«>• .<^''%> '^^'&' S^"^^. .• ^*'\ • <*. My First Holiday; OR, LETTERS HOME FROM COLORADO, UTAH, AND CALIFORNIA, BY CAROLINE H. DALL. ]/ Scarce hath the springtide brought tlie flowers, When scarlet leaves fall through the bowers. Japanese verses. B. H. C. Day follows day, and still no shower of rain ; Morn after morn each thirsty blade droops down, And every garden tint is changed to brown. Yaka Mochi. By Basil Hall Chamberlain. " I like a climate where the sun shines one whole day in the year, which I have not seen here." — S. W. Cheney, London, 1843. r "" f j^^'^PV RIGHT '^C^jt^^^^ OCT fc£ 1881 . BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1881. { Copyright, 1881, By Caroline H. Dall. .S^' A University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. TO THE DEAR COUSINS, WHO TURNED DESOLATION AND DREARINESS INTO DELIGHT, 5 JBctiicate tl)is Booft. A PREFACE TO BE READ. In the spring of 1880, several physicians in different localities agreed in thinking that I ouglit to take a long journey. When it was found that I could not go to Europe, California was suggested ; and not only was its moderate, equal climate praised and pressed upon my consideration, but the facilities of travel were urged. I was told that I should not find the journey fatiguing, and that for a reasonable fee I should obtain devoted service and all needful accessions to comfort, — such as hot water and well kept dressing-rooms all along the way. I thought I might as well start for the moon ; but it proved unexpectedly possible, and so I had seven months of unadulterated pleasure. I could not write to my friends during my rapid transit from Colorado to Utah, and from Utah to California, and up and down its length and breadth. My seven months of pleasure, however, did not bring the climate that was promised ; nor did I find it easy to travel alone beyond the Eocky Mountains. On the contrary, for the first time, I found myself commanding neither attention nor respect on the ground of simple womanhood. It seemed to me that there might be invalids to whom many things that I went through would prove fatal, and that it was really desirable that travellers should know in advance that 4 A PREFACE TO BE READ. what is called the " uniform climate " of California is simply a uniformity of change ; that each day gives varia- tions greater than any Atlantic town can show, — and that this is true all along the coast. In this year of 1880 it was true as far back as the Calaveras grove ; and the morning and evening fogs, which were heavy beyond belief from San Eafael to Los Angeles, were distinctly felt in Stockton, which last place had the finest summer climate I encountered. I found a great many trivial things that were exceed- ingly interesting and wholly new, — things that it seemed to me I ought to have known before I went. I read while in the country several books concerning it which filled me with amazement, so wholly did the writers seem to be indebted to their imaginations for their facts. Among these was " Two Years in California," written by a lady who was kindly remembered by many of my friends. As an example of her statements I will offer two. In a long chapter devoted to Chinese affairs she gives an account of her visits to the joss-houses, and described them as Buddhist temples ! The supposed fact is that there is not a single worshipper of Buddha in Cali- fornia, nor was there ever a Buddhist shrine there. I read this book after I had personally visited the joss-houses, and so incredible did it seem to me that any one should venture such statements without a shadow of founda- tion, that I went down to China-town again, and spent the greater part of two of my fast diminishing days in trying to ascertain where these shrines were. Again, she speaks enthusiastically of the cleanliness of Spanish houses and Spanish women. She says if the houses A PREFACE TO BE READ. 5 in the old Spanish towns contain nothing beyond a chair, a table, and a bed, they will at least be spot- lessly clean ! Now the fact is that these same houses are proverbs of uncleanliness ; and in this I take the testi- mony of the inhabitants, — I do not offer my own. AVhen I lived in Canada, the French and English traders who brought satin and cloth for the Indian women to em- broider used to have the pattern drawn on linen paper, which was basted over the fabric. The women sewed through the jKqjer; otherwise their work would have been unsalable. I had some Spanish hem-stitching done by a Spanish woman in Santa Cruz, which was almost worthless for the same reason. I do not greatly blame the author I have quoted. I doubt whether there is a civilized country on the globe wdiere it is so difficult to get any accurate information. The name of a flower, the character of a stone, the meaning of half-a-dozen hot springs grouped in a corner, and all sorts of colors from black to golden, — these things, however disagreeable it is not to know, every- body cannot be expected to tell ; but the greatest inac- curacy of observation and report prevails, and the answers to persistent questions are like the old Scrip- ture commentaries, of which Dr. Charles Lowell once said that the human mind was sure to accept the last with which it came in