres in 
 extent, has been recently planted ; indeed, only a few 
 
ORANGE GROVES AND VINEYARDS. 8 1 
 
 years ago the whole place now so fruitful was a sage- 
 bush desert, but the facilities for irrigation are unsur- 
 passed, water being abundantly obtained from the 
 canon in the mountains near, and stored in a large 
 reservoir a half-mile back of the house. In all the 
 vineyards the vines are cut back each year to about a 
 foot and a half in height, so that they grow without 
 support and are dwarf trees rather than vines. The 
 average annual product amounts to a dollar a vine. 
 
 Leaving Sierra Madre Villa we soon approached 
 the possessions of L. J. Rose, through whose farm of 
 twenty-three hundred acres our road extends a long 
 distance. Mr. Rose is well known to horsemen as a 
 breeder of fast trotters, and is the owner of the famous 
 Sultan, the sire of Sweetheart and Eva. He has now 
 one hundred and fifteen horses and colts, mostly colts 
 from one to three years of age, and we saw quite a 
 number of them feeding in the pasture. His best 
 ones, however, were in the stables, and were cheer- 
 fully exhibited to our party when we arrived there. 
 Mr. Rose has nine hundred and eighty acres of vine- 
 yard, many of the vines being four to six inches in 
 diameter, and two hundred acres of orange trees. 
 There are eighty trees to the acre, or sixteen thousand 
 in all. These trees are older than those at Sierra 
 Madre, and their fruit, if possible, more delicious. 
 When Mr. Rose came here twenty years ago he was 
 worth about two thousand dollars. The little adobe 
 house (not much larger than the box-stall where Sul- 
 
82 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 tan is quartered), in which Mr. Rose and wife lived 
 when they first came here, still stands and is carefully 
 preserved by its owner. Mr. Rose is of the firm of 
 Stern & Rose, wine manufacturers, and a visit to the 
 winerooms was included in our trip. 
 
 San Gabriel is nine miles southwestward from Los 
 Angeles. Here was the old San Gabriel mission, 
 established in 1771, and the old adobe mission church 
 still stands. The first orange grove ever planted in 
 California is near here. The ride homeward is over 
 a different road from that of the morning, but is 
 scarcely less pleasant. We pass on our way a vineyard 
 of fifteen hundred acres but recently planted, and 
 many pleasant-looking homes with lovely surround- 
 ings greet the eye. The hills are beautiful in the 
 afternoon light. On some of them flocks of sheep 
 are feeding, attended by a shepherd. Attached to 
 one shepherd dog was a coyote, which was being 
 trained to watch sheep. It is said the coyotes are 
 equal to the best dogs for this purpose when well 
 trained. Such a lovely drive could not be other than 
 enjoyable even if taken alone, but when in company 
 with a big carriage full of people determined upon 
 being as merry and happy as possible, it lacked no 
 element of completeness, and I realized as we alighted 
 in Los Angeles that the sun was setting upon one of 
 the most delightful days I had ever known. 
 
 Santa Monica is a noted beach resort, eighteen 
 miles from Los Angeles, by the Los Angeles & Inde- 
 pendence Railroad ; and here we obtained our first 
 
SANTA MONICA. 83 
 
 view of the blue Pacific, and realized that we had 
 indeed crossed the continent. The beach is one of 
 the finest on the Pacific coast. It is almost perfectly 
 straight for about a mile, then makes a regular curve 
 at either end. There is a high, precipitous bluff 
 overhanging the beach, which is reached by a long 
 flight of steps. On the bluff the hotels and residences 
 are located on a straight street with grassy borders, 
 shaded by eucalyptus trees, and commanding an 
 expansive view of the ocean. The surf-bathing is 
 excellent and is indulged in at all seasons of the year. 
 It is a delightful .place for those who seek rest and 
 recreation by the "sounding sea." This is a new 
 country and there are no mythical old legends of 
 mermaids and sea-serpents, or other strange and 
 romantic tales to beguile the idle hours ; but it is 
 probable that sirens sometimes haunt these shores to 
 lure wandering tourists, as on this theory only can it be 
 explained why one of the most punctual and practical 
 men of the Raymond party should go back to " take 
 another look at the water," and look so long as to 
 "get left." 
 
 Evidences that we are on the Pacific coast are the 
 pigtail and slant eyes and flowing sleeves of John 
 Chinaman, who is met everywhere upon the streets 
 in Los Angeles, or performing servant's duties about 
 the hotels and dwellings. We take a walk through 
 the unsavory Chinese quarter, but reserve our investi- 
 gation of Oriental interiors till we- arrive in San 
 Francisco. 
 
84 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 It is four hundred and eighty-two miles from Los 
 Angeles to San Francisco by the Southern Pacific 
 road, and about three hundred miles to Madera, 
 where the stage route to the Yosemite Valley begins. 
 The Yosemite trip is not included in our regular 
 excursion, though ample time is arranged for it, and 
 about forty of the party have decided to make it. 
 The stages cannot take us all at once, and so one 
 section went forward yesterday and the rest of us 
 start to-night. 
 
 We leave this beautiful "city of the angels " with 
 many happy memories, which hereafter it will delight 
 us to recall, and I shall ever rejoice that I know 
 
 " The land where the lemon trees bloom, 
 Where the gold orange grows in the deep thicket's gloom." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 
 
 The Southern Pacific Railroad, in crossing the 
 mountains between the Los Angeles and San Joaquin 
 valleys, has a very difficult course. It makes zigzags 
 and loops, winding around the mountain sides, 
 plunges through seventeen dark tunnels, one of which 
 is more than a mile in length, ascends and descends 
 steep grades, pushes its way through sand-hills, and 
 is liable to frequent obstructions in the way of 
 land-slides. It was after sunset of May 27 when we 
 left Los Angeles, and a large portion of this route 
 was traversed in the night. It was just daybreak when 
 we reached the famous Tehachapi loop. At this loop 
 the track actually crosses itself, there being a dif- 
 ference of seventy-eight feet in the grade where the 
 tracks cross. An hour later we arrived at the tunnel, 
 at the farther extremity of which was the land-slide 
 which had delayed the train for several days, as all 
 passengers and baggage had to be transferred to a 
 train upon the other side. Few of us will soon forget 
 our experience in passing through that tunnel, where 
 we had to feel our way through the intense darkness, 
 without a glimmer of light to guide our devious steps. 
 Pallid faces emerged from the Cimmerian passage, 
 
86 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 and tremulous nerves evinced the severity of the 
 strain. After leaving the tunnels and the mountains 
 our route was through a pleasant country, the grassy 
 hillsides dotted with beautiful oak trees, looking 
 almost like orchards in the distance, the wayside 
 bordered with many varieties of lovely wild flowers, 
 on through the broad and fertile San Joaquin valley, 
 arriving at Madera about 3 p. M., where we remained 
 for the night. 
 
 The sun had not yet shown himself above the 
 mountain-tops when the stages drove up to the door 
 next morning. Eager with anticipation we took 
 places for a ride of ninety miles over the mountains 
 to see the world's greatest wonder. Fortunate in 
 having a seat on the box with the driver, there was a 
 delightful exhilaration attending this ride in the early 
 morning hour, while the daylight struggled with and 
 finally conquered the night, and the roseate tints in 
 the eastern sky vanished in the glory of the full-orbed 
 King of Day. 
 
 Our attention was early attracted to a V-shaped 
 flume or sluiceway, supported on trestles, through 
 which flowed a stream of water. This flume is fifty- 
 eight miles long, extending up into the mountain 
 forests where a saw-mill is in operation, and the 
 lumber is floated down this sluiceway to the railroad 
 at Madera. About five miles from Madera our road 
 enters a cattle ranche of fifty-six thousand acres, 
 owned by an English gentleman, and it was nearly 
 
A STAGE RIDE. 87 
 
 two hours before we passed through the gate on the 
 farther side. The road is good and the ascent very 
 gradual till we arrive at Coarse Gold, a place 
 pleasanter than its name, where we dine. Large 
 flocks of sheep (they speak of ' ' bands ' ' of cattle 
 and sheep and horses here) are feeding on the 
 hill-sides ; oak trees in great variety, the buckeye full 
 of blossoms resembling the horse-chestnut bloom t 
 the greasewood tree with its rich yellow flowers formed 
 like a wild rose, the manzanita with its crooked 
 branches covered with smooth, mahogany-colored 
 bark in striking contrast to its pale green leaves and 
 delicate pink blossoms, the mountain lilac, and many 
 other shrubs and thick chaparral covered with fragrant 
 flowers, loading the air with perfume, are on either 
 hand as we make our way over the foot-hills in the 
 early afternoon. For the first time in our journey 
 we meet with an abundance of animal life, wood- 
 peckers innumerable with their beautiful plumage, 
 quail hopping along the road in front of our horses 
 or pushing for cover, turtle-doves in pairs gracefully 
 skipping before us, ground squirrels and gray squirrels 
 darting around rocks or trees. All these were so 
 common that they soon ceased to attract remark or 
 attention, and once a beautiful deer was seen running 
 along the crest of a hill. Robins and many other 
 song birds were also seen and heard. We observed 
 many trees with the bark completely perforated with 
 holes from a half to three-fourths of an inch in 
 
88 A VACATION EXCURSION. , 
 
 diameter. These, we were told, were made by the 
 woodpeckers for the storage of acorns. A topic of 
 much interest was the robbery of a stage on this road 
 by foot-pads some ten days previous ; and the usual 
 brave remarks were uttered about what we would do 
 or wouldn't do under similar circumstances, and the 
 attempt to scare each other with the terrible words 
 ' ' road agents ' ' when a peaceful Indian was seen 
 galloping before us, or a gang of Chinamen em- 
 ployed in repairing the road plodded along, created 
 considerable mirth. 
 
 After passing Fresno Flat, having crossed the first 
 range of foot-hills, we began to enter a timbered 
 country. " What tall pines! " we exclaimed. " You 
 will think those are only walking-sticks before long," 
 our driver replied. We supposed he had reference to 
 the "Big Trees," the Sequoia Gigantea of the 
 Mariposa Grove, but as we penetrated farther into 
 the forest, the pines and spruces and cedars became 
 of such enormous size that the term " walking-sticks " 
 applied to the others seemed scarcely too exagger- 
 ated in comparison. Sugar and yellow pines and 
 Douglas spruces from fifteen to twenty-five feet in cir- 
 cumference and two hundred and fifty feet tall were 
 frequent, and those of larger size were not uncommon. 
 At a watering station some of our party measured a 
 pine twenty-seven feet in circumference, and it was by 
 no means the largest we saw. For more than forty 
 miles our road wound around the mountain sides 
 
A STAGE RIDE. 89 
 
 through this magnificent forest. It was a grand, a 
 beautiful sight, those tall, majestic columns towering 
 more than a hundred feet before a branch appeared, 
 while clinging to almost every trunk and covering 
 every dead branch and limb and twig was a beautiful 
 yellow-green moss such as I have never seen anywhere 
 else. But there were many charred and blackened 
 trunks, where fires had wrought their work of 
 ruin, and it was saddening to see so many of these 
 forest monarchs thus dethroned. There is very little 
 undergrowth in these mountain forests, but plenty 
 of room for the lovely flowers which grow by the 
 wayside. 
 
 The road through the forest was very muddy and 
 the wheels not infrequently would sink in to the hub, 
 the stage apparently on the point of overturning ; 
 when this happened on the edge of a precipice or 
 rounding a "hairpin curve" it was somewhat excit- 
 ing. But we were a "merrie companie," and if I 
 had to grasp the back of my seat till my muscles were 
 sore to keep from being thrown upon the horses, and 
 if those inside were jolted till their heads struck the 
 carriage, what mattered it? It was only another 
 experience to be added to our varied store, and a 
 stimulus for fun and repartee. I confess, though, 
 there was a little holding of breath when we crossed 
 a stream so deep and swift that the horses were almost 
 carried from their feet. We traveled sixty-six miles 
 the first day, arriving at the Wahwonah (formerly 
 
 7 
 
9<D A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Clark's) just after dark. The good fare and excellent 
 beds found here were very thoroughly appreciated, 
 and we arose next morning fully refreshed for the 
 second day's journey. If the road had not been 
 muddy we should have reached the Valley about 
 noon, but it was 3 p. M. when we arrived there. 
 
 What pen shall fitly describe the first view of the 
 Valley, that from Inspiration Point ! Surely none 
 but an inspired one should attempt to depict the 
 awful majesty of El Capitan, towering in sublime 
 massiveness 3,300 feet above the valley on the left, a 
 perpendicular wall of solid granite ; or the wondrous 
 beauty of Pohono [Spirit of the Evil Wind], the 
 Bridal Vail, on the right, falling over a precipice 940 
 feet, swaying in the wind, a misty film more beau- 
 tiful than ever decked the fairest bride; or the 
 grandeur of the Cathedral Spires, reaching heaven- 
 ward 2,660 feet ; or the lofty Domes in their perfect 
 symmetry beyond, on either hand ; or the snow- 
 crowned Cloud's Rest in the distance, 6,150 feet 
 above the valley and 10,210 feet above the sea; or 
 the loveliness of the Merced river, meandering 
 through the valley, between its banks of vivid green. 
 Reverently we gaze upon the picture till the film 
 creeps into our eyes ; then our horses are turned to 
 go down the mountain; a thunder-shower comes down 
 upon us, umbrellas hide the Bridal Vail as we pass it, 
 and, oblivious of the scenery, wet and hungry, we 
 are landed at Cook's Hotel. But no, we cannot 
 
THE YO SEMITE. 9! 
 
 enter yet. There is a roar as of a cannonade in our 
 ears, and before us, descending from Eagle Cliff 
 2,634 feet, in three gigantic leaps, is Yo Semite, the 
 Big Grizzly Bear, and we pause almost spell-bound. 
 The uppermost of these falls has a sheer descent of 
 i, 600 feet, the second, a winding cataract, of 534 
 feet, and the last a straight fall of over 500 feet. 
 The stream is said to be thirty feet in width where it 
 falls over the precipice, though its great height makes 
 it appear much narrower ; but it widens out toward 
 the bottom and the upper fall is often swayed by the 
 wind hundreds of feet each way. This vibration of 
 the water by the pressure of the wind is said to be 
 peculiar to the Yo Semite and Bridal Vail falls. 
 
 There are three hotels in the Valley, and it would 
 be impossible to locate one in any portion of it 
 that would not command a view of some point of 
 surpassing interest, but it seems to me that this of 
 Cook's has the most favored site. Directly opposite 
 is the Yo Semite Fall, and, as we sit in the piazza, we 
 can follow the whole northern wall of the gorge from 
 El Capitan past the Three Brothers, Eagle Cliff, the 
 fall, and along to the North Dome, upon which now 
 rests a snowy cross as well defined as that in Moran's 
 great painting of the Mount of the Holy Cross 
 across the valley to the South or Half Dome, and 
 beyond to Cloud's Rest crowned with snow. A short 
 distance back of the hotel stands the Sentinel, a per- 
 pendicular mass of granite tapering off into a peak 
 
92 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 three thousand and forty-three feet above the valley, 
 I do not think anything impressed me more than this 
 matchless "Loya" or watch-tower, as the Indian s 
 named it, towering skyward in its awful grandeur. 
 Not twenty feet from the rear of the house is one of 
 those magnificent pines, twenty-four feet in circum- 
 ference and from two hundred to two hundred and 
 fifty feet in height. How puny and small seem com- 
 mon things amid these gigantic creations ! 
 
 After dining, the clouds having cleared away, I 
 could not resist the temptation, in spite of fatigue, of 
 a walk, some two miles, to the foot of the Yo Semite 
 Fall. Here over the rocks, close up into the spray I 
 clambered, while a roar as of artillery was in my ears, 
 and received a shower-bath from waters born in the 
 eternal snows and poured from a reservoir nearly 
 three thousand feet above my head. 
 
 Early next morning I awoke to the musical thunder 
 of the "Big Grizzly. " No lingering in bed while 
 that grand reveille is sounding ! There is something 
 very peculiar about the noise made by this fall. It is 
 not continuous like the roar of Niagara, but inter- 
 mittent, and sounds more like a cannonade than any- 
 thing I know. Sometimes there will be a boom as of 
 a single gun, and then after a pause a w r hole battery 
 will thunder forth. I have heard no satisfactory 
 explanation of this peculiarity. 
 
THE YO SEMITE. 93 
 
 After breakfast most of us prepared for the ascent 
 of the Nevada Trail. Horses and mules were soon 
 mounted, and with trusty guides we started forth, 
 some who had never been in saddle before with fear 
 and trembling, but confidence was soon gained. We 
 were not a picturesque group, but a very happy one. 
 The course is some two or three miles through the 
 valley before we begin the ascent, new wonders being 
 constantly brought into view : the Buttermilk Fall, 
 a small stream, pours down from the Sentinel three 
 thousand feet ; the jagged outline of Glacier Point 
 comes into sight; the Half Dome [Tissaack, " God- 
 dess of the Valley, "] appears in better outline, and 
 Washington's Column, projecting from the North 
 Dome in symmetrical proportions, is clearly seen. 
 The trail up the mountain keeps in sight the Merced 
 river most of the way till we reach the Vernal Fall. 
 This fall is three hundred and fifty feet over a smooth 
 precipice, carrying the whole volume of the river, 
 and is by many regarded as the most beautiful of all 
 in the valley. Scarcely less beautiful, and more grand, 
 is the cataract below, where the rushing torrent foams 
 and seethes among the rocks in its mad descent. The 
 first part of the ascent is gradual, but at length we 
 begin to zigzag around the precipitous sides of the 
 mountain, with curves so short there is barely room 
 for our animals to turn, and a trail so narrow there 
 is scarcely an inch between us and destruction, 
 and our horses will step upon the very outermost 
 
94 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 verge of the path. The Cap of Liberty back of 
 Tissaack, which, when first seen, did not appear 
 very prominent, now looms up grandly, 'increasing 
 in proportions as we approach it, and, though 
 obscured from view in the valley by the Half Dome 
 which towers one thousand nine hundred feet above 
 it, is still three thousand one hundred feet above 
 the level of the valley, a huge, bare mass of gran- 
 ite, smoothed and rounded into the almost perfect 
 semblance of the conventional liberty cap. Having 
 attained our highest point we descend a little distance, 
 till we cross the river just before reaching Snow's, a 
 hotel at the foot of Nevada Fall. This fall is seven 
 hundred feet, fro.m the Little Yo Semite valley above, 
 and as the river is fed from the perpetual snows of the 
 high Sierras it always carries a large volume of water, 
 while the falls on other streams are nearly dried up 
 later in the season. The Nevada Fall veers a little 
 from a straight course and broadens out very much at 
 the bottom, and the spray is carried a long distance. 
 On the whole, I think this fall not surpassed in beauty 
 by any in the Valley. There is a trail from Snow's 
 to the top of the fall, where the view is said to be 
 very grand, but only a few of our party made the 
 ascent. From Snow's we get fine views of the Sen- 
 tinel Dome, Glacier Point, South Dome and Liberty 
 Cap, but not a general view of the Valley. 
 
 The old quotation, " facilts descensus, " will hardly 
 apply to the path down the mountain. Some who 
 
THE YO SEMITE. 95 
 
 rode up without fear find their nerves a little tremu- 
 lous as they wind around the fearful precipices, and 
 look down the awful depths, and think how slight a 
 misstep on the part of their horses would hurl them 
 to instant destruction. No accident occurs, however, 
 and we all arrive safely at our hotel, tired, yet rich in 
 a new experience, and with ineffaceable impressions 
 upon our memories of the grandeur and beauty it has 
 been permitted us to behold. 
 