contact ! Among modern travellers Isabella Bird holds an enviable place. For the same reason that she consents to sacrifice artistic arrangement, and submits her reader to the egotistic pressure of letters, I have consented to do the same. 6 A PREFACE TO BE READ. The following paragraph, which opens her account of Japan, would be just as applicable to my experience in California : — " The traveller's opinion of the climate depends very much upon whether he goes thither from the east or from the west. If from Singapore, he pronounces it healthful, bracing, and delicious. If from California, damp, misty, and enervating. Then there are (as in other places) good and bad seasons, cold or mild winters, cool or hot summers, dry or wet years, and other variations. To-day has been spent in making new acquaintances, receiving many oifers of help, asking ques- tions, and receiving answers which directly contradict each other. "Well, I have months to spend here, and I must begin at the alphabet, — see everything, hear everything, read everything, and delay forming opinions as long as possible." In California, as has been seen, reading was of little avail. The country alters from month to month, and those who have written about it had a limited experi- ence, or were mostly enthusiasts or dreamers. I have seen no account of a journey undertaken in summer like my own. There is no need to exaggerate. California has charms in plenty ; but they do not always lie in plain sight, and its future will depend largely on the conscien- tious report of those who have eyes. I claim accuracy for nothing I relate. These pages are only open letters to my friends : they tell how / saw things, and what the people said before me, or answered to my questions. I wish to give as vivid a picture as 1 can of the way things look in California to-day, — as Es- priella went to England, and did not disdain in his inim- A PREFACE TO BE READ. 7 itable way to describe tlie tongs that lifted the coal. If every detail be not true, the whole picture will be truer than if I paused to make each item so; and whoso cannot understand that mystery will be sure to misun- derstand the book. What I saw, and not what I shall think about what I saw a year or two hence, is what my friends wish to hear. It might seem as if a dinner could be had in 'New York that would be strangely like that in the Italian restaurant in San Francisco ; but I do not think so. On the Atlantic coast the pressure of re23ublican civilization penetrates every foreign creature to at least a trivial ex- tent ; but in California civilization has little to say about anything. The population of all the large towns seems a sort of crystallized Leadville, where the search for gold or what can be turned into gold moves gentle and sim- ple, Spaniard and Briton, wdth a common fierce impulse, and which neither acts upon the nationality nor is acted upon by it. Something else comes first. It may be all very well to vote, or to speak English, but meanwhile there are the hydraulic engines tearing out the bowels of the mountains and w^ashing their rocky sides down into the very throat of the Golden Horn. The Spanish or Trench quarter is as distinct as the Chinese, yet an indescribable indifference to all stereotyped habits, to all bodily comfort, united to a lazy enjoyment of the mo- ments as they pass, keeps every drop of New England blood tingling in the veins of one who looks on. These people have all adopted California, however, and their fondness for the country is as fierce as that of a lion- 8 A PREFACE TO BE READ. ess for her cubs. Object to the range of the thermome- ter ! — you might as well accuse one neighbor of arson and another of forgery ! That you did not intend to be personal was not to be believed 1 And yet, all over the land, the dear friends who made me so welcome and so happy would say now and then with a merry laugh, " It is good to see some one who is satisfied with her own home." In the midst of California fogs I told them of the skies blue as Sorrento, which usually bend over the hills wliere I write these lines. In the chill of the trade- wind I celebrated our golden sunshine. In the heat of the Norther, burning brown the blue lobes of the Euca- lyptus, I told them of the Potomac breezes that gently wave my oaks and walnuts. I came home the last week in November : four weeks have passed, and I have hardly seen the blue or felt the sunshine; the elements have raged all around me ; the snow has heaped up against the hill-side as never before for thirty years ; the tooting horn warns the traveller of the unsteady track of countless sleds that have hardly tried its slopes since the century began ; and gay as the Christmas shouts are we are all heart-sick for lack of the sun. It is n't wise to write it down. I hear you clap your hands and shout with glee far off in the hollows of Monterey and Santa Barbara, friends ! — while here at home the elements shriek rudely, " Will you love this land after all ? Did you say it was good to live in ? What do you think now ? " Yes, I will love it ! for here we have the sweet succes- sion of the seasons, made precious by the reiterated joys of the world's generations. Spring, with its coy ap- A PREFACE TO BE READ. ' 9 preaches, and its fountains of color and sweetness ; sum- mer, with its wealth of green and its rippling rills ; autumn, with its " russet wear " and raiubowed sunsets and glowing fruit ; winter, with its firesides, its voca- tions, and its Christmas joys. California offers a series of monotonies, and although I observed that there as here the wild-flowers knew their season, and asked no leave to be of sun or rain, yet you ate the same things all the year round, and three crops of strawberries took the flush and fragrance out of June itself. **The common growtli of mother earth Suffices me, — her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears." Yet the thought of these past seven months " doth breed " in me " perpetual benedictions." As they passed they took many of those I had loved into more ideal spheres. My going was delayed by the impending death of one of the gentlest of God's children, a native of the far Northwestern Archipelago ; and as I came home I walked thoughtfully between the graves of many whose hopes and purposes had been long interwoven with mine. To George Eipley, Count Pourtales, Benjamin Peirce, Lydia Maria Child, and Lucretia Mott, in all of whom I had felt an affectionate interest for nearly a lifetime, my heart was forced to say farewell, while my feet still wandered. "We are such stuff As dreams are made of; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. " If I had not been in Colorado last summer, I think I 10 A PKEFACE TO BE READ. should have taken no interest in Mrs. Jackson's new book. As far back as I can remember, stories of injus- tice done to the unhappy Indians have stirred my blood ; and when as a child I was shown the bullets and toma- hawk marks which dinted the old door at Deerfield, I only felt grieved that civilized nations should have been able to induce this simple people to carry out their own murderous plots. In Colorado I found a shameless greed for .Indian territory, which accounted at once for the inroads upon the reservations and for all the massacres and atrocities recorded. When one reads the weekly reports from the mining regions, it seems as if they overflowed with gold and silver ; but go into these regions, and the first thing you hear are wild reports of richer veins and grander openings covered by the Indian reservations. In the camps themselves, in the parlor of the hotel at Leadville, in the sitting-room of a small boarding-house where I finally took refuge from the untidiness of that hotel, in the cars between Leadville and Cheyenne, between Stockton and Sacra- mento, and later between Burlington and Quincy, I heard the same revolting story told, — how the United States should never have given these Indians such valu- able land, and how the speaker had penetrated in dis- guise to this or that location, and had brought away superb specimens. " It was only a question of time. Nobody need tliink the miners would rest till the reser- vations were thrown open." Then samples of ore were produced and gloated over, which to well-instructed eyes showed nothing better than the usual sulphurous A PREFACE TO BE READ. 11 glare of pyrites. But if they had been pure gold, or specimens of placer earth as rich as the old deposits at Murphy's, what do our people want of them ? What do they need more than they already have ? In cross- ing from Cheyenne to Sacramento every fifteen miles shows a cluster of mineral springs, in which sulphur, iron, soda, iodine, or the like are all ready to enter on beneficent work. Why should any man covet some hid- den geyser ? In the same way the land wherever pros- pected reveals all manner of mineral possibilities. Sil- ver, gold, iron, and copper can always be had, if " not for the asking," then certainly for the working. The In- dians care little for the minerals, and quite as little for the vanished or vanishing game. But they care for their homes, for the land just subjected to cultivation, for the prospects of their descendants, and for a certain sort of education, which is broken down every time matters reach a crisis and they are compelled to remove. Here in AVashington we have had anxious groups of them all winter; and one could not help wondering why they coveted knowledge, when they could not but know what successful knaves knowledge had made of white men, in and out of departments. Mrs. Jackson's spirited volume, the reading of which would make the gayest spirit heavy-hearted, sets forth half-a-dozen im- portant facts very little known. 1. The first chapter shows us how the Indians' "right of occupancy" is a right recognized from the very beginning by all nations, — a right to be bought and sold at their own pleasure. 12 A PREFACE TO BE READ. 2. It teaches us that the Indian massacres of whites in the early days were almost without exception either instigated or paid for by the English, French, or Ameri- can commanders. When this was not the case, as it was in all the raids at the time of the extension of the settlements on the Penobscot and the Connecticut, they were the result of the section inserted in every treaty to this effect, — that if a white intruder crossed the Indian lines, " the Indians may punish him as they see tit." This may be proved by a reference to the first treaties with the Wyandottes and the Delawares. 