 The following morning ushered in a beautiful sum- 
 mer Sabbath, a welcome day of rest to most. No 
 need of temple reared by human hands in which to 
 worship here. The Power that rent asunder the ever- 
 lasting rocks and hollowed out this cradle in the heart 
 of the Sierras needs here no priest for His inter- 
 preter. His voice is heard in the thunders of Yo 
 Semite, the snowy cross glitters upon the North Dome, 
 El Capitan and Tissaack utter forth His majesty and 
 the beautiful Merced river His mercy and peace. 
 
 Monday morning was an eventful one I saw the 
 sun rise four times; once from my bedroom window, 
 and three times in Mirror Lake. The lake is two and 
 a half miles from the hotel, and after an early break- 
 fast we drove thither. Our road is up the valley 
 toward the east, crossing the river, past the "Royal 
 Arches ' ' on the south wall of the base of the North 
 Dome. These are perfect arches formed by cleavage 
 in the solid rock, and although they seem at that 
 great height to project but a few inches, they proba- 
 bly overhang the rock beneath not less than fifty feet. 
 
96 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Mirror Lake is a small sheet of water, its southern 
 bank being the perpendicular wall of Tissaack, the 
 Half Dome. Beyond Tissaack is Cloud's Rest, and 
 on the opposite side of the lake is Mt. Watkins. 
 These are all reflected in the glassy surface of the lake 
 as perfectly as in a mirror, and every bush and twig 
 on the banks, while 
 
 "In the crystal deeps, inverted, 
 Swings a picture of the sky. " 
 
 The sun had been up more than two hours in the 
 valley, but was still hidden from sight here behind 
 the jagged edges of the cliff. Instructed by our 
 guide as to position, we looked to see the day-god 
 make his appearance, not above the mountain tops in 
 the sky, but in the water at our feet. We had looked 
 but a few minutes when the most beautiful rainbow 
 colors appeared, then a bright speck of light which 
 became a star with dazzling rays, then a brilliant 
 crescent, and finally the full disc of the sun emerged 
 from the mountain line in the water. The effect was 
 wondrously beautiful, almost beyond the power of 
 imagination to conceive. We changed our position 
 "to where the sun was 'hidden by a higher point, and 
 the phenomenon was repeated, and to still another 
 point, and for the third time I saw the sun rise in the 
 bosom of the lake. 
 
 Returning to our hotel, we join the party who are 
 already mounting for the ascent of the Glacier Point 
 
THE YO SEMITE. 97 
 
 trail. This trail starts at the base of Sentinel Rock, 
 just back of the hotel, and commences the ascent at 
 once. It is for the most part steeper than the Nevada 
 trail, and the turns are shorter, but the route com- 
 mands the most magnificent views of the Valley at 
 every point. We are directly opposite the Yo Semite 
 fall, and ever as we ascend higher and higher the fall 
 increases in grandeur, until at length we are above 
 and looking down upon it. Union Point is the half- 
 way place, where we dismount and rest our horses. 
 Just beneath us, on a projecting shelf of rock is 
 Agassiz's Column, a tall tower of rocks piled evenly 
 one upon another. We stand upon the edge of the 
 precipice and, clinging to a boulder, look down into 
 the valley below. The lovely Merced, like a glassy 
 ribbon, meanders between its green banks, men and 
 horses looking like Lilliputians are seen moving along 
 the road, the tall trees have become dwarfs, the build- 
 ings diminutive huts. But oh, how grand the view 
 about and beyond us ! The stupendous walls of El 
 Capitan become more massive, the Three Brothers rear 
 their giant heads more loftily, the Cathedral spires tower 
 heavenward with more exalted aim, the snowy fall 
 plunges downward more impetuously before us, the 
 Domes rear their granite spheres more symmetrically, 
 new mountains come into view beyond Cloud's Rest, 
 a bright blue sky hovers over all, and we are sur- 
 rounded by a clear, transparent atmosphere, which it 
 is a joy to breathe. But, up and away ! There are 
 loftier heights and grander views before us. 
 
98 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 For quite a distance now our path makes a gradual 
 ascent without turns, then we begin to wind again 
 and the curves become shorter and the trail steeper 
 than before, till we who are in advance can look down 
 upon our companions beneath in a dozen different 
 paths going alternately in opposite directions. The 
 end of our trail, Glacier Point, is at last reached and 
 all rush to the edge of the precipice. Can one realize 
 what it is to look straight down three thousand two 
 hundred feet ? Lean over and drop a pebble from 
 your hand. It will not stop until it has reached the 
 bottom. No gradual slope to this height, but the edge 
 of the cliff really overhangs the base. From below, 
 the top of this massive wall of Glacier Point seems 
 to be surmounted by sharp points and broken, jagged 
 edges. We find on arriving at the summit that these 
 points and broken lines are formed by boulders and 
 fragments of rock along the edge of the precipice. 
 
 Apropos of this, I must tell my readers how Mr. 
 McAuley, who keeps the hotel at Glacier Point, won 
 his wife. He took her to the edge of this cliff to look 
 below. Clinging to a boulder she gazed fearfully 
 downward, then drawing back she exclaimed, " Oh, 
 it is grand, but it frightens me! " " If you don't 
 say you will marry me I will push you off and throw 
 myself after you, " he replied. " I vill ! I vill ! " 
 she exclaimed, and rushed to his arms. This was 
 rather a heroic method of wooing, but may serve as 
 a hint to discouraged swains who do not find persua- 
 sion effectual. 
 
THE YO SEMITE. 99 
 
 We can get a better general idea of the Yo Semite 
 Valley from Glacier Point than from anywhere else. 
 The general course of the Sierra Nevadas is north and 
 south, but this valley is a transverse opening six miles 
 in length and less than an average mile in width, 
 extending in a northeasterly and southwesterly direc- 
 tion. The bottom of the valley is four thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea, and these vertical walls 
 and mountains surrounding it rise from three thou- 
 sand to four thousand feet above it. To the eastward 
 we look across to the Nevada Fall and the Cap of 
 Liberty, toMt. Starr King beyond, one hundred feet 
 higher than the South Dome, and to other moun- 
 tains not previously seen. The view from Union 
 Point is here broadened out and extended. Below, 
 the Merced river looks like a silver thread, and we 
 seem to be looking as through the small end of a 
 telescope to distant objects. What we saw on Sat- 
 urday from Snow's bears no comparison to the view 
 here. If a visitor could spend but one day in the 
 Yo Semite, that day should be given to the Glacier 
 Point Trail. 
 
 But some of us are not quite satisfied. By a trail 
 a mile and a half farther up is reached the Sentinel 
 Dome, four thousand one hundred and twenty-five 
 feet above the valley, eight thousand one hundred 
 and eighty-five feet above the sea. The trail, which 
 is not difficult on horseback later in the season, is 
 now covered with snow for the whole distance at a 
 depth of from three feet to any depth beyond. 
 
100 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 We learn that it is possible to make the ascent, 
 however, as two gentlemen have already been to 
 the summit this season. A half-dozen of us decide 
 to attempt it, and we are joined by two gentlemen 
 not of our party who came to Glacier Point with 
 us. On we go, over the snow, pausing often to 
 take breath, for the heart-beats come quickly in 
 this rare atmosphere and the blood rushes to the 
 surface till every vessel seems ready to burst, 
 slumping often in the soft snow, till shoes and 
 clothing are saturated, but we do not falter, and 
 when at last we stand upon the bare gray summit 
 and exclaim, " Veni, vidi, vici" all fatigue is 
 forgotten in the glorious exaltation with which the 
 scene inspires us. Never again may I expect to 
 behold so grand, so magnificent a spectacle. Snow- 
 covered mountains, peak beyond peak, as far as the 
 eye can reach, Starr King, Lyell, Dana, Hoffman, 
 and others of the high Sierras from ten thousand to 
 thirteen thousand feet in height, while the mountains 
 surrounding the valley, which had hitherto been 
 above or on a level with us, now sink, and only the 
 Half Dome and Cloud's Rest are higher than we. 
 The cradle-like formation of the valley is here very 
 distinct. The Sierras gradually slope, with an 
 occasional projecting peak, till the walls of the 
 gorge are reached. Yet from this lofty summit, so 
 little does it recede from the base, we are still able 
 to see portions of the green carpet in the valley and 
 
THE YO SEMITE. IOI 
 
 the stream winding through it, and the mist rising 
 from the Bridal Vail. From a single point we can 
 look upon both the Yo Semite and the Nevada falls. 
 The massiveness of these smooth granite domes I 
 had no conception of till we reached this summit. 
 From below they seemed about the size of the dome 
 on the capitol at Washington. Although their 
 symmetry is not perfect on all sides, from some 
 points of view they appear almost absolutely so. 
 I could not venture an estimate of the diameter of 
 this Sentinel Dome from where it begins to assume 
 the spheroidal form, but it must be many hundred 
 feet. The Half Dome is a clean cut from apex to 
 base. What has become of the severed half of the 
 mountain scientists have in vain tried to discover. 
 We never weary of gazing upon the glorious pano- 
 rama before us, but we cannot longer remain upon 
 the heights. We must descend ; yet we carry with 
 us a fadeless picture, painted by a Divine Artist, 
 which will hang upon the walls of our memories 
 forever. 
 
 I wish I were able to tell something of the history 
 of the Yo Semite Valley as I listened to it from the 
 eloquent lips of Mr. J. M. Hutchings, the superin- 
 tendent of the valley, who was one of the first 
 company of white men (except some United States 
 soldiers) who visited it, and the first to write a 
 description of it. Of the Yo Semite Indians who 
 had their home here, only thirteen are now living. 
 
IO2 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Tuesday morning we reluctantly bade adieu to this 
 grandest of Nature's wonders and started on our 
 return trip. After dinner at the Wahwonah, we 
 were driven six miles to the Mariposa Grove of Big 
 Trees. In the lower grove the trees are scattered 
 among the pines and firs, and the massiveness of so 
 many of these had in a measure prepared us for the 
 giant Sequoias. These trees have been so often 
 described, I forbear a repetition here. Their peculiar 
 bark makes them conspicuous when not of large size, 
 and their straight t symmetrical trunks, piercing the 
 sky at heights varying from two hundred to three 
 hundred feet, awaken our admiring awe. The 
 largest tree we saw was the " Grizzly Giant," ninety- 
 three feet and seven inches in circumference at 
 the ground, and sixty-four feet, three inches at eleven 
 feet above. It has been much burned at the base, 
 and must once have measured much more than this. 
 Some of the branches are six feet in diameter, but 
 they are high up and do not appear so large. Thi s 
 tree is not so tall as some of lesser size. Many of the 
 branches have been broken off, and altogether the 
 Grizzly presents a time-worn and battered appear- 
 ance. " The Fallen Monarch " gave us a good idea 
 of the immense diameter of these giants, as it lay 
 prostrate on the ground. We were much disap- 
 pointed in not being able to visit the upper grove, 
 which was inaccessible on account of snow. In this 
 grove is the famous tree ' ' Wahwonah ' ' through 
 
THE BIG TREES. 103 
 
 which the stage drives with its load of passengers, 
 though it is not so large as the Grizzly Giant. In 
 the upper grove there are more trees of immense size, 
 and they are less scattered among those of other 
 species. This trip to the Big Trees was the hardest 
 part of our journey, the mud being of fabulous depth 
 and progress slow and wearisome. It was evening 
 of the following day when we reached Madera, the 
 return journey, though lacking the charm of novelty, 
 being full of interest and pleasure. 
 
^CHAPTER X. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO NOTES. 
 
 WE joined the rest of our party at the Palace 
 Hotel in San Francisco about noon July 5. 
 This is the largest hotel in the world, a magnificent 
 iron building, seven stories in height, with lofty, 
 spacious rooms, elegantly furnished and supplied with 
 every convenience, except sunlight; that has to 
 reach most of the rooms diluted, a condition of 
 things no architect could provide against in planning 
 so immense a structure. The building and its fur- 
 nishings cost six and a half millions of dollars. It 
 covers more than two acres of ground, and the dis- 
 tance around it is just a quarter of a mile. There is a 
 promenade of one-third of a mile on the roof, from, 
 which a fine view of the city may be obtained. I 
 was surprised to find that with the exception of the 
 leading hotels and business blocks, which are mostly 
 constructed of iron, nearly all the buildings in the 
 city are of wood, and they are painted of a nearly 
 uniform drab color. The prevalence of wooden 
 structures is doubtless due to the fear of the instability 
 of brick in case of earthquakes, which are always 
 "liable" to occur on this coast. Among the most 
 
106 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 interesting features of San Francisco to eastern people 
 are the cable street-cars. Although we had seen 
 similar cars in Chicago, there they were on level 
 ground and did not have the novelty of these, moving 
 up and down, with no visible means of locomotion, 
 over the steep hills found on so many streets in San 
 Francisco. To sit on the front seat of one of these 
 cars and ride down the steep inclines on California 
 street seems more like "sliding down hill" on the 
 snow crust on a frosty March morning in New Eng- 
 land than anything else. This California street, 
 which has a great many ups and downs, some of the 
 hills being so steep that no ordinary vehicle passes 
 over them, is the favorite street of wealthy 'Friscoans 
 and contains many very elegant residences, including 
 those of Gov. Stanford, Crocker, Flood, O'Brien, 
 Gen. Colton, and other millionaires. The city has 
 as many hills as ancient Rome, but considerable of 
 the business portion is built on land reclaimed from 
 the sea. 
 
 San Francisco has, like other cities of its size, 
 numerous public buildings, schools, churches, theatres, 
 museums, libraries, etc., but that which it has unlike 
 other cities is of chief interest to tourists ; and what 
 more strange than Chinatown with its thirty-five thou- 
 sand almond-eyed denizens packed almost like sardines 
 in a box ! Thitherward we turned our steps, under 
 escort of a policeman, and visited stores, restaurants, 
 dwellings, opium dens, pawn shops, theatre, and Joss- 
 
CHINATOWN. 107 
 
 house. We are in pursuit of information and must 
 not be fastidious about sights or smells, although the 
 Chinaman is a clean animal in his personal habits, 
 bathing often. Everything the Chinamen wear and 
 almost everything they use and eat is brought from 
 China. Their provision stores are a curiosity. Dried 
 meats of all kinds, fowls, hams, tiny sausages, eels, 
 dried vegetables, cabbages in pickle, cheese and cakes 
 made of beans, eggs boiled hard and packed in mud, 
 dried oysters, live eels and turtles brought over in 
 tanks, dried fruits, dried fish, and many other articles 
 " too numerous to mention," as the auction bills say, 
 are to be found there. At a restaurant we saw some 
 of these boiled eggs cut up in little bits ready for 
 the table. They were almost black, and redolent of 
 something other than ' ' spicy gales . from Araby the 
 blest." Everything served at the restaurants is cut 
 into small pieces suitable for being eaten with chop- 
 sticks before being sent to the table. A vegetable 
 something like an artichoke, of a sweetish flavor and 
 about the size of a potato ball, seemed to be much in 
 'favor. In the better class of restaurants there are 
 elegant carvings and beautiful inlaid furniture, the 
 daintiest china cups and dishes ; but there is a lack 
 of taste and harmony, and the costly chairs and 
 rich carvings seem out of place. And there is such 
 an incongruity, too, in the use of the lovely porcelain 
 dishes to be seen amid the dingiest and most uncouth 
 surroundings, such china as Yankee housekeepers 
 
108 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 reserve for extraordinary occasions, thinking its service 
 
 " Too bright and good 
 For human nature's daily food." 
 
 The average Chinaman will live upon six cents' 
 worth of food a day, and his heartiest meal is eaten 
 just before going to bed. I was going to write 
 retiring, but it occurred to me that they don't retire. 
 Their beds are merely shelves fastened against the 
 wall like sailors' bunks, one above another, with a 
 piece of matting thrown over them. One room I 
 saw, not ten feet square, was the dwelling of half a 
 dozen men. One man was getting ready for his opium 
 smoke, another cooking his evening meal in the dim 
 passageway outside. His fire was in a small sheet-iron 
 receptacle, and was fed by a few splinters, not so 
 many as most people would use for kindling a single 
 fire, and close over this was a frying-pan in which 
 some sort of sausage meat was cooking. The cook 
 attended strictly to business, paying no regard to the 
 intrusive visitors who watched his operations. As 
 there were ho fire-places or chimneys, the smoke had 
 given the walls and ceilings about the complexion of 
 a coal mine. 
 
 An opium den is x not an attractive place. It is no 
 " gilded saloon," with music and dancing and bril- 
 liant lights to lure the passer-by ; but dark, dingy, 
 hot and suffocating, and reached oftentimes through 
 dark and devious passageways underground. It gen- 
 erally consists of numerous cells on either side of a 
 
CHINATOWN. 109 
 
 narrow court, each cell having two or three tiers of 
 bunks one above another, just long and wide enough 
 to accommodate the reclining smoker. For an opium 
 " lay-out " are required, besides the drug, the bunk 
 on which the devotee reclines with a plank for a pillow, 
 the pipe (a flute-shaped article with the orifice in 
 which the opium is placed near the center), and a 
 small spirit-lamp. Here, reclining on his right side, 
 with lamp before him, the smoker holds the opium on 
 the point of a wire over the flame, melting and 
 manipulating it till it attains the right condition (a 
 work of several minutes), then places it in the pipe 
 and draws one or two whiffs, then melts more opium 
 in the flame and repeats the process till the drug is all 
 consumed. A moderate smoker consumes ten cents' 
 worth at a " lay-out, ' ' but much more is required by 
 those who smoke till intoxicated. It will be seen that 
 much time, labor and patience are required for a man 
 to get drunk by opium smoking, and the vileness of 
 his condition is enhanced by the villainous atmos- 
 phere which surrounds him. Yet opium smoking is 
 by no means confined to the Chinese. There are 
 numerous places, we are told, on the Pacific coast, 
 where opium "lay-outs" are provided, for Ameri- 
 cans. We passed through a barber shop to reach one 
 of the opium dens, and saw the " tonsorial artists" 
 plying their calling. I cannot so well describe the 
 operation as in the words of another tourist : "We 
 watched their native barber as he scraped the unlath- 
 
IIO A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 ered face of his customer, sitting bolt upright on a 
 stool. With a long, flexible, narrow blade the artist 
 moved over every square inch of surface from his 
 breast-bone to the back of his head, digging out his 
 ears and nostrils, scraping with equal care the bridge 
 of his nose, his forehead and every other spot, whether 
 encumbered with beard or not. " 
 
 The Chinese theatre is well worth a visit. The 
 plays are all historical and of illimitable length. We 
 arrived about nine o'clock in the evening, and the 
 play had been in progress since noon, with a half- 
 hour's intermission, and would continue until mid- 
 night. We were taken up and down narrow, 
 winding stairways, through dark passageways, to see 
 the rooms beneath the theatre where the actors 
 live, dark, dingy, comfortless, with walls begrimed 
 .with smoke, better adapted to the storage of 
 rubbish than for human habitation. Up the steep, 
 narrow staircases again, through the "green-room," 
 -then by a curtained doorway we were ushered upon 
 the stage itself and shown seats at one side, while the 
 actors, but a few feet from us, were performing their 
 parts before an audience which filled every inch of 
 the seating room of the building, the heads of those 
 in the gallery almost touching the ceiling. The 
 Chinese have no curtains or scene 'paintings for their 
 stage, and when a new scene is to be introduced the 
 paraphernalia is brought in and arranged before the 
 audience. The stage was not more than twenty-five 
 
CHINATOWN. Ill 
 
 feet deep, and the orchestra occupied the rear of it. 
 And such an orchestra ! There were one or two 
 stringed instruments the like of which I never saw 
 before, but the main thing was the gong, which 
 drowned the voices of the actors when they 
 attempted to sing, and much of the time when they 
 were speaking. Some of the performers seemed to 
 be good actors, but the whole performance was 
 intensely amusing. As we left we were shown some 
 of the costumes belonging to the theatre, including 
 robes of great elegance embroidered in gold and 
 ilver. 
 