3. It shows, to the great surprise of most people, that one hundred and thirty-two thousand of our Indians are self-supporting on their reservations, receiving not a dol- lar from the Government except the interest due them on the price of their lands, or, what is the same as interest, the annuities paid to tribes supposed to be dying out, and to whom in consequence it has not been thought necessary to pay the price of their lands. It would seem evident to the dullest apprehension that the time must soon come when the Government will have to support the remnants of tribes w^ho live by hunting and fishing, for game of all kinds will soon cease to exist in any suffi- cient quantity. We have, ]\Irs. Jackson tells us, about fifty-five thousand who never visit an agency, and over whom the Government exercises no control. One of our surveying parties in the mountains of northwestern Mexico lately fell in with an assembly of Indians sol- emnly burning their dead. The burning was attended with sacred ceremonies, which reminded the surveyors of •A PREFACE TO BE READ. 13 certain rites practised by the Parsees ; and they inquired into the meaning of the whole thing, when they saw the eye of the corpse offered to the sun on the point of a spear. " We are going back to our old gods whom we have offended," was the reply. "We have tried the white man's God, and he does not care for us. If he did, the white man would not dare to treat us ill." 4. There has seemed to be for the last half century a perverse and wilful misunderstanding of the character of the Indian tribes and the possibility of their civ-ilization. The leading Indians are themselves aware of the change of circumstances which makes civilization desirable. If the difficulty of getting trustworthy information once ex- cused those who have never lived on the frontier for such misunderstanding, they can take refuge in such excuse no longer. Mrs. Jackson has so industriously and faith- fully gathered her facts, that he who reads running can inform himself as to the opinions of Burnet, Bonneville, Lafitau, and McKenney. How steadily the Indians im- proved their lands, while they met with the slightest encouragement, we may see from the fact that in 1833 their cornfields were coveted as greedily as their gold fields are in 1881. The letters and speeches of Winne- mucca and others are as much to the purpose as those of the white men they confronted. 5. The history of these races shows that under a hopeful trust in the whites the Cherokees reached a point in civilization quite equal to that of any rival population. "They have adopted," says the reluctant department only three years ago, ''all the forms of rep- 14 A PREFACE TO BE READ. resentative government. They raise their own wool and cotton, and have pianos and sewing machines. They print their own laws and their own newspaper." Why not, since Sequoia invented his own alphahet ? The ninth chapter of this book is one which it is very hard to read. I do not see how a white man, who has his own vote and feels responsible for the government of his native land, can endure the reading. A woman, who sees only the moral aspect of the whole thing, and has no illegal craving for cornfields or gold fields, bows her head and tingles with shame from head to foot, as she ponders it. The worst of a great wrong, or a series of great wrongs, is that no one can ever undo it. It may be repented of, yet it remains a scar burned into the face of man or nation. But not on that account can the American people afford to pause in the work of honesty and reform. The most hopeful thing in the history of mankind is the fact, that, whenever a great wrong has been done, some great indignation sooner or later bears witness to man's outraged moral sense. Politically speaking, I have not the smallest idea who is to blame for the story which makes me blush. But behind the Democrat and the Eepublican alike stands human nature, wdiich ought indignantly to disclaim the responsibility. CAROLINE H. BALL. Washington, Aug. 1, 1881. MY FIRST HOLIDAY. Denver, Col, Aug. 2, 1880. — I took New York and Boston in my way to Buffalo and Chicago on my way here, — all for good business reasons, with results by no means startling, nor especially interesting to you. I left Buffalo on the 26th, and here I am ! If the Sierras are any dirtier than the " Lake Shore," I pity the prairie dogs. It thundered all that night, it seemed to me; but when, flunking it might be a dream, I asked the porter where we overtook the storm, he answered, — " It was all alono- Ohio and Indiana ! " o Delphic enough, that oracle, had our grandfathers been listening ! We carried alons^ with us four or five hundred Ger- man emigrants of the best stamp. One family had a perfect stack of umbrellas of various sizes, — one for every child large enough to hold it. I had with me several loaves of berry cake, which Annie had put into my lunch-basket. When we halted at La Porte, I went to the emi- grant car, and, mustering a few words of German, asked an apple-faced woman if I might give it to the " kinder." 16 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. She looked with some suspicion ou tliis food of the blest, but in a few moments every child had its mouth as fflU as a broad grin would allow. At the Chicago depot I asked one of the men for some small bit of information, when he answered easily and plainly, " I do not understand what you say," havino- fortified himself with this one sentence in advance. At Chicago it w^as a treat to see how gently busy in grave good work American women can be. There I found Miss Martin and Miss Perry, graduates of the law school at Ann Arbor, who more than made their expen- ses the very year they opened their office, and who have the loving respect of all who know them. There is Mrs. Bradwell, who edits the " Legal Reporter," and Dr. Emma Gaston, who, born in Ohio, educated in Philadelphia, and coming West from our New Eng- land Hospital for Women and Children less than three years ago, has now already a noble place in the city work. She holds her clinics at the Woman's Hospital, is one of the managers of the House of Eefuge, attends on certain days at the Dispensary, and w^as appointed by the city to look after the interests of a pleasant charity called the " Floating Hospital." Far out in the lake, beyond Lincoln Park, the city lias built a pier more than three hundred feet lonq-. It is covered with tents, sheds, and hammocks for countless babies and those who care for them. For some years past the babies of Chicago have died at a terrific rate ; and now every pleasant summer day three steamer-loads are carried down to the pier in the early morning, where they enjoy the lake breezes until night. A male physician paid by the city goes down with the boat, and also a lady whom MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 17 the city appointed at Dr. Gaston's request ; and these two look after their weary little bodies through the day. One morning when I was in Dr. Gaston's oiTice, she was summoned suddenly to the railroad depot. There she found two tiny creatures under five years of age, whose parents had both died of yellow fever in Memphis. Grandparents in Burlington, Michigan, were too poor or too feeble to go to them, but had sent money to bring them on. Tags were sewed to their dresses, and they were going through, — parcels by express 1 Unfortunately this sort of parcel has an open mouth, and the two little ones were quite ill from the fruit and candy given them on the train. In Cliicago, too, the w^omen edit a well supported social- science paper. I had not seen Chicago since tlie fire. Wonderfully has it emerged from its ashes. The superb blocks of stone stores, the new post-office and the court house, the banks and the insurance offices are covered with a florid decoration hardly to be imagined. As to the court house, the many rows of outcropping foliation can only be accounted for on the supposition that the stone blossomed of itself ! Under the eaves at the top of many massive pilasters are repeated the two figures of man and woman, as if both sides of humanity expected to have justice done within its walls. One need not criticise the anatomy : the figures bear out the general effect. Just before I came away, I was introduced to a young woman whose story is full of interest. She came of a Cambridge family who moved to Iowa tlnrty years ago, where she married a lawyer of ability. He was ad- dicted to gambling. In two years she had two little babies, and when the youngest was six weeks old he 2 18 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. deserted her. She had always wished to study law, but no one would help her. As soon as her baby could be left she began to pick berries, holding this purpose steadily in view. With the proceeds of the season's berries she went to the nearest large town, and took an agency for the sale of shoulder-braces. With what she earned in this way she went to Chicago and took a position as cashier; and so she has paid her way through the Chicago law school, and has been for some time employed at a fair salary by one of the best leo'al firms. As soon as she has mastered all the routine, she will open an office of her own. Since she began as a clerk, her oldest child and her father have died. She has brought her mother from the farm to the city, and established her and the baby out on the Boulevard. God bless her lonely and vigorous life ! While I was making my tour tln^ough the various city and county hospitals, a photographer asked me to sit for my portrait. He is making a collection of por- traits and autographs which is to be sealed up and given to the city of Chicago, and Chicago is expected to give it in its turn to the Centennial Commission of 1976 ! WJiy talk about the decay of faith ? Where will this wonderful volume be in 1976 ; and are we at all sure that there will be a centennial commission ? I left Chicago on the Eock Island railroad at noon. How the Illinois woods have grown during the last ten years ! Wonderful spikes of many-colored mints and airy pink blossoms flaunted over the prairie. The beautiful Illinois Kiver and tall bluff's made many villa- ges pretty. " Texas meats " were brought to us on the cars. They were " shelled out " of some nut that was a cross between the pecan and the shagbark. MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 