 No visit to Chinatown is complete which does not 
 include the Joss-house, or place of worship. This 
 is not a place of meeting, but where the images of 
 those ancestors who are deemed worthy of veneration 
 for th^ir great achievements or special virtues are 
 placed, and where the worshipers come in singly or 
 in small numbers to burn sandal-wood and incense 
 to the departed. About the niches where the forms 
 representing these departed worthies are enshrined 
 there are most elegant carvings and inlaid work, 
 costly incense-burners and candlesticks and other 
 paraphernalia, in some respects so like what may be 
 seen in Catholic churches that one almost expects to 
 see the cross also. But the Joss-house is not devoted 
 solely to worship, for you are invited to purchase 
 some of the little sandal-wood sticks for "two bits," 
 and various other articles by the sale of which the 
 thrifty Chinaman may turn an honest penny. 
 
112 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 In every apartment occupied by the Chinese, 
 from opium den or brothel to Joss-house, there will 
 be found what I suppose may be called an altar, a 
 red banner of paper or silk against the wall, with 
 written characters inscribed upon it and before it 
 burning these little sandal-wood sticks or tapers. 
 You frequently see these little fires burning on the 
 thresholds, and fire seems to be the chosen instru- 
 ment for placating the evil spirits or for warding off 
 their influence. 
 
 The Chinese fancy-goods stores found numerous 
 patrons among the members of the Raymond party. 
 The beautiful silk and crape fabrics, the dainty por- 
 celain, the embroideries, the lovely carvings and 
 curious mechanical contrivances were so interesting 
 as to tempt to repeated visits. 
 
 The old Franciscan mission church Dolores,* three 
 hundred years old, is an object of interest. It is 
 built of adobe, with roof of red tiles. Adjoining it 
 is a graveyard in which is a monument to the mem- 
 ory of the first Spanish governor of "Alta Califor- 
 nia. ' ' Near this church is an old adobe block-house, 
 also with tiled roof. The mint, Golden Gate Park, 
 and Woodward's Gardens, are all places of interest. 
 At the mint we were shown the different processes 
 through which the ore is carried till it comes out in 
 perfect coins of exact weight. How carefully each 
 coin is weighed, that none shall be issued lacking or 
 exceeding in the slightest degree the value placed 
 
SEAL ROCKS. 113 
 
 upon it ! A gold brick worth ten thousand dollars 
 is a good deal heavier than it looks, as I found on 
 taking it in my hand. Woodward's Gardens has a 
 menagerie and botanical collection, a pavilion for 
 entertainments, natural curiosities, marine museums 
 and aquaria. 
 
 A ride through the beautiful Golden Gate Park 
 and on to Point Lobos Beach and the Cliff House 
 was one of the pleasant incidents of our sojourn 
 here. On the highest portion of the park grounds is 
 a very handsome conservatory containing a choice 
 variety of the finest specimens of the floral kingdom. 
 Point Lobos is a long sandy beach terminating at the 
 northern extremity in a rocky cliff rising about a 
 hundred feet above the ocean, and upon this bluff is 
 the Cliif House. This is a great point of attraction 
 for city denizens as well as tourists, not alone for 
 the salt breeze and fine sea view, which includes a 
 long reach of shore line and the blue expanse of the 
 Pacific till it is met by the horizon in the west, 
 but because from here are seen the famous Seal 
 Rocks. These rocks, five in number, are four or 
 five hundred feet distant seaward from the Cliff, the 
 highest rising from seventy-five to a hundred feet 
 above the water at low tide. Here the strange- 
 looking amphibious creatures from which the rocks 
 take their name (more properly called sea-lions), of 
 all ages and sizes, from the baby seal to the gray old 
 patriarch weighing a thousand pounds, congregate 
 
114 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 in swarms, covering almost every inch of the rock 
 surface, wriggling, squirming, pushing, barking, 
 dropping off into the water and climbing up again 
 continually. ' The younger ones are incessantly 
 active, but the big old fellows like to sun themselves 
 in quiet, and when the small fry get too troublesome 
 make a clean sweep of them into the water. There 
 is a curious fascination in watching the strange, 
 clumsy creatures, and many returned to the scene 
 again and again. 
 
 We have been told many times since we reached 
 California, that this is an "exceptional" season, 
 that the rains have been in excessive quantity, and 
 that the rainy season has continued at least a month 
 later than usual. All this is to our advantage, as a 
 rule, since it insures freedom from dust, and the 
 fields are not so brown and sere as they ordinarily 
 are at this time of the year. But the wind, which 
 sweeps the streets of San Francisco every day and 
 piles the sand into heaps like snow-drifts on the 
 "sand lots," is not exceptional, that is in season 
 at all times. As San Francisco is always sure of a 
 cool breeze some portion of the day, and there is a 
 difference of only eight degrees in the mean temper- 
 ature of January and July, the residents wear about 
 the same clothing the year round, and there is pre- 
 sented the anomaly of one lady in a street-car 
 wrapped in a seal-skin cloak or fur-lined garment, 
 while her next neighbor wears only the lightest of 
 
SANTA CLARA VALLEY. 115 
 
 wraps, or no wrap at all. I found the clothing which 
 was comfortable in Manchester the first of May, just 
 about right here in June, and the wonder is that the 
 ladies here should ever require fur garments, as the 
 temperature seldom or never reaches the freezing 
 point, fifty-two degrees being the mean in January. 
 
 Notwithstanding that rain in June is "almost 
 unprecedented ' ' here, Sunday, June 8, there was a 
 drizzling rain nearly all day, which continued 
 Monday morning, but ceased before noon, and when 
 we started for Monterey in the afternoon only broken 
 clouds partly veiled the sky. 
 
 Our route lay through the lovely Santa Clara 
 valley, 
 
 " Fair as a garden of the Lord, " 
 
 with its rich fields of wheat and barley on either 
 hand, its orchards and luxuriant vines. This valley 
 is the most productive part of California. It is but 
 a few miles in width, lying between two spurs of the 
 low Coast Range of mountains. Many of the foot- 
 hills are cultivated to their summits, while others 
 afford pasturage for cattle and sheep. Oak trees 
 with their rich, dark foliage frequently dot the hill- 
 sides and add to the beauty of the landscape. 
 Numerous thrifty towns are located in this valley, 
 San Mateo. San Jose, Santa Clara, Menlo Park, 
 Redwood, Pajaro, Gilroy and others, and are the 
 homes of many wealthy Californians. Ours was the 
 "Daisy" train, the fastest on the Pacific coast, and 
 
Il6 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 we made the distance of one hundred and twenty- 
 five miles from San Francisco to Monterey, stopping 
 at eight stations, in three hours and a half, arriving 
 at our destination, the " Queen of American water- 
 ing-places," about sunset. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MONTEREY. SAN JOSE AND SANTA CLARA. THE 
 
 NAPA VALLEY. ON THE PACIFIC. 
 
 IT is recorded that when the Queen of Sheba, 
 doubting the accuracy of the reports that had 
 reached her, went up to Jerusalem and saw for herself 
 the great splendor 'which surrounded King Solomon, 
 and had personal evidence of his wonderful wisdom 
 and prosperity, she not only acknowledged that it 
 was a true report she had heard, but declared that the 
 half had not been told her. Something akin to the 
 feeling which drew this declaration from the doubting 
 queen when the full blaze of the glory of the king 
 of Jerusalem burst upon her animated not a few of 
 us as we first looked upon the Hotel del Monte and 
 its surroundings, and we, like her, were ready to 
 exclaim that " the half had not been told us." 
 
 We have all heard of that profound philosopher 
 who thought it " providential that large rivers almost 
 always flow near large cities;" equally "provi- 
 dential " is it that a grove of magnificent old oaks, 
 pines and cedars should surround the Hotel del 
 Monte. Wonderfully picturesque are these old oaks 
 with their gnarled and twisted trunks, their low, 
 broad tops, and irregular, wide-spreading branches 
 
Il8 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 draped with gray moss. We cannot guess their age. 
 Perhaps some of them were bowing their heads to 
 the Pacific blasts when "Pious Portala" planted his 
 cross in Monterey in 1770. 
 
 There are one hundred and twenty-six acres in the 
 grounds about the Hotel del Monte, and I doubt if 
 another hotel in the world has so much space devoted 
 to flowers. Not a room in the immense building 
 that does not look out upon a mass of bloom. All 
 the familiar home flowers flourish here in great luxu- 
 riance, and many other varieties never seen in our 
 colder clime except in hot-houses. The veranda 
 pillars, are covered with the most beautiful purple 
 clematis, some of the blossoms being ten inches in 
 diameter, honeysuckles and roses and other climbing 
 plants make trellis and wall a mass of fragrant bloom, 
 shrubs and borders and beds are everywhere artisti- 
 cally disposed and arranged. In some of the beds 
 colors are so arranged in different patterns and 
 designs as to be real works of art. From fifty to 
 eighty men are constantly employed on these grounds 
 under the direction of one of the best landscape 
 artists in the world. There is one large area devoted 
 to the different varieties of the cactus family, with 
 their strange, uncouth shapes and sharp spines, the 
 monsters of the vegetable kingdom. In one part of 
 the grounds a ' ' maze ' ' or labyrinth has been laid 
 out, the paths separated by close cypress hedges, in 
 which the children (and some of larger growth) 
 
HOTEL DEL MOXTE. 119 
 
 amuse themselves in trying to find the path that leads 
 by many devious turns to the center. Several large 
 bins of fine white sand are also placed in the grounds, 
 where little children may disport themselves as much 
 as they please. The hotel was erected five years ago, 
 is of the modern gothic style, and is unsurpassed in 
 exterior beauty by any hotel on the continent. The 
 main building is three hundred and eighty-five feet 
 in length and one hundred and fifteen feet in width, 
 with extensive wings from each end, a maze of 
 towers and piazzas and angles and porches. It has 
 accommodations for five hundred guests. The inte- 
 rior is a model of neatness and light, and is provided 
 with all the conveniences that could be desired. 
 
 The morning following our arrival at the del Monte 
 the sky was overcast and rain threatening. Never- 
 theless we went to the beach, a quarter of a mile 
 distant, and took a bath in the Pacific surf, although 
 the temperature was at fifty-six degrees. The beach 
 is of fine sand, and there is very little undertow, but 
 it is not nearly so beautiful as that at Santa Monica. 
 For those who do not care to indulge in surf-bathing 
 there is a large building one hundred and seventy feet 
 long and seventy feet wide with glass roof, containing 
 four swimming-tanks filled with sea water, heated to 
 different degrees of temperature in the several tanks, 
 where one may enjoy the luxury of bathing and 
 swimming to its fullest extent. Clouds continued 
 through the day and there was a sprinkling of rain; 
 
120 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 and for the next three days we got no sunshine, but 
 most of. the time a steady drizzle. There is an 
 eighteen-mile drive on this peninsula between the bay 
 of Monterey and Carmelo Bay, mostly along the 
 shore, passing through the Pacific Grove Retreat (the 
 Martha's Vineyard of the Pacific coast), touching at 
 Moss Beach, Pebbly Beach, Cypress Point and other 
 places of interest. It is without doubt, as is claimed, 
 a very beautiful drive, but the mist and rain so 
 obscured the view, and cast such a gloom over the 
 landscape that we could not form a correct opinion 
 of it. There is a peculiar variety of pine trees in 
 the forests through which we passed which bears its 
 cones on the trunk of the tree. Most of the trees here 
 have a heavy drapery of gray moss. The cypress 
 trees near Cypress Point are strange, weird-looking 
 objects, with low, flat tops of dark somber green, 
 and naked gray trunks, the branches all reaching out 
 on the side farthest from the shore. 
 
 The village of Monterey is a little more than a 
 mile from the Hotel del Monte, on the southern point 
 of the bay. It was here that Don Sebastian Vizcayno 
 landed and planted the cross in 1602, under instruc- 
 tions of Philip III. of Spain ; here, one hundred and 
 sixty-eight years afterwards Gov. Portala of Lower 
 California and Father Junipero Serra came and 
 founded the mission of San Carlos or Carmel, five or 
 six miles to the southward. A cross still locates the 
 spot where Father Serra landed. Monterey early 
 
MONTEREY. 121 
 
 became the capital of the territory, and here, in 1842, 
 Commodore Jones, anticipating the Mexican war, 
 hoisted the Stars and Stripes in place of the Mexi- 
 can flag. There are many old adobe buildings with 
 tiled roofs in the village, but there are no modern 
 structures of any pretensions. From the old adobe 
 custom-house rises the original staff from which the 
 Stars and Stripes first floated over Monterey. The 
 Catholic church, which was built in 1794, of a yel- 
 lowish stone, is still in good condition. The altar- 
 piece is considered a work of art. The pavement in 
 front of the church and also in several places in the 
 sidewalks is composed of the vertebrae of whales, 
 this bay having been a prominent port for whaling 
 vessels. 
 
 The climate of Monterey is said to be remarkably 
 equable, the mean temperature of January and July 
 varying only about fifteen degrees. It was certainly 
 so cool during our stay that we were glad to hover 
 around the fire-places a good portion of the time. 
 It was rather disappointing that we should be under 
 a cloud or an umbrella during the whole four days of 
 our stay, especially as we had been told that ' ' from 
 May to November in California you may hang up 
 your umbrella and waterproof." But there could be 
 no more delightful place in which to pass the time in 
 dull weather, and we enjoyed it all. 
 
 When we left Monterey Saturday morning the 
 clouds were breaking, and soon the sun came out 
 
 9 
 
122 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 bright and clear. Some of us stopped off at San 
 Jose and took a ride about the beautiful town. Not 
 so picturesquely situated as Los Angeles, yet the 
 beautifully shaded streets, with long rows of pepper 
 and locust trees, the luxuriant vines and blossoming 
 plants and green lawns about almost every residence, 
 the fine business blocks and public buildings and 
 handsome dwelling-houses, made this to me the most 
 attractive town I have seen in California. Fruits and 
 vines grow here in the greatest luxuriance, and, 
 indeed, all this Santa Clara valley is noted for its 
 fruitfulness. We took the horse-cars from San Jose 
 to Santa Clara, the latter being a suburb of the 
 former. Our party filled the car, and, exhilarated 
 by the delicious atmosphere and bright sky after the 
 long storm, we were in a gala mood, and I doubt 
 if that car ever witnessed so much fun before. If 
 the doctor did turn driver and put the poor old 
 horses up to a racing gait, they bore it well, and their 
 lawful Jehu had a chance to eat his lunch undisturbed. 
 This road from San Jose to Santa Clara, called the 
 Alameda, is a broad, beautiful street, lined with old 
 willows' planted by the missionaries in 1799 for the 
 purpose of shading their walk from the San Jose 
 pueblo to their church at Santa Clara. There is a 
 large Catholic school here in connection with the 
 church. 
 
 We visited here the grounds of Mr. J. P. Pierce, 
 who has ninety-five acres in vineyard and orchard. 
 
SANTA CLARA CHERRIES. 123 
 
 His fruit trees are principally cherries, though there 
 are peaches, apricots, plums, Japanese plums, pome- 
 granates, bananas, figs, almonds, walnuts, almost 
 every fruit and nut that can be made to grow in this 
 climate. The cherries were in their prime, indeed 
 many of them had been gathered, but such cherries 
 were never seen in the East, large, luscious, crisp. 
 I wonder if Mr. Pierce ever found so appreciative 
 samplers of the delicious sweetness of his mammoth 
 Black Tartarians or the delicate crispness of his Royal 
 Anns before ! 
 
 Besides a large vineyard with vines cut back in the 
 usual way, Mr. Pierce has a mile of grape-vine arbor 
 in his grounds, twenty to thirty feet broad, and high 
 enough to drive a carriage beneath it, covered chiefly 
 with Isabellas. A broad graveled driveway between 
 rows of shade trees leads to a handsome house, lawns, 
 flowers and shrubbery add their beauty, and help to 
 make this fruitful place one of almost ideal attractive- 
 ness. Our party are under great obligations to the 
 gentlemanly proprietor for his 'courtesy and kindness. 
 May his shadow, and his cherries, never grow less. 
 
 Returning to San Francisco Saturday night, I spent 
 the next day in Vallejo, thirty miles northward, with 
 friends. This town, of five or six thousand inhabi- 
 tants, was once the. capital of the state, but has now 
 nothing but the navy-yard on Mare Island to keep it 
 alive. It is beautifully situated on several hills, com- 
 manding a fine view of the bay, and one wonders 
 
124 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 why it should not continue to thrive. There do not 
 appear to be any trees growing spontaneously here, 
 but the eucalyptus and locust grow rapidly when 
 planted. The mud dries so quickly in this atmos- 
 phere that the streets are full of hard ridges, as rough 
 as if suddenly frozen. 
 
 Monday morning I took the train north for Calis- 
 toga through the far famed Napa valley. This valley 
 is not so broad as the Santa Clara, and is less pictur- 
 esque, but it has wonderfully fruitful orchards and 
 farms and flourishing vineyards. Farmers were hay- 
 ing they raise wheat and barley for hay here, no 
 grasses being grown for the purpose and everywhere 
 there was evidence of good crops. 
 
 In the mountains inclosing this valley there are 
 numerous mineral springs. The Napa soda springs, 
 six miles from Napa City, are very noted. At Cal- 
 istoga, which is the terminus of the railroad, sixty- 
 eight miles from San Francisco, there are some 
 twenty mineral hot springs which were at one time 
 a very popular resort. 
 
 Seventeen miles from Calistoga by stage over St. 
 Helena Mountain is Middletown, of interest to me 
 as the home of friends I was about to visit. The 
 ride over this mountain, an ascent of nearly four 
 thousand feet, is delightful if you are fortunate as I 
 was in securing a seat on the stage-box ; but if, 
 unfortunate as I was on the return, you are forced to 
 share a seat barely large enough for two persons with 
 
HARBIN S SPRINGS. 125 
 
 two other adults and a child, in the inside of the 
 stage, while the air is hot enough for a Turkish bath* 
 you will find it the longest ride you ever knew in the 
 same distance, and must be gifted with a very poetic 
 imagination to call it a pleasure ride. St. Helena 
 Mountain is one of the most noted of the Coast 
 Range, and commands a splendid view of the Napa 
 valley. We were nearly four hours in making the 
 seventeen miles, and at length alighted in a charm- 
 ing little valley, to receive the warmest kind of 
 welcome from the doctor and his wife. I find that 
 they are thriving in this new country, that the doctor 
 finds renewed health and vigor in this mountain 
 atmosphere, and plenty of profitable work in his 
 profession. "Yet," said Mrs. M., "we can't know 
 how thankful we ought to be that we were born in 
 New England till we come out here." 
 