19 I was surprised to see how wide the Mississippi is at Davenport. Between the high bluffs at Quincy it must lind it rather hard to squeeze through. My companion on the car was a Vermont woman, wlio lias been for many years one of the foremost teach- ers in San Francisco. A year or two since, in com- pany with another teacher in the Kincon public school whose health had failed under the work, she purchased a vineyard near Passadina. The two women built drying frames and sweating boxes, and last year sent six thousand pounds of good raisins to market. I shall send you a fuller account of this work some day, for 1 am going to the vineyards when the grapes are ripe. Endless rolling prairies ; countless herds of cattle ; superb flaunting flowers ; horned poppies, great chalices of snow, with golden centres ; cactus of scarlet and yellow bloom ; the cpilohmm marginata, or mountain snow ; with alkaline plains that burned our eyes, — these made up tlie measure of the next two days. Friday the 30th of July was a dreary day ; night found us at Ogelalla in Nebraska. Thirty-three women and children and two men used our dressing-room to-day, the latter entirely without right. Unless a party is large enough to take an entire car, ladies travelling alone will do well to heed the fol- lowing facts : — 1. ISTo palace or drawing-room cars are to be found on the overland route, — only the ordinary Pullman sleep- ing car, or silver palace, with the usual abuses. 2. No dinincj-room car o'oes further than Omaha ; and the slow motion of cars, which is said to make dining in them so easy and agreeable, does not noio exist on the 20 MY FIKST HOLIDAY. part of the road where they are used. I saw coffee and soup thrown into a lady's lap, and could not hold my own cup. The "Hotel Car," where meals are cooked and beds are made in the same car, is a nuisance beyond words. In spite of the promises of the company, porters are not at leisure to obtain hot water and milk ; so it is better to provide a generous lunch basket with tea and coffee to last till the journey's end. 3. The hand baggage is not easily managed, when the train is full, if too heavy for yourself to lift. The fees expected are excessive, and it seems to be the policy of the Pullman management to force every piece through as many hands 'as possible. Do not fee your porters a single minute before you have done with them, unless with the promise of further pay. If you do, you will be left in the lurch. 4. Women travelling alone are airily told before start- ing that they go through ''without change." On the contrary, cars must be changed at Chicago, Omaha, and Ogden. At each of these places there is several hours' delay, and a great deal to do which involves fatigue. 5. Do not travel alone if it can be helped. If you must, associate yourself on the w-ay with another traveller to whom your service will be as valuable as that she ren- ders you. There is transfer of hand baggage to be paid for at each place. One porter cannot attend to twenty women. The white conductors are courteous but not attentive, and never lift a parcel. The colored porters devote themselves to men, whose boots they black, whose coats they brush, and from whom they expect heavy fees. You will be told that you can telegraph from train to train and secure your berth without trouble. Suppose MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 21 you telegraph from Chicago to Omaha ; on arriviug at Omaha, one would naturally suppose that she coukl step from one Pullman to another, or at least deposit her baggage there, while she went in search of the agent. On the contrary, she must wearily carry, or watch some strange boy carry, her baggage to the Pullman office, give in her name, and stand in file till she receives her ticket : that done she may seat herself in the car. But if at the last moment the company decide that the car she is in is not needed, she will have the whole process to go through again. At the very point where this is most insisted on, — at Omaha or Council Bluffs, — you are also required to attend personally to the re-checking of your baggage, and to pay for any overweight. It would be perfectly easy for a clerk to manage all this, but the companies actually require you to be in two places at once ; and to accom- plish the re-checking joii must stand in sun or rain, wholly unprotected, till all the baggage of tliree concen- trating lines is " run off." The lovely superintendent of the Eincon School at- tended to the re-checking, while I went in search of berths. My trunk happened to be the last one called, and she stood in the hot July sun just an hour and a quarter ! Then, when we were seated, the agent decided to drop off our car, and I should have gone on without any berth at all, so weary was I, if it had not been for my friend's persistence. The same day I wanted some milk, and gave my pitcher to the porter ; but he came back without any. I then went into the dining-room myself, and was told that if I would pay $1.00 for a dinner I might have a glass of milk with it, but that they had none to sell. As 22 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. the railroad owns land on both sides of the rails, and as it also owns every