 About four miles from Middletown, up in the 
 canon seventeen hundred feet above the sea, is 
 Harbin's Springs, a very popular resort. There are 
 numerous springs, all either warm or hot, the princi- 
 pal one having a temperature of one hundred and 
 eighteen degrees. The water is conducted from 
 this spring directly into a bath-house, where baths 
 at any temperature may be had. It is a beautiful 
 location, and the hotel here is well patronized. 
 Middletown looks forward to the extension of the 
 railroad from Calistoga to these springs, when a boom 
 for that place will be in order. 
 
126 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Returning to San Francisco the next day, June 17, 
 we bade farewell to California the following morn- 
 ing, taking steamer for Portland, Oregon. A fog 
 obscured the shore line to some extent, so that we 
 were unable to see the beauty of the bay at its best, 
 but I kept position on the hurricane-deck till we 
 passed through the Golden Gate, when, not thinking 
 it desirable to look any longer, I retired to my state- 
 room and rested the next two days. It was quite a 
 coincidence that a large portion of the party felt the 
 need of rest also. I regret my inability to give an 
 adequate description of the delightfulness of sailing 
 on the swelling Pacific, but must leave it to the 
 imagination of those who enjoy being 
 
 "Rocked in the cradle of the deep." 
 
 By the morning of the third day, after we had 
 passed the bar at the mouth of the Columbia river, 
 I was sufficiently refreshed to go on deck, and when 
 the boat stopped at Astoria for half an hour, took the 
 opportunity to go ashore. This town (except the 
 business part, which is built on a foundation of piles 
 over the river) is situated on the side of a steep hill 
 rising from the river bank, a verdure-covered slope 
 with a forest of evergreens in the background, and is 
 the headquarters of the salmon-canning industry of 
 the Columbia river. There are twenty-five of these 
 canneries here, giving employment to six thousand 
 persons in the busy season, and having a capital of 
 
ASTORIA. 127 
 
 $1,560,000 invested in buildings and machinery. 
 In 1883 the product of these and fourteen other can- 
 neries farther up the river was worth $3,024,000. 
 The fisherman, if he finds his own boats and nets, 
 gets ninety cents a fish; if the company supplies 
 them, fifty cents. The fishermen are mainly Norwe- 
 gians, Swedes, Danes and Italians, but Chinese are 
 employed in the factories. 
 
 Astoria is the oldest town in Oregon, having been 
 founded by John Jacob Astor (for whom it was 
 named) and the Pacific Fur Company in 1811. In 
 1813 it fell into the hands of the Northwest Fur 
 Company; later, the headquarters of the fur trade 
 were transferred to Vancouver, and Astoria dwindled 
 till this salmon-canning industry was established in 
 1866. Some of our party made a hurried visit to 
 one of the canning factories, but I had too recently 
 emerged from retirement to stomach fishy odors, and 
 am unable to describe the canning process. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER. PORTLAND. 
 
 WE have a sail of ninety-eight miles before us in 
 going from Astoria to Portland, the last twelve 
 miles being on the Willamette river. The Columbia 
 is very broad just above Astoria, some five miles, 
 although it is only a mile in width at its mouth, twelve 
 miles below. There is not much variety to the scen- 
 ery on the Lower Columbia ; the shores, of which 
 the northern is in Washington Territory and the 
 southern in Oregon, are generally precipitous and 
 covered with a dense growth of cedar, spruce and fir. 
 This limitless stretch of forest on either side of the 
 broad stream is a goodly sight, the first timber of 
 any account (except the Sierra Nevada forests on the 
 way to the Yo Semite) that we have seen since we left 
 the Canada woods on the Grand Trunk Railroad. 
 Occasionally we pass a chute or slide down the steep 
 bank, used for conveying the logs to the water, and 
 a few saw-mills and salmon-canning factories are seen 
 on the way. The first place of any size which we 
 reach is Kalama, thirty-eight miles from Portland, 
 on the Washington shore. This town is on the 
 Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's line from 
 Portland to Tacoma, and once had aspirations which 
 
130 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 have not been realized ; wherefore it is sometimes 
 called Kalam-ity. The hills now recede from the 
 shores on both sides of the stream and the intervale 
 looks as if it might yield a rich return to the cultiva- 
 tor. Two or three small hamlets only are passed 
 until we reach St. Helen's on the Oregon side, twenty- 
 seven miles from Portland. Hitherto, scarcely any 
 islands have been seen. One high rock, rising from 
 the water near the Washington shore, called Coffin 
 Mountain, was formerly utilized by the Indians as a 
 place of deposit for their dead. 
 
 The river is very deep and turbid, and is now 
 twenty-four feet above low-water mark, and the pier 
 at St. Helen's is nearly on a level with the water. 
 As we approach the mouth of the Willamette numer- 
 ous lovely green islands appear, one large island called 
 Niggertown having a small settlement upon it. 
 
 Just before reaching Kalama we had our first view 
 of the snow-covered summit of Mt. St. Helen's, its 
 beautiful cone rising 9,750 feet above the sea; later 
 on, in succession, we saw from different points Mts. 
 Adams, Hood, Tacoma and Jefferson, all covered 
 with snow from base to summit. From one point on 
 the Willamette, about three miles from its mouth ? 
 we were able to see all five of these snow-crowned 
 peaks with one sweep of the eye. First, one hundred 
 miles to the north, Tacoma, king of all in the Cas- 
 cade Range, pierces the sky at an elevation of 14,444 
 feet; sixty-five miles to the northeast, St. Helen's 
 
LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER. 13! 
 
 lifts her shining head 9,750 feet ; then Mt. Adams 
 soars in majestic grandeur to an equal height, seventy- 
 five miles distant ; Mt. Hood, pride of Portland, 
 towers upward 11,025 feet, fifty miles to the east; 
 and last, Mt. Jefferson shows his snowy crown above 
 the lower mountains seventy-five miles to the south- 
 east, a beautiful peak nearly 10,000 feet above the 
 sea. Nowhere else on the face of the earth can such 
 a glorious panorama be seen. In other lands, and in 
 the Rocky Mountains, there are loftier peaks, but 
 they are seen surrounded by other high mountains, 
 and from a table-land or elevation nearly half their 
 height ; while these giants of the Cascade Range are 
 isolated, and our point of vision is the level of the 
 sea. From the placid river, with its shores and 
 islands of brightest emerald, over the darker green 
 of the firs and spruces beyond, and the soft blue hills 
 in the distance, the eye wanders until it rests on the 
 kingly summit of Tacoma, then with one sweep along 
 an arc of one hundred and fifty miles takes in the 
 four other radiant monarchs rising above the blue, 
 their hoary heads doubtless still bearing snows that 
 covered them before the white man ever saw this 
 continent, or before the savage ever paddled his bark 
 canoe along this water-course. 
 
 There is a marked difference in the color of the 
 water in the two streams, the Willamette being of a 
 deep green. Its width is about two-thirds that of 
 the Columbia, and the volume is immense. Several 
 
132 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 years ago I read a little poem upon the Willamette 
 River, written by S. L. Simpson of Portland, Ore., 
 whose rhythmic melody has often haunted my mem- 
 ory since ; and now that I was sailing on the " lovely 
 river, " 
 
 " Winding, widening through the valley, " 
 
 while the soft June airs were blowing about us, and 
 the bright sky smiled overhead, the beautiful lines 
 again recurred to me and I found myself repeating : 
 
 "Spring's green witchery is weaving 
 Braid and border for thy side ; 
 Grace forever haunts thy journey, 
 Beauty dimples on thy tide. 
 
 Onward ever, 
 
 Lovely river, 
 Softly calling to the sea ; 
 
 Time, that scars us, 
 
 Maims and mars us, 
 Leaves no track nor trench on thee." 
 
 We arrived at Portland about six o'clock Friday 
 afternoon and are quartered at the Merchants' Hotel. 
 To my surprise I find this place more like home than 
 any other we have visited. Here for the first time 
 we see maple and ash and elm trees in the streets, 
 and clover blossoms and green grass bordering the 
 roadside, and real New England weeds plantain 
 and dock. I am told, too, that at least three-fifths 
 of the white population came here from east of the 
 Ohio. 
 
 The business part of Portland is low, close down 
 on the bank of the river, too low and flat for the best 
 
PORTLAND. 133 
 
 sanitary conditions, but the city gradually slopes away 
 to the hills that surround it on all sides except on the 
 river. The Willamette flows from south to north, 
 and the city is on the west bank, East Portland on 
 the opposite side being a separate borough. There 
 are many elegant residences in Portland, not only 
 handsome in themselves but beautiful in their location 
 and surroundings. Portland is the headquarters of 
 all trade in the Northwest, and the long rows of 
 elegant warehouses give the city quite a metropolitan 
 appearance unlooked for in a place of its size. The 
 wholesale trade in 1883 amounted to over fifty-three 
 million dollars. The leading industry in Portland 
 is lumber, and there are manufactures of flour, car- 
 riages, boots and shoes, bricks, artificial ice, bags 
 and bagging and other products. I w r as surprised to 
 find three book-binderies here, employing thirty five 
 hands, as I had not expected book- making to be an 
 industry of this northwest coast. There must be 
 many book-buyers here, too, if the number of book- 
 stores is any criterion. 
 
 I was much interested in a visit to an artificial ice 
 manufactory, of which there are two in the city. 
 The river never freezes hard enough to furnish the 
 natural product, and all the ice used has to be manu- 
 factured or brought by rail from the interior. I am 
 unable to describe the process by which the caloric is 
 withdrawn by chemical agents from the vertical iron 
 pipes, to w r hich the water freezes as it trickles down 
 
134 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 from the top of the building, the immense icicles 
 gradually increasing in size like a tallow dip. Those 
 who have seen the process of " dipping candles," as 
 practiced in ancient New England farm-houses, will 
 understand what I mean. When the icicles have 
 become large enough, a jet of steam is let into the 
 pipes, and the ice is cut and removed in blocks of 
 convenient size. The ice is firm and clear, indeed 
 it is purer than the natural product, as all sediment 
 drops to the bottom. It is sold for a cent a pound. 
 " We used to get two cents a pound till the railroad 
 was built and brought in ice from other parts," said 
 the manufacturer sadly. 
 
 The Chinese population numbers some five or six 
 thousand, and they have numerous stores on some 
 of the best business streets, not crowded together as 
 in an Francisco. I judge there is not so much 
 prejudice against the Mongols here as in California. 
 
 The soil and climate seem very favorable to fruit 
 culture. Apple and pear trees are loaded so that 
 their branches have to be propped up, and delicious 
 cherries, currants and gooseberries are in abundance. 
 Everything indicates a moist climate. Western 
 Oregon is called the " W T ebfoot " country on this 
 account. In a region where grass grows in such 
 luxuriance, it would seem that dairying should be a 
 leading industry, yet I learn that more than half the 
 supply of dairy products and vegetable produce con- 
 sumed here is brought from California. Butter is 
 
PORTLAND. 135 
 
 sold at seventy-five cents a pound, and some of it is 
 brought across the continent. If its endurance is 
 equal to its strength (judging from the sample I 
 tasted), it could stand a journey around the world. 
 Salmon, fresh from its native waters, of course we 
 have in abundance. It is very nice, but I think the 
 salmon that swim in eastern waters surpass this in 
 richness of flavor. 
 
 The finest public building in Portland is the post- 
 office. It is of stone, handsomely finished, and is 
 surrounded by lawn and shade trees. The collector 
 of internal revenue and other officials have offices in 
 the building. .An elegant hotel, "The Villard," has 
 its stone walls partly up, but work is not progressing 
 upon it at present. It is "up-town," near the post- 
 office and court-house, a more desirable location for 
 tourists than is occupied by either of the existing 
 hotels. 
 
 Portland has increased wonderfully in population 
 during the past four years. By the census of 1880 it 
 had only about twenty-one thousand inhabitants ; 
 now it claims over forty thousand, about the same 
 as its namesake on Casco Bay. Like that namesake 
 it is beautiful for situation. It does not overlook 
 the bright waters of a bay studded with picturesque 
 islands, and dotted with the white wings of com- 
 merce, but the " lovely river" winds at its feet, a 
 broad expause of varied landscape stretches before it, 
 and matchless possession ! Mt. Hood, on whose 
 
136 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 majestic beauty the eye never tires of gazing, is 
 the Pacific Portland's very own. No wonder her 
 people are proud of it that her artists never weary 
 of painting it. Pictures of the mountain are numer- 
 ous in the shop-windows, of various sizes, and in 
 varying aspects, but the favorite seems to present it 
 suffused with a bright crimson glow. "Is it possible 
 the mountain is ever so rose-colored as these artists 
 represent it ? " I asked a citizen ; and was assured 
 that the pictures did not exaggerate the color as seen 
 at sunset in certain conditions of the atmosphere. 
 From the hills on the west side of the town a view of 
 the mountain may be had almost to its base. It is 
 irregular in its outline, though nearly pyramidal, and 
 a "notch " at one side of the summit shows the loca- 
 tion of the crater. It is believed that volcanic action 
 has not yet entirely ceased, as smoke and fire have 
 been seen to issue from it within three or four years. 
 Mt. St. Helen's may also be seen from the same 
 point of view, but not to its full extent, intervening 
 hills cutting off the lower half. 
 
 From the Cemetery Hill, three or four miles out 
 of Portland, may be seen one of the most beautiful 
 landscapes I have ever looked upon. Beneath us lies 
 the "lovely river" with its verdant shores and eme- 
 rald isles, "winding, widening through the valley," 
 till lost in the embrace of the Columbia, its beauty- 
 dimpled surface rippled by the dipping of oars or the 
 passage of white-winged yachts ; sloping away to the 
 
PORTLAND. 137 
 
 hills from either bank are the towns of Portland and 
 East Portland, with church spires and prominent 
 buildings rising from a forest of shade trees, the 
 apparent repose undisturbed save by the passage of 
 the ferry-boat across the stream ; softly blue in the 
 distance rise hill and mountain against the sky with 
 ever varying outline ; to the extreme right the white 
 peak of Mt. Hood shows above the intervening hills 
 and forests ; and straight before us the blue cur- 
 tains drawn aside to reveal the full measure of her 
 transcendent loveliness St. Helen's stands, with 
 snowy draperies reaching from the dome which 
 crowns her peerless cone to her very feet. 
 
 It was unaccountable to me at first that Hood 
 should be the special pet and pride of Portland rather 
 than St. Helen's, except that the former can be seen 
 in its full majesty from points within the, city limits, 
 and it is necessary to go outside to get the best view 
 of St. Helen's; but a citizen explained that the latter, 
 being rounded into almost perfect symmetry of form, 
 always presented about the same aspect, while Hood, 
 being irregular in outline, is more variable in appear- 
 ance and therefore more interesting. It may be so. 
 It is worth a journey across the continent to look 
 upon either of them. 
 
 Many of our party found friends and acquaint- 
 ances in Portland who gave them cordial greeting. 
 Among the New Hampshire men here is Mr. E. P. 
 Rogers, formerly of Plymouth, the general ticket 
 10 
 
138 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 agent of the Oregon & California Railroad running 
 up the Willamette valley, whose courtesies are grate- 
 fully remembered. I like this pleasant Portland, and 
 those of its people whom I have met. It is a quiet, 
 orderly city, abounding in churches and schools and 
 whatever tends to make society well ordered and pro- 
 gressive. With the exception of the Chinese, but a 
 small portion of its population is of foreign birth. 
 Ours is the first excursion party which has ever visited 
 Portland from the East (except an excursion of offi- 
 cials over the Northern Pacific road), but it is not 
 likely to be the last. I am sure that in leaving we 
 all echo Rip Van Winkle's toast : " May it live long 
 and prosper." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PUGET SOUND AND ITS PORTS. VICTORIA. 
 
 WE left Portland Monday, June 23, at one 
 o'clock P. M., by steamer down the Willamette 
 and Columbia rivers to Kalama, Washington Terri- 
 tory, thence by rail over the Pacific Division of the 
 Northern Pacific road to Tacoma, near the southern 
 extremity of Puget Sound, where we took the 
 steamer Olympia for our trip through the sound to 
 Victoria. Our road from Kalama lies along the 
 Cowlitz river and the Chehalis valley. The over- 
 flowing streams showed that we were still in the 
 " web foot" country. It is a good farming region, 
 though there are very few settlements and none of 
 any importance till we reach Tacoma. The country 
 is heavily timbered. It is estimated that there are 
 twenty million acres of timber land in Washington 
 Territory. 
 
 It was ten o'clock in the evening, and rain was 
 falling, when we embarked on the steamer. The 
 Olympia is an elegant new boat, with capacious 
 state-rooms, and is the property of the Oregon Rail- 
 way & Navigation Company, as are also the boats 
 running between Portland and San Francisco. It 
 
I4O A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 took some three hours to load the freight, and the 
 curious 'medley of sounds that floated up from the 
 lower deck the squealing and grunting of pigs, 
 the barking of dogs, the bleating and trampling of 
 sheep, mingled with the voices of men precluded 
 all inclination to sleep till the boat at length moved 
 from the wharf. We reached Seattle about six 
 o'clock in the morning, but the clouds had not 
 broken and the prospect for a view of the scenery 
 on the sound was not flattering. The maps show us 
 the general outline of Puget Sound, extending north 
 and south, connected with the Pacific Ocean by the 
 straits of Juan de Fuca (which separate the peninsula 
 from Vancouver's Island), and covering an area of 
 two thousand square miles, but give no adequate 
 idea of the many arms reaching out like a devil-fish 
 in all directions, or of the great irregularity of the 
 shores, which are full of beautifully curved bays and 
 inlets, while numerous islands help to confuse and 
 diversify the shore line. While the coast length of 
 Washington Territory is but two hundred and forty, 
 five miles, the actual shore line is seventeen hundred 
 and thirty-eight miles. 
 
 The waters of the sound are calm and placid, and 
 the appearance is more that of an inland lake than 
 a part of the ocean. Extending north and south 
 through the peninsula on the west is the beautiful 
 Olympic Range, six thousand to eight thousand feet 
 high, and on the east, dividing the territory Ion- 
 
PUGET SOUND. 141 
 
 gitudinally, the Coast Range bounds our horizon. 
 Our boat changes its course so frequently in follow- 
 ing the windings of the coast to touch at the different 
 ports, that we sail towards every point of the com- 
 pass, and at length we get so confused as to our 
 direction as to be in the condition of the small boy, 
 who, having gotten into his garments the wrong way, 
 couldn't tell whether he was going to school or 
 coming home. 
 
 The shores of Puget Sound are covered with mag- 
 nificent forests, affording an almost exhaustless supply 
 of timber, and the ports are the location of exten- 
 sive saw-mills which produce an immense quantity 
 of lumber yearly. The largest saw-mill is at Port 
 Blakely. This mill, in one day of eleven and one- 
 half hours, sawed out 283,000 feet ; and its total 
 product in 1883 was 49,189,785 feet. Our boat 
 stopped long enough at Port Ludlow for us to visit 
 the saw-mill there. This mill is four hundred and 
 fifty feet long, and although its capacity is not quite 
 equal to that at Port Blakely, its product is enor- 
 mous, being 175,000 feet daily. It was interesting 
 to watch the gang-saws in their rapid motion and 
 note how quickly the immense logs were trans- 
 formed into boards or planks. Machinery does 
 everything here. It grapples the logs in the water 
 with hooks attached to an endless chain and draws 
 them up an incline into the mill, places them upon 
 the carriage ready to be riven by the saw, and it 
 
142 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 removes all slabs and refuse, railroading them to a 
 point outside of the mill near the water's edge, and 
 drops them into a never-dying fire. Some of the 
 logs here were of enormous size, and the lumber 
 perfectly free from knots or defects. Accustomed 
 to play about a saw-mill in my childhood, it was 
 pleasant to renew here on this far off coast the 
 childish experience of riding on the carriage which 
 conveys the logs back and forth as they move to 
 the motion of the saw. We are still but "children 
 of a larger growth." 
 
 The daily capacity of all the leading mills on Puget 
 Sound is 1,645,000 feet, and the lumber is shipped 
 to China, Japan, Australia and South America, as 
 well as to American ports. Some of the mills are 
 supplied with electric lights so as to work continu- 
 ously when the demand is brisk. A little idea of 
 the immensity of this lumber industry is conveyed in 
 the statement that one logger paid $1,500 for tallow 
 to grease the skids used one year in hauling five 
 million feet of logs worth $35,000. The regular 
 landing-places between Seattle and Victoria are 
 Ports Madison, Gamble, Ludlow and Townsend. 
 The last is the most important, having a population 
 of sixteen hundred, and on our return trip we 
 stopped long enough to land and get a look at the 
 town. The stores and shops and business part of 
 the place are located on a street on a level with the 
 pier, but the principal residences are on a bluff which 
 
PORT TOWNSEND. 143 
 
 rises precipitously some one hundred and fifty feet. 
 A short cut to this upper town is by long flights of 
 steps starting from a point a few rods opposite the 
 landing, or by a zigzag incline farther along; but 
 teams have to go nearly a quarter of a mile from the 
 wharf before they can find an incline gradual- enough 
 for them to ascend. One could hardly conceive a 
 more charming location for a summer residence than 
 this upper town of Port Townsend. High enough 
 to always insure a cool breeze, overlooking the beau- 
 tiful bay with its varied shore line, with two moun- 
 tain ranges visible in the distance, the broad, smooth 
 streets bordered by a green carpet, flowers and 
 blossoming vines flourishing in every garden, it is 
 truly a delightful spot as seen that bright June morn- 
 ing. This town is the port of entry for the Puget 
 Sound customs district, and is garrisoned with United 
 States troops. From a primitive building of rough 
 lumber at the foot of the stairs leading up the bluff is 
 issued a little semi-weekly paper called the Port of 
 Entry Times. 
 
 We reached Victoria, Vancouver's Island, about 
 five o'clock, P. M. The sun had broken through the 
 clouds, and the town, rising from the rocky shores 
 of a beautifully curved bay, looked very pleasant in 
 the afternoon light. Carriages were in waiting at 
 the wharf to receive us, and we were all soon being 
 driven at a rapid rate through the town and to all 
 the points of interest in this part of the island. 
 
144 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, having a 
 population of six thousand to eight thousand, and the 
 government buildings, parliament house, land and 
 works department, printing-office, messenger's resi- 
 dence and supreme-court building, built of brick in 
 the Swiss style, occupy a pretty square on James 
 Bay. A granite monument to Sir James Douglas, the 
 first governor of the colony, is located on the same 
 square. The lieutenant-governor's residence is a 
 handsome building with elegant grounds in the out- 
 skirts of the city. A hawthorn hedge about these 
 grounds attracted attention, from its beauty as well as 
 its novelty. On Beacon Hill, which overlooks a 
 beautiful and extensive sea prospect, there is a race- 
 course, and adjoining it a public park. 
 
 The streets of Victoria are broad and clean, the 
 business blocks chiefly of brick or stone, the build- 
 ings low, and, although there are not many of great 
 elegance, they are generally neat and tasteful in ap- 
 pearance, their attractiveness enhanced by the pretty 
 gardens surrounding them and the ivies and honey- 
 suckles which clamber over them in profusion. That 
 English ivies will thrive outdoors and grow in great 
 luxuriance here in a latitude more than three hun- 
 dred miles farther north than Manchester is proof of 
 the remarkable mildness of the climate. Indeed, all 
 along through Oregon and Washington, west of the 
 Cascade Range, as well as on this island, the winters 
 are extremely mild, very little snow being seen, and 
 
VICTORIA. 1 45 
 
 the ice never forms thick enough for cutting. The 
 mildness is attributed to the warm winds blowing 
 over the Japan current or "gulf stream." 
 
 There is a Chinatown here, and there are also 
 many Indians seen on the streets, of the Songhish 
 tribe, who have a reservation on the opposite side of 
 the harbor. These Indians are partial to bright 
 colors, and are not unpicturesque in their attire, if 
 seen far enough away for distance to lend enchant- 
 ment to the view. Three daily papers in Victoria 
 keep the people informed of current events, and 
 eleven churches look after their spiritual welfare. 
 There are hospitals, orphan asylums, schools and 
 other public institutions, Protestant and Catholic. 
 The view from some of the upper streets is very fine. 
 The Olympic Range can be seen across the straits of 
 Juan de Fuca ; and on the east the snowy crown of 
 Mt. Baker next to Tacoma and Hood the highest 
 peak in the Cascade Range is revealed to the gaze, 
 as well as a broad expanse of water scenery. 
 
 The roads leading from the town are in splendid 
 condition, being all macadamized, and we were 
 whirled along at a rate faster than I ever knew hack 
 horses to go before, for we had twenty miles to 
 compass befofe we returned to our boat. Wild roses 
 are in profusion along the roadside and everywhere 
 vegetation is rank, showing a rich soil and a moist 
 climate. The scenery is pretty and picturesque, and 
 the air wonderfully exhilarating. Some traveler, writ- 
 
146 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 ing of the climate of Victoria, says: "The atmos- 
 phere is charged with ozone peculiar to Victoria 
 only." Whether this be true or not, nothing in 
 my experience matches it, unless it be the delicious 
 atmosphere of Mt. Desert. 
 
 Vancouver's Island is two hundred miles long ; 
 its shores are full of bays and inlets, affording excel- 
 lent harbors ; it has a great variety of scenery, 
 mountains eight thousand to nine thousand feet in 
 height, lakes, rivers, forests, rich coal mines, a de- 
 lightful climate and a fertile soil ; and we can't help 
 regretting that in the settlement of the great bound- 
 ary dispute between Uncle Sam and Victoria R. the 
 Stars and Stripes were not left floating over it instead 
 of the Cross of St. George. 
 
 One of the points visited was the naval station at 
 Esquimalt, four or five miles from the town. This 
 is the chief British naval station on the Pacific. 
 There is an excellent harbor here, and a dry dock 
 four hundred feet long and sixty-five feet wide is in 
 process of construction. There are also a government 
 arsenal and a small village near the harbor. A ves- 
 sel had sunk in the harbor a few days before our 
 arrival and preparations were in progress for raising 
 it. We find the days preceptibly lengthened in this 
 northern latitude, and although it was eight o'clock 
 when we returned to the steamer the daylight still 
 remained. 
 
 After supper on the boat most of us returned to 
 have a look at the town by gas-light. All shops and 
 
PUGET SOUND. 147 
 
 business close here at six o'clock, but two or three 
 curiosity shops were kept open this evening in antici- 
 pation of a visit from the excursionists. The result 
 proved the wisdom of the proprietors, as nearly all 
 invested in some souvenir of the place. We are all 
 charmed with this pleasant town and its surroundings 
 and count the briof hours of our stay at this the 
 farthest point, the ultima thule of our journey, as 
 among the most delightful of our trip and it was 
 almost with regret that we steamed out of the harbor 
 next morning at sunrise and took a last look of its 
 beautiful rock-bound shores and verdure-crowned 
 heights. 
 
 The distance from Tacoma to Victoria is one 
 hundred and ten miles, and it is on the return journey 
 that we realize the wonderful beauty of the " Medi- 
 terranean of the North. " On the outward trip the 
 sky was overcast and the mountains on either hand 
 were entirely obscured by clouds until we were near 
 the end of our course ; but to-day the sun shines out 
 brightly, and although clouds partially veil the higher 
 peaks, we are able to see the general outline and 
 note the especial beauty of the Olympic Range. The 
 water is smooth as glass, reflecting shore and sky as 
 a mirror, and the loveliness of the scenery is incom- 
 parable. "The most beautiful view in the world 
 surpassing Lake Como ! ' ' said our English fellow- 
 traveler enthusiastically. The shores, covered with 
 magnificent forests to the water's edge, are pictur- 
 
148 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 \ 
 
 esquely curved and rounded and ever varying, and 
 with each change of position a new scene of beauty 
 is brought to view. Puget Sound is really an archi- 
 pelago. Some of the islands are of great extent. 
 Whidby Island stretches its length along between us 
 and the eastern shore for nearly twenty miles. The 
 islands as well as the main lanjj are covered with 
 timber, and while the shores are full of bays and 
 inlets and excellent harbors, the water is so deep that 
 anchorage is difficult. This is true both at Seattle 
 and Tacoma, and I observed that at Port Gamble, 
 where we stopped for a few minutes, the wharf ex- 
 tended but a few feet over the water, the shore rising 
 so precipitously that the boat could almost touch the 
 bank. In scores of places ships could be loaded 
 directly from the shore. 
 
 At Port Gamble we saw a great number of star- 
 fishes clinging to the piles, of immense size and 
 peculiar color, some of them being of a terra-cotta 
 and others of a "crushed-strawberry" hue. It was 
 easy reaching them from the steamer, and our English 
 comrade secured a fine specimen to take home to 
 England. 
 
 Seattle, which is the largest place on Puget Sound, 
 is beautifully situated on the eastern shore at the head 
 of Elliott Bay, eighty-five miles from Victoria and 
 twenty-five miles from Tacoma, and has a population 
 of some ten thousand. This town had its beginnings 
 a third of a century ago, but it has chiefly grown 
 
SEATTLE. 149 
 
 within the past half-dozen years. No less than a 
 thousand new buildings were erected in 1883. There 
 are splendid business blocks, of brick and stone, and 
 costly buildings still going up, showing that its people 
 have faith in its future, notwithstanding the Northern 
 Pacific terminus has been located at Tacoma instead 
 of here, as was at one time the expectation of its citi- 
 zens. The manufacture of lumber is its leading busi- 
 ness, but there are furniture manufactories, machine 
 shops and various wood-working industries. There 
 are seventy-four steamers engaged in the inland traffic 
 of Puget Sound, the majority of which have their 
 headquarters here, and the few minutes we had to run 
 up on to the main street were sufficient to show that 
 it is a very live and busy town. With one of the best 
 harbors in the world and a situation unsurpassed for 
 beauty, it ought to be what it claims, the "Queen 
 City of the Sound." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TACOMA. 
 
 '"pACOMA is an Indian word, said to signify 
 " nourishing breast. " It was the name given 
 by the aborigines to the highest mountain in the 
 Cascade Range, put down on the old maps as 
 Mt. Rainier. It is the name adopted by the new 
 city on Puget Sound, selected as the terminus of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. The terminal city was 
 at first known as New Tacoma, a settlement with the 
 aboriginal name having existed for several years two 
 or three miles back from the shore, but by act of the 
 last legislature the old and the new were united 
 and the praenomen discarded. Some ten years ago, 
 when it was decided to make the terminus of the 
 road at this point, the Tacoma Land Company, a 
 corporation composed of fifty-one per cent of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Company and forty-nine 
 per cent of individual stockholders of that road, with 
 a capital of a million dollars, purchased sixteen 
 thousand acres of land here at the head of Com- 
 mencement Bay, and subsequently cleared a square 
 mile of land, and put the lots in the market. The 
 failure of Jay Cooke and the consequent delay in the 
 construction of the road postponed the building of 
 
152 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 the city, and in 1880 there were but seven hundred 
 and twenty inhabitants here. During the next two 
 years the population increased to three thousand, 
 and at the beginning of 1884 it was six thousand. 
 
 The shores of the bay rise precipitously about a 
 hundred feet, then gradually or in successive ter- 
 races to the height of three hundred feet. On this 
 slope, so admirably adapted by nature for the site of 
 a great city, are broad streets, regularly laid out 
 and graded, with handsome business blocks of brick 
 or stone, neat and substantial residences, elegant 
 churches, one being of stone and costing twenty- 
 five thousand dollars, a splendid public-school build- 
 ing where ten teachers and five hundred pupils are 
 enrolled, a magnificent ladies' seminary, two banks, 
 more than a hundred and fifty stores and busi- 
 ness houses, car-shops employing one hundred and 
 seventy-five hands, furniture manufactories, foundry 
 and machine-shops, sash and door shops, a candy 
 factory, salmon cannery, brick-yards, several saw- 
 mills, one of which employs two hundred hands 
 about the mill and six hundred at the logging-camps 
 and produces fifty million feet of lumber in a year, 
 shingle and lath mills, and various other industries. 
 
 I am aware that, as a rule, statistics are not very 
 interesting to the general reader, but here, on a 
 spot where barely a half-dozen years ago was un- 
 broken forest, and where charred stumps and brakes 
 and brambles still cover unoccupied lots, statistics 
 
TACOMA. 153 
 
 stare you in the face in such a potential way there is 
 no escaping them. 
 
 I like this juxtaposition of the triumphs of skill 
 and enterprise with the primeval forest. There is no 
 fascination about a new town on a grassless, treeless 
 plain, no matter how elegant its buildings or how 
 enterprising its citizens ; but here, where the flavor 
 of the wilderness pervades everything, and where, 
 from a hotel costing two hundred thousand dollars, 
 furnished with all the luxurious appliances of modern 
 art, you may look out upon 
 
 " Cedar and pine and fir, * * * * 
 A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view," 
 
 there is a subtile charm that stirs the heart and 
 quickens the pulses, till we find ourselves in harmony 
 with the bustle and energy and dauntless courage 
 which make possible here achievements whose mag- 
 nitude staggers the cautious conservatism of the East. 
 
 The cheap wooden houses usually found in a new 
 town are here conspicuous by their absence. The 
 Land Company, I am told, sell no lots except on 
 condition that the purchaser shall put up a building 
 within three years, to cost not less than a stipulated 
 sum, by which arrangement all dwellings are built 
 for permanancy and not to serve a temporary purpose. 
 
 The St. Luke's Episcopal church, a handsome 
 structure of stone, was the gift of C. B. Wright of 
 11 
 
154 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Philadelphia, president of the Tacoma Land Com- 
 pany, a memorial to his deceased wife and daughter ; 
 and the town is indebted to the same liberal source 
 for the elegant "Annie Wright Ladies' Seminary." 
 
 The harbor of Commencement Bay is one of the 
 best in the world, the waters so deep that vessels of 
 the heaviest draught can ride to its piers ; indeed, 
 the chief difficulty is that the waters are too deep for 
 anchorage. To remedy this a project is already ini- 
 tiated to deepen the channel of the Puyallup river at 
 its mouth, so that the shipping may anchor there. 
 
 The upper portion of the town commands a mag- 
 nificent prospect, the beautiful bay with its timber 
 fringed shores, the fertile Puyallup valley, the green 
 hills, the distant blue mountains, and, crowning all, 
 the eternal snows of Mt. Tacoma, there is nothing 
 wanting to the completeness of the landscape. What 
 Mt. Hood is to Portland, Mt. Tacoma is to this 
 city, its glory and pride. Any description of the 
 place which should not include this kingly height 
 would be like the play of " Hamlet " with the mel- 
 ancholy prince omitted. About forty miles distant, 
 with nothing to obstruct the view, the low range of 
 foot-hills appearing but as the wall inclosing the 
 grounds from which rises some lofty monument, this 
 majestic peak rears its head against the sky 14,444 
 feet, snow-covered to its feet. More massive than 
 Mt. Hood, it resembles that somewhat in general 
 
MOUNT TACOMA. 155 
 
 outline, although the summit is less sharp. On its 
 sides are eight living glaciers, nourishing as many 
 streams, which ultimately find their way to the ocean. 
 It was probably from this fact that the name " nour- 
 ishing breast " was given it. There is a horseback 
 trail to the height of 11,000 feet, and the ascent from 
 that point to the summit has several times been made. 
 Near the summit there is a crater where it is still so 
 warm that one may remain there all night without 
 discomfort with no other covering than a blanket. 
 At the height of 11,000 feet, where was formerly a 
 crater, is now a lake, and a green meadow carpeted 
 with flowers, evidence that the internal fires of the 
 volcano are not yet wholly extinct. 
 
 But a few hundred feet less lofty than Mont Blanc, 
 with no other high mountains intervening to obstruct 
 the vision as far as the eye can reach, what a sublime 
 and magnificent panorama must be unfolded to those 
 who scale that shining height ! It may yet be, and 
 at no very distant day, that the aspiring mountaineer 
 will count it a prouder distinction to have climbed 
 the lofty glaciers of Tacoma than to have scaled the 
 slippery Mer de Glace, and that tourists will come 
 hither from all parts of the world as they now flock 
 to the Alps and the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 In contemplating this glorious peak and the fair land 
 beneath, with its woods and waters and fertile valleys, 
 and rich mineral treasures hid below the surface, I 
 
156 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 seem to hear the words of ' ' Concord Bridge ' ' as 
 voiced by " Hosea Biglow:" 
 
 " I feel my spirit swellin' with a cry 
 That seems to say, 'Break forth and prophesy,' 
 
 This land of our'n I tell ye's got to be 
 A better country than man ever see ; " 
 
 and in imagination I stand upon the exalted summit 
 and look down upon populous cities and cultivated 
 fields and happy homes where now is virgin wilder- 
 ness, and see the beautiful shores of Puget Sound 
 adorned with lovely villas or lined with busy towns, 
 the abodes of millions of free and prosperous 
 people yet to be. 
 
 There are probably other new western towns that 
 have grown up as rapidly as Tacoma, possibly there 
 are some that rival it in beauty of situation, but in 
 one thing this town stands preeminent, nowhere 
 else is there another "Tacoma" hotel, no other 
 hostelry has such a host as Landlord Tyler. "The 
 Tacoma ' ' is the property of the Tacoma Land Com- 
 pany, its foundations having been laid last fall. The 
 father of the enterprise was Gen. Sprague, who occu- 
 pies a handsome residence near the hotel. He sug- 
 gested to Mr. C. B. Wright, the president of the Land 
 Company, that a hotel costing about thirty thou- 
 sand dollars would be a good thing to have. The 
 result is a building on which over two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars has been expended in construction and 
 thirty thousand dollars already invested in furniture. 
 The house is not yet completed, and our party were 
 
OPENING A HOTEL. 157 
 
 the first guests entertained there. It was about sun- 
 set of June 26 when we arrived, on our return trip 
 through Puget Sound, and, although we had been 
 informed that we were to "open" a new hotel, we 
 had no expectations beyond the fact that everything 
 would be new and clean. The hotel is a palatial- 
 looking building of handsome architectural propor- 
 tions, situated on the edge of a bluff one hundred 
 feet above the water at the head of Commencement 
 Bay, at the point where the Puyallup river debouches 
 into it. The walls are of brick covered with mastic. 
 The location is a beautiful one, the prospect on the 
 water side taking in the bay and opposite shores and a 
 long stretch of landscape over forest and hill to the 
 royal Tacoma crowned with perennial snows. 
 