hotel, I mutely showed the printed circular on which passengers were promised every com- fort required by an invalid. " Madam," retorted the clerk, " have you lived till this time, without knowing what advertisements are for ? " We stayed more than an hour at this little town called Sidney. When we resumed our journey I sat opposite the wife of a Colorado clergyman, travelling with a sick child. At the last moment she had entered the car, car- rying the child and a large jug of milk, both tired and heated. The porter brought her a table, which she after- ward cleared away herself. An hour after, I went to her and asked her if she would tell me where she got that milk. " I should not have tried to get any," she said, " if my little girl's life did not depend on it. I went as you did to the dining-room, and was refused. I persisted a little, as the child was really too ill to go into the dining-room, but it was of no use. I saw a restaurant on the street, and went there; but they had sold the last drop hours' ago. They directed me to a milliner's shop, three or four blocks away, where fresh milk was kept. So I went on slowly with the child, and got back in time ! " The alkaline plains have begun, and it must be re- membered tliat milk is often twenty-five cents a quart, and always difficult to get; also that there are too many women travelling alone for all to be waited on. But it is easy to see what should be done. Everything belongs to the two companies, and one word from headquarters would remedy the evil. On the 31st of July I rose very early, as the only pos- sible way to get my bath. I found the porter in the ladies' dressing-room, where he certainly did not belong. MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 23 In a few moments, however, he left it in fair order. It was about five in the morning when I went to the rear for fresh air. Deep ultramarine drifts of cloud were stranded in a golden sea. A man and a boy from West- ern Pennsylvania got off in the neighborhood of Central City. The man owned five thousand head of cattle or thereabout. Afar off was a low frame house ; nearer, two houses built of sods : a chimney smoked in each, and each liad two frame windows and a door. These houses must be very warm, and would look pretty with their well rounded tops covered with vines. The drovers who live in them had already gone out to the herd. Soon I saw on the horizon a pair of antelopes ; then a prairie-dog village, with one white-bellied creature on guard, who scuttled away like a kangaroo. I do not in the least know the names of the flowers I see. At Cheyenne the cars stopped directly in front of the hotel, where a sjood dinner could be had for one dollar. I decided to dine, as I was obliged to wait two hours for the train to Denver, and my porter in the Pullman assured me that if I did so, the porter of tlie hotel would carry my bags to the Denver train without charge. AVhat happened ? I paid the porter of the Pullman fifty cents -for conveying my movable traps to the hotel. I paid one dollar for my dinner, and another fifty cents to the porter for putting them on the Denver train, — two dol- lars in all, which there was really no need to spend. In the hotel no dressing-room was open, and I was in- debted to the courtesy of a permanent boarder for a chance to wash my hands. The mountain view from the second story of the house, however, was cheaply paid for at that rate. It was delicious on the other hand to follow with kindling eyes the level of the illimitable plain. 24 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. Between Cheyenne and Denver we saw a grand gey- ser of dust, and a great many little whirls of the same sort off on the horizon. The cattle and the pretty gray jackasses fled before it. Then came irrigated fields, and finally the magnificent Eocky Mountain range. Lift the A¥hite Mountains into the air, multiply their length by five, and you will have some idea how the Eockies look from Long Mountain to Pike's Peak. I was surprised to see no signs of snow, except a scratchy white line here and there, which I afterwards found indicated a ravine five or six hundred feet wide and perhaps a thousand in depth. Greeley, in the valley of Cache La Fondre, was the first irrigated town I saw. It is a tem- perance town, checked off by sloughs and ditches, and its green wheat-fields and orchards made a charming contrast to the great stretches of short gray buffalo grass, which looked as if they had been sprinkled with salt. As we neared Denver, the " Transfer Express " made his appearance ; and, as it was growing late and dark, I asked him to take charge of my hand baggage. He de- clined. " There was a conductor and an omnibus to take me to the house; I should have no trouble." Before we ran up to the depot, the conductor dropped off the train, leaving me in the hands of the brakeman. When we stopped, the brakeman peremptorily refused to touch my bags. With a good deal of reluctance I left all my wraps and bags in the car, went out into the dark space, and hired a man to go back with me and take them to the onmibus, which was only prevented by our united shouts from driving away before we could enter it. That my reluctance was wholly justifiable