 The interior is beautifully finished in redwood, and 
 the furniture is of the same handsome material. We 
 found the entrances to our rooms guarded by blanket 
 portieres, the doors designed for them having been 
 detained on a vessel in quarantine in the sound off 
 Victoria. There was a sense of freedom and unre- 
 straint in this big, grand house in its unfinished con- 
 dition, where the noise of hammer and saw was still 
 to be heard, that could not have existed if every- 
 thing had been complete. I wish I could convey a 
 sense of the delightful surprise, the infectious joy, the 
 unchecked enthusiasm that animated us as we took 
 in our surroundings and entered our names upon the 
 "bran new" register, or the almost hilarious mirth 
 with which this decorous party from the oldest and 
 
158 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 easternmost part of the country celebrated the "house- 
 warming ' ' of this new hotel in the newest town on 
 this far away western coast. It was such a grand 
 thing to have the big house all to ourselves, for 
 this Raymond Excursion Party is a harmonious, a 
 united party, not divided into cliques or sets, 
 and Landlord Tyler bade us consider everything 
 as our own. 
 
 I must not omit mention of the beautiful little 
 dining-room, just large enough to give ample accom- 
 modations to all our party, with its carved chimney- 
 piece and tiled fire-place, its tables covered with 
 the finest and whitest of damask and shining with 
 the brightest of new silver, the delicate china, the 
 skilled and attentive waiters, the delicious viands 
 served in the daintiest and most appetizing way, and 
 the lovely bouquet at each plate on the dinner 
 table, we almost believed ourselves to be the hon- 
 ored guests at a festive banquet rather than patrons 
 of a public inn. It is plain the managers knew their 
 man when they sent W. D. Tyler here from Pennsyl- 
 vania to open this hotel ; but to his everlasting honor 
 be it said he refused to come except on condition 
 that the hotel should have no public bar; and thus 
 the big room across the eastern end, which was to 
 have been a billiard and bar room, is now being finished 
 off for a parlor. 
 
 The morning following our arrival was rainy, but 
 the big hotel office, although not quite completed, 
 
INDIAN SCHOOL. 159 
 
 was cheerful with a fire-place at either end, where the 
 bright wood fires crackled and blazed, and no clouds 
 or dampness could check the ardor of our enjoyment. 
 Here various citizens called upon several members of 
 the party. Among them was one whom possibly 
 some Manchester readers may remember, Mr. Edward 
 N. Fuller, who edited the MIRROR in 1850. Mr. 
 Fuller is still in the editorial harness, being connected 
 with the Tacoma Daily News, and has followed the 
 fortunes of various papers in the West since he left 
 New Hampshire, in Chicago, Salt Lake City and 
 other places. The News is a lively little sheet, but 
 not so small as were those earliest editions of the 
 MIRROR. There is another daily published here, the 
 Ledger, whose editor was also among the callers ; and 
 Mr. Richard Bradley, clerk of the Nisqually and 
 Skokomish Indian Agency, with headquarters on the 
 Puyallup Reservation, a native of New England, was 
 glad to greet citizens from his old home. The 
 Puyallup Reservation is only three or four miles from 
 Tacoma, and an Indian school is in operation there 
 under the auspices of the government. During the 
 afternoon a large number of our party drove over to 
 visit this Indian school, There are seventy-five boys 
 and girls from six or seven years to adult age, who 
 are boarded, clothed, educated and taught to work 
 here. This was the last day of school before vaca- 
 tion, which the children were to spend with their 
 parents. We listened to reading, singing and 
 
l6o A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 answers to questions in geography. I am told by 
 the teacher that they learn quite readily anything 
 which only requires memorizing, but that arithme- 
 tic they acquire slowly. The writing-books were 
 remarkable for the uniform excellence of the pen- 
 manship. Few white children, with the same amount 
 of practice, could write so well. Considering the 
 fact that most of these children do not understand a 
 word of English when they come here, their acquire- 
 ments seem surprising. Their parents let them come 
 very readily now, but when the school was first 
 established it " was almost necessary to lasso them to 
 secure them," as the superintendent expressed it. 
 In the afternoons the older boys are taken into the 
 fields or shops to work, some of them receiving five 
 dollars a month as apprentices, and the girls are 
 taught to sew and do housework. Everything is 
 systematic and orderly about the establishment. As 
 soon as the school closed the girls at once repaired 
 to the sewing-room, and when we looked in upon 
 them they were busily darning stockings and scarcely 
 glanced at us. 
 
 The Puyallup Reservation comprises eighteen 
 thousand acres, occupied by five hundred and sixty 
 Indians. These Indians cultivate not only grain and 
 field crops, but some of them have gone into gar- 
 dening. One of them raised and sold fifty dollars' 
 worth of strawberries the present season. They 
 build their own houses, some of them of two 
 
PUYALLUP VALLEY. l6l 
 
 stories, open and take care of their own roads, and 
 are generally progressing. 
 
 This Puyallup valley is one of the most fertile in 
 the world. It is said that it will produce four tons 
 of hay to the acre. The principal crop of the farm- 
 ers here is hops, and while eight hundred pounds to 
 the acre is considered a good yield in New York, this 
 rich soil produces sixteen hundred to three thousand 
 pounds per acre. A branch of the Northern Pacific 
 extends up the Puyallup valley thirty-three miles to 
 the rich coal fields of that region, from which more 
 than one hundred and sixty-eight thousand tons of 
 coal were forwarded to the city for shipment last year. 
 This railroad goes within a few miles of Mt. Tacoma, 
 an advantage likely some day to be appreciated by 
 tourists. 
 
 The second evening of our stay at Tacoma, our 
 party organized and adopted resolutions expressive 
 of the entire satisfaction with the manner in which 
 the conductor, Mr. Luther L. Holden, had performed 
 his duties, of appreciation of his unfailing courtesy 
 and unceasing efforts to promote the comfort and 
 pleasure of those in his charge, and a commendation 
 of Raymond Excursion arrangements in general and 
 this one in every particular. A resolution of thanks 
 to Landlord Tyler for the handsome manner in which 
 we were entertained was also adopted. On the same 
 occasion a little purse of gold was presented Mrs. 
 Holden as a testimonial of our appreciation of her 
 
1 62 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 uniform kindness and ever ready and cheerful help- 
 fulness to all members of the party. 
 
 We left Tacoma the following morning to return 
 to Portland, carrying only happy, joyous memories 
 of our stay here, in spite of unpropitious weather (it 
 was only on the morning of our departure that we 
 had a full view of Mt. Tacoma), and we are sure that 
 for our happiness we are largely indebted to the efforts 
 of the man who " knows how to keep a hotel." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY. SALEM. THE MIDDLE 
 
 COLUMBIA. 
 
 ON the morning of June 29 we took train on the 
 Oregon & California Railroad at East Portland 
 for a trip up the Willamette valley. This valley is 
 the oldest settled portion of Oregon and is famous 
 for its fertility and beauty. Wheat is the leading 
 crop, and is produced not only in abundant quantity 
 year after year on the same soil, but it is so superior 
 in quality as to command a higher price than almost 
 any other. 
 
 The Willamette valley has an average width of 
 about fifty miles between the Cascade and Coast 
 ranges, and extends one hundred and fifty miles 
 southward from the Columbia river. There is a rail- 
 road on each side of the river through this valley, 
 but our destination is Salem, the capital of the state, 
 and we take the east side. For the first eighteen 
 miles our road is near the bank of the stream, till we 
 reach the Willamette Falls at Oregon City. These 
 falls are justly famed for their beauty. The vertical 
 fall is only about thirty feet, but, including the rapids 
 above and below, the descent is one hundred feet. 
 Here is water-power enough, as some one expressed 
 
164 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 it, " to turn the mills of the gods." There are locks 
 at the falls so as to admit of navigation to the Upper 
 Willamette. Oregon City is pleasantly situated, has 
 some two thousand inhabitants, a large woolen-mill, 
 two flour-mills and a saw-mill. 
 
 Above the falls the river and railroad part company, 
 and we do not see the stream again till we get to Salem, 
 fifty-three miles from Portland. A large portion 
 of the valley through which we pass is level prairie, 
 and there are no towns of any importance between 
 Oregon City and Salem, and we miss the frequent 
 farm-houses that we should naturally expect to see 
 in so fertile a country. It seems a pity that farms 
 should be on so large a scale as to make agricultural 
 neighborhoods impossible. The large fields of ripen- 
 ing grain are a pleasant sight. No corn is grown 
 here, the nights being too cool for that heat-loving 
 plant. Both ranges of mountains are visible from 
 the train, and we get views of Mts. Hood, St. Helen's, 
 Tacoma, Jefferson and Adams on the way. Our train 
 carried us as far as Albany, some twenty miles from 
 Salem, but we made no stay there. 
 
 Salem, the capital city of Oregon, was founded in 
 1842, and was first called Chemeketa, from the name 
 of a tribe of Indians who once had their village 
 near its site, the word meaning "place of rest." 
 The nanie was changed through the .influence of a 
 gentleman from Salem, Mass. The town . is pleas- 
 antly situated on the east bank .of the Willamette, 
 
SALEM. 165 
 
 near the point where Mill creek unites with the river. 
 This creek affords a superior water-power which is 
 utilized by flouring-mills, saw and grist mills, a woolen 
 mill and other manufacturing industries. The site 
 of the town is, for the most part, a level prairie ; the 
 streets broad, clean and beautifully shaded with maple 
 and locust trees, the houses having a tidy, respectable, 
 "well-to-do" appearance. The state capitol, which 
 was begun in 1873, * s not vet completed, but has 
 already cost $230,000. It will be an elegant structure 
 when finished. The view from the roof of the capitol 
 is very fine, including the mountains in the distance, 
 the nearer wheat-clad hills, forests and farms, the 
 broad, curving Willamette, the state penitentiary and 
 elegant new insane asylum just outside the city limits, 
 and the city itself at our feet. By the courtesy of the 
 assistant secretary of state we were shown some of 
 the curiosities in the state archives. Among these 
 were the medal presented by the merchants of Boston 
 to Capt. Robert Gray, the commander of the first 
 ship that ever ascended the Columbia river, and the 
 tomahawk with which Dr. Whitman, the Methodist 
 missionary, was killed. 
 
 The Methodists are the leading denomination in 
 Oregon, and the Willamette University in Salem, a 
 very flourishing educational institution, is under their 
 auspices. There are eleven churches in Salem, which 
 is a pretty liberal allowance for a town of six thousand 
 inhabitants. The court-house is a handsome build- 
 
1 66 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 ing, one of the finest on the Pacific coast. The 
 Chemeketa Hotel, where we found an excellent dinner, 
 cost $150,000, and is probably the largest in Oregon. 
 Several citizens came to meet the "party from the 
 East," and put us under obligations for kindly 
 courtesies. 
 
 The Willamette valley is truly a favored land. It 
 is said that the crops there never fail. If the winter 
 rains are less abundant than usual so as to endanger 
 the crops by a summer drought, Providence kindly 
 permits a fire to be started in the woods, by which 
 the air is filled with smoke, and thus the scorching 
 rays of the sun are excluded, and Earth yields her 
 increase in the regular way. 
 
 Tuesday morning, July i, we started on our home- 
 ward journey from Portland, taking the steamer Dixi 
 Thompson for the voyage up the Columbia river as 
 far as the Cascades. A few miles above the junction 
 of the Willamette we reach Vancouver, a very pretty 
 village on the Washington shore, where was formerly 
 Fort Vancouver, and where is now an important mili- 
 tary post. Two ladies of our party were left here, 
 the guests of Gen. Miles, commander of the Depart- 
 ment of the Columbia. 
 
 A dozen miles farther on is another small town, 
 Washougal. The river is twenty feet higher than 
 usual and the banks are in some places overflowed. 
 A barn near Washougal appears to be a good many 
 yards from land. Up to this point the shores are 
 
THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 167 
 
 low or gradually sloping, particularly the north bank, 
 but we are now approaching the heart of the Cascade 
 Range and scenery which has no counterpart in the 
 known world. The shores become precipitous and 
 often rise to a great height. There are several water- 
 falls on the south side. The Multnomah in two 
 plunges falls eight hundred feet. The Oneonta, 
 another beautiful fall, is nearly as high. There are 
 curious rock formations along the shores. Rooster 
 Rock projects from the south bank, a tall pillar, 
 several hundred feet in height, a gigantic perch for a 
 giant chanticleer. Perhaps the most remarkable of 
 these rocks is Cape Horn, on the north bank. The 
 mountain extends out into the water forming a prom- 
 ontory, the almost vertical walls of which rise in 
 fluted columns several hundred feet, with conical 
 summits. These walls are basaltic rock, the brown- 
 ish red coloring being particularly pleasing to the 
 eye. In some places the rocks are gay with a covering 
 of tiny flowers growing from the crevices. On the 
 same side of the river as Cape Horn, a prominent 
 object for a long distance is Castle Rock, an isolated 
 mountain rising from the water one thousand feet 
 in height. 
 
 The scenery is constantly changing, new objects 
 of interest being continually brought to view, and 
 there is no rest for the eyes. Occasionally trains on 
 the Oregon & Navigation Company's Railroad are 
 seen creeping along the narrow shelf of shore on the 
 
1 68 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Oregon side, or plunging into the numerous tunnels 
 through the rocks where no other pathway could be 
 found. In some places the workmen who did the 
 blasting for the railroad had to be let down from the 
 top of the cliff with ropes. 
 
 A short distance above Castle Rock, sixty-two miles 
 from Portland, we reach the Cascades, where we dis- 
 embark and take train on a narrow-gauge track for a 
 portage of six miles around the rapids. The moun- 
 tains take their name from these cascades, which 
 resemble somewhat the rapids above Niagara Falls, 
 the water rushing over its bed with tremendous force. 
 The government has commenced the building of a 
 canal and locks around the Cascades. There are 
 two series of rapids called the Upper and Lower Casr 
 cades, the former being the most tumultuous. Having 
 passed the Upper Cascades we embark on the Harvest 
 Queen for the remainder of the voyage up the river 
 to the Dalles, this part of the course being what is 
 generally termed the Middle Columbia. The scenery, 
 although differing somewhat from that below the 
 Cascades, continues unique and remarkably pictur- 
 esque. The rock formations are altogether wonderful. 
 Sometimes the banks are terraced slopes with from 
 three to five terraces of an apparent equal height, of 
 from fifty to a hundred feet. Sometimes there are 
 palisades resembling those on the Hudson. There 
 are rocks formed like church towers, others are pinna- 
 cles, or huge cones. In some places the bases of 
 
THE MIDDLE COLUMBIA. 169 
 
 these rocks are worn by the action of the water into 
 caves and grottoes of fantastic forms. Some of the 
 rocks rise a thousand feet in height, and everywhere 
 there is a beautiful coloring peculiar to this scenery. 
 Geologists say that nowhere else in the world are there 
 so wonderful specimens of igneous rock as are seen 
 in this furrow through the Cascade Range. There 
 is said to be a sliding mountain about three miles 
 from the Upper Cascades. This mountain, of basalt, 
 rests upon a bed of conglomerate with sandstone 
 substratum, and as the river wears away the bed, the 
 mass trends downward towards the stream. Two 
 streams flow into the Columbia between the Cascades 
 and the Dalles, Hood river on the south side, which 
 has its source in the perennial snows of Mt. Hood, 
 and the White Salmon river, which rises in the melt- 
 ing snows of Mt. Adams on the north. 
 
 It was about five o'clock when we reached Dalles 
 City, the distance from Portland being one hundred 
 and ten miles. The weather, except in the morning 
 when the sky was overcast, was beautiful, leaving 
 nothing to be desired. Not a mile of the voyage but 
 had its own distinctive charm. The scenery, if less 
 picturesquely beautiful than that of Puget Sound, was 
 unique and wonderful, with a loveliness all its own, 
 and the day was one of such thorough delightfulness 
 it was with a sigh of regret that we prepared to leave 
 the boat to resume our journey by rail. 
 12 
 
1 70 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 At Dalles City is the first opening of the mountains 
 sufficient for a town, for at least seventy-five miles 
 of our course. The city is delightfully situated just 
 below the Great Dalles of the Columbia river. Mts. 
 Hood and Adams are both visible from the town and 
 in all directions the views must be very charming. 
 The Dalles is a narrow gorge in the basaltic rock 
 about a mile and a half in length, the narrowest part 
 only sixty feet in width, through which the whole 
 volume of the river forces its way. So deep is the 
 water here and it rushes through with so much force 
 that it seems to be pushed up sideways, if I may so 
 express it, or like the Niagara river at the Whirlpool 
 Rapids. 
 
 The wind was blowing almost a gale at Dalles City 
 when we arrived, and clouds of dust were flying, so 
 that few cared to go about the streets during the half 
 hour we waited for the train to start. We follow the 
 bank of the stream till we reach Wallula Junction, 
 where we take the Northern Pacific road. The face 
 of the country is entirely changed. From the Dalles 
 the banks of the river are low, and bristling with 
 black fragments of lava rock. The sand is heaped 
 in huge piles like snow-drifts for miles and miles, and 
 if we venture on the car-platform our eyes and ears 
 are filled with the flying sand. We get occasional 
 glimpses of Mt. Hood, no longer seen toward the 
 east, but fast receding with the setting sun, and, spite 
 of wind and dust, we watch for the glorious peak 
 
THE LAST LOOK. 1 71 
 
 from the rear platform, sad in the thought that when 
 darkness closes in we shall have looked for the last 
 time upon its majestic form. Farewell, beautiful 
 snow-clad heights ! Though I may never see you 
 more with mortal vision, ye are indelibly photo- 
 graphed on memory's tablets, perennial as your own 
 eternal snows. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ON THE NORTHERN PACIFIC AND UTAH & NORTHERN 
 RAILROADS. BUTTE CITY. 
 
 WHEN we arose Wednesday morning, July 2, 
 we found ourselves close to the shore of Lake 
 Colville, a placid sheet of water with reedy banks, 
 which lay along our course for eight miles. Two 
 miles farther ,on we reach Sprague, W. T., the 
 headquarters of the Pend d'Oreille Division of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. During the night we 
 had passed through an almost desert region, the 
 road having been built, since leaving the banks of 
 the Columbia, through dried-up water-courses or 
 coulees, as they are termed. Sprague has a popu- 
 lation of ten or twelve hundred people where in 
 1 88 1 not a house existed. The railroad-shops fur- 
 nish the main business, while the surrounding country 
 comes here for supplies. Twenty-five miles east of 
 Sprague is Cheney, a town named in honor of B. P. 
 Cheney of Boston. An academy here, which has 
 two hundred pupils, was the gift of that gentleman. 
 Spokane Falls, the next town reached, is a thriv- 
 ing place antedating the railroad, whose magnificent 
 water-power is utilized in operating flour-mills, saw- 
 mills and other factories. The falls are but a short 
 
i 
 
 174 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 distance from the station, and our train stopped 
 long enough for us to go to see them. The Spokane 
 river, which here makes a descent of one hundred and 
 sixty feet in a series of falls, is the outlet of Lake Coeur 
 d'Alene (a large sheet of water to the southeast) 
 and is tributary to the Columbia. The rock form- 
 ation is all basaltic or volcanic here, and ragged, 
 rocky islands, their purplish brown color in agreeable 
 contrast to the white foam of the cataract, divide the 
 falling waters into several streams which dash madly 
 down their rocky beds, then, reunited, the rushing 
 torrent makes a final plunge of sixty-five feet, be-, 
 tween the high and rock-bound shores. It is a 
 beautiful fall and the surrounding scenery is very 
 pleasing. A few miles north of here are the famous 
 " Medical Lakes," celebrated for their cure of rheu- 
 matism and kindred diseases. Nineteen miles east of 
 Spokane we reach the boundary line of Idaho. This 
 territory is but a narrow strip in its northern portion, 
 seventy-eight miles in width, but abounds in pictur- 
 esque and beautiful scenery. A portion of the way 
 we pass through forests of tall pines and firs, not as 
 large as those in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade 
 mountains, but scarcely less lofty in height. Many 
 charred and blackened trunks mark the devastation 
 of forest fires. We are in the Coeur d'Alene Moun- 
 tain region, the discovery of whose mines caused 
 great excitement last year. 
 
 Those who have traced out the course of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad on the map will have 
 
LAKE PEND D OREILLE. 175 
 
 observed, about midway between the east and west 
 'boundaries of northern Idaho, a body of water bear- 
 ing the name of Lake Pend d'Oreille. Why it was 
 called an "Ear-drop" I am unable to ascertain 
 possibly there was a fancied resemblance in form to 
 a lady's ear-jewel as outlined on the map. The lake 
 is sixty miles long and about fifteen miles wide, and 
 the railroad makes quite a detour to the northward 
 to pass around it, keeping along its shores for several 
 miles, affording the traveler visions of marvelous 
 beauty and grandeur, scarcely to be surpassed by any 
 lake scenery in the world. Yes, here in the heart of 
 these Cceur d'Alene hills, nestling close up to the 
 mountain walls, there lies a beautiful gem, in the 
 light of whose peerless setting even our own Winni- 
 pesaukee pales and the luster of Lake George is 
 dimmed. The shores of Lake George are in some 
 portions equally bold, but here the expanse of water 
 is much greater, and the mountain walls are loftier 
 and extend, peak beyond peak, for many miles, blue 
 as the sky in the far distance, opening up lovely vis- 
 tas which disappear all too soon as our train speeds 
 along. Then the solitude of the lake gives it an 
 additional charm for me. No villages, no summer 
 cottages, no "'camp-grounds" disturb the repose of 
 these timber-fringed shores, and the only living ob- 
 jects we saw were a couple of Indians paddling along 
 the glassy surface in a bark canoe. A steamboat has 
 been put upon the lake, but it is not now in use. 
 
I 76 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Clarke's Fork of the Columbia river passes through 
 Lake Pend d'Oreille, and the railroad crosses the 
 head of the lake at the mouth of the river on a 
 trestle more than a mile in length. 
 
 Our road lies along Clarke's Fork now for a long 
 distance, through a country of wild and beautiful 
 scenery, but there are very few settlements as yet. 
 There are numerous Chinese graves with their little 
 wooden inclosures all along the wayside. It is said 
 that five thousand of these Celestials perished during 
 the construction of the road. We cross the bound- 
 ary line of Idaho and Montana near Clarke's Fork 
 Station. Montana seems to be the wonderland of 
 the continent. Little considered until recently, ex- 
 cept as to its mines, it is now known to be not only 
 rich in mineral treasures, but to possess the more 
 enduring wealth of innumerable valleys of unsur- 
 passed fertility, vast forest tracts of the finest timber, 
 immense grazing lands in the mountain districts, two 
 thousand miles of navigable waters, and some of the 
 grandest and most beautiful natural scenery. The 
 abundant streams and waterfalls render irrigation 
 practicable and easy almost everywhere. The two 
 great rivers of the continent, one finding its way to 
 the Atlantic and the other to the Pacific, have their 
 sources in this territory so near together that the 
 Missouri and the Columbia may almost be said to 
 have been born twins. 
 
 At Thompson's Falls on Thompson river, a tribu- 
 tary of Clarke's Fork, the scenery is very picturesque. 
 
PARADISE VALLEY. 177 
 
 The mountains form a vast amphitheatre with a glory 
 of green and purple and blue coloring in the after- 
 noon light, the waters of the river dash madly along 
 their rocky bed, and we just get a glimpse of the 
 foaming waterfall through the trees as we approach 
 the station. A few miles from Thompson's we reach 
 Horse Plains, a circular valley surrounded by precip- 
 itous mountains. The Flathead Indian Reservation 
 extends northward from here along the Pend d'Oreille 
 and Jocko rivers for sixty miles, and numerous 
 wigwams of this tribe were pitched on the plains near 
 the railroad. Twenty-eight miles from Thompson's 
 we reach Paradise Valley. I know of but one reason 
 for considering this appellation a misnomer : mosqui- 
 toes do not belong in Paradise, and here the air was 
 black with them. A few thousand of these, of ordi- 
 nary voracity, could not have driven me from my seat 
 on the rear platform ; but when they came in myriads, 
 with appetites sharpened by long fasting, and all 
 joining in the chorus of 
 
 Fe, fi, fo, fum, 
 
 I smell the blood of Yankees yum ! 
 
 there was too much "yum" for me, and I beat a 
 hasty retreat. The sun had now set and daylight 
 soon gave place to moonlight. About ten o'clock 
 we enter the famous Coriacan Defile and cross the 
 Marent Gulch on a trestle eight hundred and sixty- 
 six feet long and two hundred and twenty-six feet 
 high. "Jacob's Ladder," on Mt. Washington, 
 
I 78 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 dwindles besides these figures. Missoula, the county 
 seat of Missoula county, a rapidly growing town of 
 about a thousand inhabitants, we reach about n 
 p. M., and when we awaken next morning are rest- 
 ing at Garrison, seventy-two miles farther on, or 
 rather at Blackfoot Junction, a mile east of Garrison, 
 at the junction of the Utah & Northern with the 
 Northern Pacific road. This was the end of our 
 journey on the latter road. The whole of it, from 
 Spokane Falls in the early morning till we left Para- 
 dise Valley and entered into darkness, was of exceed- 
 ing interest and pleasure. The weather was perfect 
 and the scenery beautiful and constantly varying. 
 
 We found the depot platform covered with hoar 
 frost as we left the Northern Pacific cars and entered 
 a special train on the narrow-gauge Utah & North- 
 ern, bound for Ogden on the Union Pacific, four 
 hundred and fifty-four miles to the southward . 
 
 Deer Lodge is a flourishing mining town, eleven 
 miles from Garrison, in the beautiful Deer Lodge 
 valley, having a population of fifteen hundred. This 
 town and valley take their name from the abundance 
 of deer that formerly roamed these feeding grounds, 
 and from the existence of a geyser cone, or mound, 
 shaped like an Indian wigwam or lodge, from the 
 summit of which issues a boiling mineral spring ; the 
 steam from this spring resembles the smoke that 
 curls from an Indian lodge, completing the simi- 
 larity. The mound, which is thirty feet high and 
 
DEER LODGE VALLEY. 179 
 
 fifty feet in diameter at the base, is in plain view 
 from the railroad, and but a few miles from the 
 village. A hotel, bath-houses, insane asylum and 
 other buildings are near by. Several other hot 
 springs issue from the ground near the base of the 
 mound. There is an interesting Indian legend con- 
 nected with this elevated spring. The pyramid is 
 said to have sprung up in a single night. Two 
 braves loved the same dusky maiden and fought a 
 duel here on her account. The favored one was 
 defeated and thrown to the bottom of the cavity ; 
 whereupon the maiden sent up a heart-broken prayer 
 to the Great Spirit for a mound to cover her slain 
 lover, and the next morning this pyramid was 
 revealed ; and " not all the lariats of the tribe tied 
 together could reach the bottom of the seething 
 waters. ' ' 
 
 Deer Lodge valley is apparently from ten to 
 twenty miles in width, inclosed by mountain ranges 
 on either hand, and extends southward for fifty 
 miles. Powell Mountain, twenty miles west f Deer 
 Lodge City, the most prominent object in the land- 
 scape, is ten thousand feet in height. The valley is 
 green and fertile, and mainly devoted to grazing. 
 We are so accustomed to think of this part of the 
 country as a cold northern clime, we can hardly 
 realize that Deer Lodge is on exactly the same par- 
 allel of latitude as Venice and the "Bridge of 
 Sighs; " but its altitude nearly four thousand feet 
 
l8o A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 above the sea accounts for July frosts, though it is 
 said the mean annual temperature of this village is 
 four degrees warmer than that of New Hampshire, 
 and cattle thrive here without shelter the year round. 
 It is claimed that the "Chinook," or warm wind 
 from the Japan equatorial current, does not spend its 
 force west of the Cascades, but sweeps eastward to 
 the Rockies, modifying the climate and melting 
 the snows. 
 
 At Silver Bow, thirty-three miles south of Deer 
 Lodge, and one thousand feet higher, we take a branch 
 road of seven miles to visit Butte City, the chief 
 mining town in Montana, and location of the most 
 prolific copper mines in the world. The site of Butte 
 is pretty well up on the hill-sides, about five thousand 
 five hundred feet above the sea, and we had a carriage 
 ride of a mile or more from the station before we 
 reached the town. After doing justice to an excellent 
 breakfast at one of the Butte hotels, for which our 
 ride of fifty miles since rising had amply prepared 
 us, we scattered about to visit some of the various 
 mines. The mines here are rich in silver and copper 
 as well as gold. The Anaconda mine, whose ore is 
 chiefly copper, is said to produce annually half the 
 total yield of copper in the vorld. Joining a party 
 which drifted first to the Colusa copper mine, we 
 were shown by the courteous superintendent all about 
 the works, crushing, smelting, etc., and some of us 
 went down the shaft into the mine. First donning 
 
IN A COPPER MINE. l8l 
 
 miners' waterproof coats and caps, we are so disguised 
 we scarcely know each other, then, clinging close 
 together on the small platform, at the word we plunge 
 quickly into the darkness, down, down through four 
 hundred feet of solid blackness. At the bottom, armed 
 with tallow dips, we thread our way taking heed to 
 our steps lest we get into the water through the tun- 
 nels, while our guide talks about veins, and seams, and 
 ores, and rich leads, and levels, and chutes, and free- 
 milling, and copper glance, and concentrating ore, 
 and galena, and shafts, and so on, till we become 
 very wise indeed. 
 
 There are at present two levels in this mine, with 
 nineteen hundred feet of horizontal excavations, 
 and a shaft is being sunk two hundred feet lower, 
 when other horizontal excavations will be made. 
 These tunnels are about eight or ten feet high and 
 four feet wide, and a railroad track runs through them 
 for the passage of the cars upon which the ore is 
 loaded. A steam-engine on the lower level is con- 
 stantly pumping out the water which trickles from the 
 various excavations, as well as furnishing power to 
 convey the ore to the surface. Following the ore to 
 the smelting-works we see that which is of low grade 
 first "roasted" in piles on the ground to expel the 
 sulphur before being smelted in the furnace ; other 
 ore which is largely mixed with quartz is crushed fine 
 in the mill, then the ore and rock separated by the 
 action of the water. This ore, as well as that which 
 
1 82 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 comes through the furnace, is bagged and sent to 
 Swansea, in Wales, to be refined. The best quality 
 of ore is sent there in its crude state. 
 
 I don't know how many mines there are in Butte, 
 but their name is Legion. The Alice, one of the 
 most valuable of the silver mines, was visited by many 
 of our party. It is said the yield of all the Butte 
 mines in 1883 was not less than ten million dollars. 
 There are placer gold-diggings near Butte, and until 
 1877 the place was only a small mining camp. Since 
 then it has grown with great rapidity and there are 
 now some very good buildings, a nice court-house, 
 several churches, stores, a better filled bookstore than 
 can be found in the East outside the large cities, good 
 hotels, and other attributes of a rising town. The 
 high altitude of this town gives it a very commanding 
 prospect of extensive mountain scenery, but the wind 
 blew and the sand was flying in clouds while we were 
 there, a condition of things not conducive to the 
 enjoyment of the landscape. Preparations for the 
 "Fourth" were in progress, rows of little spruce 
 trees brought from the mountains being arranged 
 along the edge of the sidewalks to simulate the 
 adornment of shade trees, since the growing article 
 was impossible. 
 
 Leaving Butte about 5 p. M., we returned to Silver 
 Bow and resumed our train to Ogden. Not far from 
 Silver Bow we pass over to the eastern slope of the 
 Rocky Mountains at a height of five thousand nine 
 
A GOOD-BYE. 183 
 
 hundred feet, and descend through Big Hole Canon 
 amid grand and impressive scenery. We take supper 
 at Melrose about sunset, and when we reach Dillon, 
 one hundred and six miles south of Garrison, we bid 
 good-bye to fourteen of our party, whom we are to 
 leave during the night at Beaver Canon whence they 
 take stages for the Yellowstone National Park. A 
 circus was in full blast under a canvas near the station, 
 but Comrade Bloomer's fireworks, touched off as a 
 valediction while our train waited at the station, made 
 a pretty lively circus, too, and an appropriate prelude 
 to the celebration of the "Glorious Fourth." 
 
 During the night, sixty-four miles beyond Dillon, 
 we pass to the Pacific slope of the Rocky. Mountains 
 again, at an elevation of six thousand eight hundred 
 feet, and again enter Idaho Territory. The Indian 
 word " I-dah-ho " means "the mountain where the 
 sunrises," and our " I-dah-ho " on the morning of 
 the Nation's Anniversary is at Eagle Rock, where we 
 cross the Snake river, the same stream that we crossed 
 on the Northern Pacific seven hundred and twenty- 
 eight miles away. Lodges of the Shoshone Indians 
 are pitched near here. We keep along the bank of 
 the Snake till we reach Pocatello, where we breakfast, 
 and then ascend the winding valley of the Port Neuf. 
 There are patches of snow gleaming in the sunlight 
 on the mountains, and although for awhile our course 
 is along a sage-bush plain, the mountains are ever 
 in view, drawing our gaze and thoughts upward. 
 
184 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Seventy-seven miles north of Ogden we enter Utah 
 Territory at Franklin, the entrance to the fanlous 
 Cache valley with an elevation of four thousand five 
 hundred feet above the sea. This valley is a most 
 wonderful wheat-producing country. The mountain 
 walls rise abruptly without foot-hills on the eastern 
 side of the valley, three thousand feet above it, an 
 almost unbroken range fifty miles in length, while the 
 valley is nearly level. Numerous streams have their 
 sources in these mountains, rendering irrigation easy 
 and practicable all over the valley, which averages a 
 dozen miles in width, in one portion considerably 
 wider than this. The Bear river is the most impor- 
 tant stream. Logan is a leading Mormon town at 
 the entrance of the widest portion of the valley, and 
 scattered along at intervals of three or four miles 
 there are eight other towns, all in full view of the 
 railroad at the same time. The road marks the course 
 of the letter S in going through this valley, passing 
 out over the lower hills at the southwest. 
 
 We reached Ogden about 5 P. M., getting occa- 
 sional glimpses of the Great Salt Lake after leaving 
 the Cache valley, and fine views of the Wahsatch 
 Mountains, speckled with bright patches of snow. 
 Here we change cars for the Utah Central road, which 
 takes us to Salt Lake City, thirty-seven miles distant, 
 where we shall rest among the " Latter-Day Saints." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SALT LAKE CITY. 
 
 TT^HILE waiting for the departure of the train 
 y V from Ogden, our tedium was relieved and the 
 patriotic spirit which was our birthright given expres- 
 sion in the inspiring strains of "Yankee Doodle," 
 performed at the request of some of our party by a 
 band which had accompanied an excursion hither 
 from Salt Lake. We never could realize before 
 what a big, grand country this is whose birthday was 
 being celebrated. The route from Ogden to Salt 
 Lake City, thirty-seven miles, is full of interest, a 
 picturesque landscape, with fertile valleys and flowing 
 streams, broad plains, glimpses of the Great Salt 
 Lake, orchards and gardens and pleasant little Mor- 
 mon settlements where the children Utah's most 
 prolific crop crowd around the train with baskets 
 of berries and cherries for sale, and everywhere the 
 mountains rising up grandly in the background, 
 their summits speckled with snowy patches gleaming 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 We arrived at Salt Lake City just before sunset 
 and were transferred to the Continental Hotel (a 
 " Gentile" institution), whose shady yard and cool- 
 looking piazza were very inviting. We had heard 
 
 13 
 
1 86 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 that this city of Zion had been made to blossom as 
 the rose where once was only a sage-bush plain, and 
 we found it literally true. Admirably situated in a 
 basin over four thousand feet above the sea, on a 
 gentle incline sloping away to the southwest, the 
 lowest portion of the city but fifty feet higher than 
 the lake a dozen miles distant, shut in on the east 
 and north by the Wahsatch Mountains which rise 
 abruptly without the intervention of foot-hills, while 
 the Oquirrh range rising from the lake shores bounds 
 the horizon on the south and west, it is protected 
 from extremes of heat and cold and affords the best 
 possible conditions for irrigation from the abundant 
 streams which have their sources in the canons of the 
 Wahsatch. These streams are brought down through 
 all the streets in crystal rills, making green and 
 beautiful where else would be only a barren desert. 
 Rows of shade trees, chiefly locusts and cotton- 
 woods, adorn every street, and grassy lawns and 
 fruit and flower gardens abound. The streets are 
 one hundred and twenty feet broad, and the city is 
 laid out in squares of ten acres each. One not 
 familiar with these magnificent distances is liable to 
 be beguiled, as I was, into walking " five blocks " to 
 see the fireworks, only to find that five blocks meant 
 nearly a mile. 
 
 The Mormon church buildings, the Tabernacle, 
 the Endowment House, the new Assembly building 
 and the unfinished Temple, are all in one square, 
 
THE MORMON TABERNACLE. 187 
 
 which is inclosed by an adobe wall. Most reader s 
 are familiar with pictures of the Tabernacle with its 
 curious oval shape and circular roof, the largest roof 
 in the world made in this form ; yet neither from the 
 pictures nor from an exterior view of the building 
 itself would one guess that it is seventy feet high. 
 It is said to have seating capacity for twelve thou- 
 sand people, but I should think half that number 
 would be nearer the fact. As we were shown about 
 the building, observing several cisterns or barrels of 
 water in different places near the platform where the 
 elders sit, one of the visitors inquired if the water 
 was a precaution in case of fire. "No, -we use that 
 water for the communion. We believe pure water 
 is better than impure wine for the sacraments," was 
 the janitor's reply. He might have added "and 
 cheaper," for when it is considered that the sacra- 
 ments are administered every Sunday to every man, 
 woman and child in the congregation, the item of 
 expense ; if wine were used, would be no insignificant 
 one. The next day being Sunday, we had an oppor- 
 tunity to see this water circulated in tankards along 
 with the communion bread while the preaching was 
 going on, and also " passed around " in tin cups by 
 girls # and boys to the thirsty crowd, in the same 
 manner that the little girls in the country school- 
 houses all over New England are accustomed to 
 "pass the water" to their thirsty mates. Kate 
 Field, who spent several months here last winter and 
 
1 88 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 spring to study the Mormon question, gives an 
 amusing account of her experience at the annual 
 meeting of the Mormon church which was held here 
 in April. Knowing there would be a great crowd 
 she took a camp-stool along with her, but could find 
 no place to locate it except on the platform close 
 to one of these water-casks, and so had to devote 
 the most of her time during the meeting to ladling 
 out the fluid for the little girl who "passed round 
 the water." 
 
 The Mormon Temple, whose corner-stone was 
 laid in 1853, has its walls up one hundred feet, the 
 full height designed, but the towers, which were 
 to be two hundred feet high, and the roof are 
 untouched. The building is two hundred feet long 
 and one hundred feet wide, and has already cost 
 nearly $1,700,000. The walls are built of huge 
 blocks of granite, those at the base being seven feet 
 nine inches in thickness. This granite is quarried 
 about twenty miles from here, and the new Assembly 
 building, which is a handsome gothic structure, was 
 built of the refuse blocks of the Temple granite. 
 It will seat twenty-five hundred people, and cost 
 $150,000. 
 
 On the opposite side of the street from the church 
 building is the tithing-house, where the faithful go to 
 pay one-tenth of all they produce or earn into "the 
 church" treasury. "What if you should refuse to 
 pay the tithes?" asked one of a street-car con- 
 
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S GRAVE. 189 
 
 ductor. "Then I should lose my situation," was 
 the reply. 
 
 Farther along the street are the " Lion house," so 
 called from the lion effigies that guard the entrance, 
 the "Bee-Hive house," with bee-hive upon the roof 
 and spread eagle surmounting the arched gateway, 
 dwellings formerly occupied, by Brigham Young and 
 some of his numerous wives, and the "Amelia 
 Palace" opposite, built for the favorite wife, Amelia 
 Folsom, but never inhabited by her, now the resi- 
 dence of President Taylor. Several blocks farther 
 up the street, a large square was laid out by Brigham 
 Young for a family cemetery and surrounded by an 
 edge-stone, and here several of his wives and 
 children were buried; but their bodies have been 
 removed, some before and some since his death, he 
 having directed, it is said, that only his first wife 
 should be buried there with him ; and so there repose 
 in one corner of the yard, in a vault forty feet deep, 
 surrounded by an iron fence, the mortal remains 
 of the Mormon prophet, and beside him, just out- 
 side the iron inclosure, the grave of his only lawful 
 wife, who died a year or two since. The only other 
 grave now in the cemetery is that of a son of Presi- 
 dent Taylor, it having been set apart for the burial- 
 place of the high church officials. 
 
 "Holiness to the Lord, Zion's Cooperative Mer- 
 cantile Institution," is the sign over a mammoth 
 building one hundred feet wide, three hundred and 
 
190 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 twenty feet deep, and three stories in height, where 
 every class and kind of goods is sold, the annual 
 sales amounting to five or six million dollars. Many 
 Mormon laborers are paid in part in scrip redeem- 
 able in goods at this store, so that they are perforce 
 compelled to trade there. The Walker Brothers 
 (four of them), the richest men in Utah, owners of 
 the Alice silver mine at Butte City and other mining 
 interests, as well as an immense amount of property 
 in the city, have also a large dry-goods store. These 
 Walkers were once Mormons, but apostatized, the 
 uncharitable say because they were unwilling to pay 
 tithes after they got rich. 
 
 Sunday morning the Tabernacle was filled on the 
 occasion of the funeral of George O. Caulder, an 
 apostle and member of the Mormon High Council e 
 After the preliminary prayer and singing, Caulder's 
 associates in the council each spoke words of eulogy 
 of the deceased, and then George Q. Cannon 
 preached the funeral sermon. He first read a chapter 
 from the Book of Mormon upon the resurrection, a 
 weak, wishy-washy attempted imitation of the Scrip- 
 tural style, and then, after eulogizing the deceased, 
 explained that the faithful at death at once entered 
 into a state of peace and rest and joyful anticipation, 
 free from all harm until the Resurrection, while the 
 wicked would still be subject to the wiles and snares 
 of Satan until the Judgment day. 
 
 Cannon speaks easily and has a fair delivery, and 
 with the exception of that which related to the 
 
A MORMON CONGREGATION. 191 
 
 peculiar Mormon views of the resurrection, what he 
 said would have passed without criticism in almost 
 any pulpit. 
 
 In the afternoon were the regular Sunday services 
 in the Tabernacle. It was interesting to look at a 
 Mormon audience. Nearly all foreigners, one may 
 here see representatives of almost every race except 
 the Irish. Many English and Scotch are here, but 
 the Romish church holds the Irish in too close a grip 
 for Mormon proselyters. Few had faces indicative 
 of much intelligence, but the mass were undoubtedly 
 a credulous, sincere, honest class, believing all that 
 was taught them without questioning, and having no 
 thought but of implicit obedience to the decrees of 
 the church rulers. One woman in front of me, with 
 a good, motherly face, watched every word that fell 
 from the speaker as if it were the voice of inspiration ; 
 sometimes anticipating his word, his utterance was 
 slow, her lips formed it before the preacher pro- 
 nounced it. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking thing about a Mormon 
 audience is the number of children, of all ages, 
 including infants at the breast (literally). Occa- 
 sionally these infants would make an outcry, after the 
 infant fashion, and at such times it was amusing to 
 see the tall form of President Taylor his not un- 
 comely face framed in a setting of snow-white hair 
 and beard rise from behind his desk on the plat- 
 form one step higher than that of the preacher, where 
 with threatening attitude and sharp glance directed to 
 
192 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 the point whence the noise proceeded he would stand 
 till the mother succeeded in hushing the child or 
 escaped with it through one of the thirty doors that 
 open outwards from this Tabernacle. 
 
 The preacher in the afternoon was "Apostle" 
 Tisdale, undoubtedly one of the best speakers in the 
 Mormon church, and who was probably selected 
 because it was known that a party of eastern people 
 would be present. The discourse was an enunciation 
 of the tenets of the Mormon faith, claiming that the 
 "Latter-Day Saints " were the real apostolic successors 
 of Christ, the keys of his church having been lost 
 when Peter departed, and restored by Christ to the 
 Mormon prophet Joe Smith. The heavenly rewards 
 of those who are faithful were depicted in glowing 
 colors, and to make the poor better satisfied with 
 their condition, the preacher said he believed there 
 were special rewards in Heaven for those who were 
 denied the good things of this world. The Mormons 
 were represented as a maligned, persecuted people, 
 who dearly love the Constitution, but denounce 
 the "unconstitutional laws enacted by Congress." 
 ' ' When the laws of your country make polygamy a 
 crime, and your religion ordains it, what are you 
 going to do ? I can only say I dare not disobey the 
 commands of God," was the way he handled the 
 polygamy question. 
 
 Although the hierarchy insists with more force than 
 ever, since the passage of the Edmunds bill, on the 
 practice of polygamy, shutting out every man from 
 
PLURAL WIVES. 193 
 
 holding office in the church who has not more than 
 one wife, they are more secret in contracting plural 
 marriages than formerly. It is a significant fact, 
 indicating the great extent to which polygamy is 
 practiced, that in the twenty-three hundred Mormon 
 families in Utah there are thirty-seven thousand chil- 
 dren under eight years of age. 
 
 In a two days' visit there is not much opportunity 
 for personal observation of the workings of the pe- 
 culiar institution, and if approached directly upon 
 the subject, as faithful Mormons the poor women, 
 who are the greatest sufferers by it, will admit nothing 
 against it. One of the tourists entered into conver- 
 sation with a Mormon mother in a street-car. The 
 woman was a Swiss, who had been here three years. 
 "Has your husband any more wives?" she was 
 asked. "Oh, no, he is too poor for that," was the 
 reply. " Do you think it is right for a man to have 
 more than one wife ? ' ' was the next question. < < Yes, 
 our religion says so," she answered. Then she told 
 how they were prospering in this new land, that they 
 put a little money in the savings-bank every month, 
 and hoped sometime to be able to have a little home 
 of their own. "Well, now," said her questioner, 
 " if your husband should prosper, so that by and 
 by he could afford to take another wife, should you 
 be willing to have him do so?" The woman hesi- 
 tated an instant, then replied, " I been in dis country 
 only tree year ; I no understand all English ! " 
 
 It seems to be the opinion of some of the best 
 
194 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 informed of the "Gentiles" that if Mormon immi- 
 gration were stopped, the institution would die out 
 in a generation or two. The new generation, with 
 better education and more intelligence than their 
 parents, are only nominally Mormons in most cases, 
 but to apostatize would bring upon them financial 
 ruin. 
 
 Among the factors likely to have an important 
 part in reducing the Mormon problem are the mis. 
 sion schools established by the New West Education 
 Commission, of which Isaac Huse, Jr., formerly of 
 Manchester, is a supervisor. There are twenty-six 
 of these schools in the territory, and the teachers 
 of the week-day schools also teach Sunday-schools 
 in the same buildings. It is somewhat remarkable 
 that the Mormons permit their children to attend 
 both. The mission schools are free, while the 
 Mormon schools are not, and they are immeasurably 
 better in every way, Mr. Huse says. It may be 
 that the parents suffer the children to go to Sunday- 
 school "to get them out of the way," as other 
 mothers of less numerous progeny have sometimes 
 been known to do. 
 
 No visitor to Salt Lake City should fail to take 
 the "bath train" and go out to Black Rock or 
 Garfield, on the shore of the lake eighteen miles 
 distant, and indulge in a bath in the waters of this 
 great dead sea, so salt that no fish live in it except a 
 small variety of shrimp. This water holds in solu- 
 tion twenty-five per cent of salt, so that four barrels 
 
BATHING IN SALT LAKE. 195 
 
 of water evaporated produce a barrel of salt. You 
 must take heed to your steps when you first enter 
 this water, else your feet will be thrown to the sur- 
 face like a cork. It is almost fatal to get the water 
 in the throat; the brine contracts the muscles so 
 quickly that strangulation ensues. But once in, noth- 
 ing is more delightful than a bath in this buoyant 
 element. You need a bath in fresh water when you 
 come out, however, or you will be covered with a 
 crust of salt. This place is quite a resort for invalids, 
 the tonic both of sea and mountain air being here 
 available. 
 
 The warm sulphur springs a mile and a half north 
 of the city are also a popular resort, being fitted up 
 with bath-houses, etc., and there are hot springs a 
 mile or two farther distant. Fort Douglas, where 
 the United States troops are stationed, is three miles 
 east of the city, pretty well up toward the base of 
 the mountain, and commands a superb view. 
 
 Apart from the interest centering in the peculiar 
 people, who, inspired by a zeal which overcomes all 
 obstacles, by the magic of patient toil have here 
 transformed the desert into a garden, there is much 
 to attract the traveler, both in the city and its 
 environs, and we departed on Monday morning with 
 intensified regret that so fair and beautiful a land 
 should be longer cursed by the superstition that 
 holds the mass of the people beneath the feet of the 
 hierarchy, and shames the civilization of the century 
 with its outrageous crimes in the name of religion. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 FINALLY. Bancroft Libraiy 
 
 THE country traversed by the Union Pacific Rail- 
 road has been so often written up that it would 
 be like repeating a ' ' twice told tale " if I should 
 attempt any description of it. Yet, though we had 
 been enjoying a constant succession of new scenes for 
 nearly ten weeks, embracing some of the grandest 
 and loveliest in the world, we still looked with un- 
 sated eyes upon the beautiful Weber Canon with its 
 wild and unexpected opening in the mountain walls 
 called "the Devil's Gate," through which rush the 
 swift waters of Weber river, and the strange and 
 unique geologic formation known as "the Devil's 
 Slide ; ' ' and the wonderful forms in Echo Cafion 
 the tall " Pulpit Rock," the forts and castles and 
 strange creature shapes wrought out by the action of 
 the weather on the red sandstone rocks had a fasci- 
 nating interest notwithstanding we had seen the won- 
 ders in the "Garden of the Gods," and had penetrated 
 the grandest canons in Colorado. Nor did we find 
 the boundless, grassy plains of Wyoming wearisome, 
 so like to that described by Tennyson, 
 
 " The plain was grassy, wild, and bare, 
 Wide, wild, and open to the air." 
 
198 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 This "air" was delightfully invigorating, like that 
 from the mountain tops, for we were from six thou- 
 sand to eight thousand feet above the sea, though no 
 mountains were visible except in the distance, and 
 we began to comprehend how delicate youths, who 
 come out here from the East to live upon a ranch, 
 grow strong and robust and gain health as well as 
 wealth while watching the herds that graze upon these 
 limitless plains. The long lines of cattle more than 
 a mile in extent, and troops of horses attended by 
 ranchmen and cow-boys, approaching the shore of 
 the Platte river were a novel and interesting sight. 
 Marking the highest point on the Union Pacific road, 
 eight thousand two hundred and forty-two feet above 
 the sea, is the monument erected to the memory of 
 Oakes and Oliver Ames at a cost of $50,000. It is 
 a pyramid of red granite blocks, with bronze medal- 
 lions of the two brothers on the east and west faces, 
 that of Oakes looking toward the Pacific and Oliver's 
 toward the Atlantic terminus. At North Platte, Neb., 
 where we took supper on the second day's journey 
 from Salt Lake City, we witnessed a magnificent 
 prairie sunset. Daylight next morning found us fast 
 approaching the beautiful and thriving city of Omaha, 
 where we spent most of the day. This place in its 
 beauty of situation, largely on the high bluffs over- 
 looking the Missouri river and a broad expanse of 
 country, was an agreeable surprise. Some of us also 
 visited Council Bluffs on the opposite side of the 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 199 
 
 river, which has a similar site. The high ground on 
 which its naturally beautiful park is located com- 
 mands a superb view. 
 
 It was about 5 P. M. when we resumed our jour- 
 ney, on over the rich rolling prairies and past the 
 magnificent corn-fields of Iowa, arriving in Chicago 
 about noon next day, the big, bustling, busy city 
 being gayer than usual with the display of flags and 
 bunting on account of the Democratic National 
 Convention in session here. It was a bright, beau- 
 tiful day, and the few hours spent in this ever fasci- 
 nating city were full of enjoyment. Taking train in 
 the evening on the Chicago & Grand Trunk road, 
 and passing over the same route as on the outward 
 trip, we made no further stops till we reached Boston 
 and Massachusetts Bay on Saturday, July 12, safely 
 and happily terminating a journey of more than 
 eleven thousand miles (including stage and carriage 
 rides) which was in all respects a splendid success, 
 unmarred by any accident or sickness, and, with 
 the exception of tipping a few trunks in Santa Fe 
 river, without a mishap. With very few exceptions 
 the weather throughout the whole trip was the most 
 favorable possible, with no .extremes of heat or cold, 
 and very few storms. 
 
 That more than fifty people could be taken this 
 long distance thus successfully, and with very few 
 changes from the original program, proves both 
 skillful planning and admirable execution. Messrs. 
 
200 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 Raymond & Whitcomb have earned a reputation for 
 fulfilling their promises which our experience fully 
 sustains ; and this notwithstanding a large portion 
 of the trip was over a route never traveled by 
 an excursion party before, and where some failures 
 would not have been surprising. This successful 
 result is mainly due to our conductor, Mr. Luther 
 L. Holden, who was emphatically the right man in 
 the right place ; tireless in looking after the welfare 
 of the whole party, thoroughly well informed on all 
 matters important for the traveler to know, and 
 unfailing in his courtesy. In Mr. C. H. Bagley, of 
 St. Johnsbury, Vt., he had an excellent assistant, 
 who won the esteem of all by his ever cheerful and 
 ready helpfulness, and in Mrs. Holden, though not 
 an "official," the ladies especially found an ever 
 present friend and helper. 
 
 I am sure my fellow-travelers all agree with me 
 that the trip pays. Indeed, it was several times 
 remarked that we were "getting too much for our 
 money." There is no question that in traveling 
 under the auspices of the Raymond Excursion man- 
 agement the tourist not only gets more for his money 
 in merchantable things, but in increased enjoyment 
 and comfort, and in freedom from anxiety and care, 
 than if traveling by himself or with a small party. 
 Not only did we fare better, first-class accommo- 
 dations always being secured in advance, but were 
 recipients of attentions and courtesies because of 
 
CLOSING NOTES. 2OI 
 
 connection with the Raymond party that would not 
 otherwise have been* accorded. 
 
 The journey, instead of being fatiguing as many 
 feared, was, on the contrary, so admirably arranged 
 as to rests and changes, and so comfortable in all 
 ways, that delicate ladies found themselves in better 
 condition on their return than when they left home; 
 and our experience warrants me in asserting that no 
 one of average health and strength need hesitate 
 about undertaking a 'similar journey from fear of 
 being unable to endure the hardship or fatigue. 
 And in closing these notes of the scenes and inci- 
 dents that fell under our observation during the 
 seventy-three days of our Vacation Excursion, I 
 venture to express the hope that they have been of 
 sufficient interest to awaken in some readers the 
 desire which will one day have fulfillment of 
 visiting the same scenes. No one who has any 
 appreciation of the grand and beautiful in nature, 
 or an interest in anything beyond mere personal 
 gratification, could make this journey across the con- 
 tinent and get from personal observation an idea of 
 the vast extent, the. grand and wondrous scenery, 
 the illimitable resources, the varied interests, the 
 boundless possibilities, summed up in the words 
 "OUR COUNTRY," without having his : patriotism 
 quickened, his aspirations exalted, his sympathies 
 broadened, his knowledge extended, his interest in 
 and charity for the people of the whole country 
 
202 A VACATION EXCURSION. 
 
 aroused, and his faith in the great and glorious fu- 
 ture of the country strengthened, in short, without 
 becoming a better citizen. 
 
 Not least among the pleasures of such a trip is the 
 companionship of fellow-travelers. Our English com- 
 rade, who has been an extensive traveler throughout 
 Europe, is authority for the saying that " an educated 
 American is the most agreeable traveling companion 
 in the world." Of our company, nearly all of whom 
 were strangers to each other when they began the 
 journey, there were few who did not part friends, or 
 unite in the sentiments expressed in the following 
 lines written by Mrs. Josephine K. Clark of North- 
 ampton, Mass. : 
 
 TO OUR PARTY. 
 
 The most wide-awake set that one could wish to see, 
 
 Merry-hearted travelers, frank and free ; 
 
 No terrors for us this long journey has had, 
 
 So bravely we've borne it, good weather and bad. 
 
 "Land- slides" and "washouts," I scarcely need mention, 
 
 For to trifles like these we paid no attention ; 
 
 And only a few lips were seen to quiver 
 
 When the baggage was tipped in Santa Fe river ! 
 
 From State to State we have drifted on, 
 
 From Boston's bay to far Oregon ; 
 
 Through desert and prairie, o'er mountain and vale, 
 
 We've found it quite delightful " riding on a rail." 
 
 Onward, still onward, our motto has been, 
 
 ' Mid scenes of adventure, confusion and din, 
 
 On ocean,*on river, through forest and dell, 
 
 And now comes the parting, the final farewell ! 
 
 I say it in sorrow, I say it with tears, 
 
 For these friends of weeks setm friends of years. 
 
 But I trust the near future shall witness our meeting, 
 
 Then, how joyful the welcome, how heartfelt the greeting ! 
 
THE END. 203 
 
 Appoint a Reunion ! in whatever clime, 
 I'll join you most gladly, and promptly on time. 
 Till then, may God bless you, where'er you may be, 
 Is the prayer of your comrade, J. K. C. 
 
 There remains only to add a " final farewell ' ' to the 
 readers who have followed the progress of this Vaca- 
 tion Excursion from place to place, and to express 
 the hope that all their journeyings may be as full of 
 joy and profit as has this " from Massachusetts Bay 
 to Puget Sound "to o. R. 
 
: 
 

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