the event showed. I was the last passenger dropped. When we reached Campa Street there was only one man on the MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 25 box, who refused to leave his horses ; and unable to lift my bags, as a strong man could have done in a mo- ment, I called in the assistance of a chance-passer. In the transfer, one of my most valuable possessions, — a finely made umbrella, intended to serve also as an alpen- stock, — finally disappeared. All the way to Cheyenne the ascent, though gradual, is decided ; and there we are exactly as far above the sea as on the summit of Mount Washington. From Cheyenne to Denver we slide down a thousand feet ; but the " con- tinuance in upper air" had a decided effect, and I reached the city feeling fresher than for many months. My first view of the Kocky Mountains, all along the way, was a great disappointment. Pike's Peak, it is true, is 14,400 feet above the sea; but if you see it from a plain which is itself lifted 6,500, it is but little higher than Mount Washington, and what difference there is the eye cannot detect. It is the wide extent of the range, and the exhilaration of the air, which first rouses the spectator. Denver, Ajigust 3, 1880. — Dr. Avery's house is full of friends ; so she has a pleasant little room for me on the opposite corner. When I got up this morn- ing she was showering her beautiful lawn, herself as fresh and dewy as any rose that blossoms upon it. Together we have driven about the town, and I sat a long time in the doctor's carriage on Capital Hill, watching the magnificent mountains, well masked in volatile clouds, which changed position and color every moment. All at once Pike's Peak showed itself, a cone of glowing amethyst. This does not mean that it looked purple ; it was to all intents and purposes 26 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. translucent. At Mrs. Scott's I found Mrs. Wilson, whose husband is stationed at Leadville, on the U. S. Survey. With her was a lady from Ouray, who seemed thoroughly to love her mountain home, and taunted my fancy with her vigorous outlines of lofty perpendicular cliffs, romantic gulches, and cascades dripping from the skies. I had come so far, urged simply by my love for my friend ; but I am not to go back " till I have seen Colorado," — so the doctor decides. This is the land of many-colored cacti, of the Euphorbia, of the Epilobium augustifolium, — hard words, which I would not use if any pretty familiar ones would tell the story, but which represent an amount of grace and color and capricious floral charm, of which words fail to give any idea. The streets of Denver are made beautiful by buildings of volcanic limestone, brought here from the Foot Hills, some thirty-five miles away. It will command a price when its beauty is known. All tints glow through its creamy base, from rose color to bluish gray, and the sunlight modifies the tender effect every moment. Jackson, the photographer, who was such an import- ant adjunct to Hayden's Survey, has established a studio here ; and I spent an hour or two to-day looking over his superb pictures of the canons. I hope other people have clearer ideas of Denver than I had before I came to it. Although it is nearly as high as Mount Washington, and only fifteen miles east of the Foot Hills, the city lies in a basin so slightly tilted toward the west that it seems absolutely flat. The citizens have planted the streets with trees, so thickly set that it looks at a little distance like a young forest ; and nowhere within the street lines do you get, in the summer, even a limited mountain view, unless you try MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 27 to cross a square. It is the natural centre of all the excursions to be made, and has in straggling, unkempt business streets some very excellent stores. Above it is the great level bluff, called Capitol Hill, whose roads are cut through the disintegrated granite of the mountains, and are as hard as Nahant Beach. Here a few houses have been built. There are many lovely places in Den- ver, and one very excellent hotel, — the Windsor, — which all my foreign friends unite in praising. As to other houses, we must recollect, when we hear them praised, what sort of accommodations the old residents would be likely to find sufficient. What 9, Western man calls " a good hotel " cannot be expected to suit the denizens of the Fifth Avenue. I saw fine skins, stuffed figures, and furs of unheard of creatures in many of the shops. Coyotes, wild-cats, and foxes glared at me. Lying in full sight were poor attempts at painting the superb ".lilies of the field," beautiful iridescent frag- ments of peacock pyrites, long crystals of the newly discovered " Celestine " (a sort of quartz of heavenly blue), agates from the hills, and " fulgurites." These last are long tubes of vitrified sand, glazed within, which are said to be formed by the lightning when it j)ene- trates a sand-bank. These are valued at $25 each. " Conversations about Common Things" may now begin : " Who was the first glass-maker ? " — " Fulgur." Beside these lay fossil fish from Green Elver. There are three varieties, none more than five inches long. They are involved in laminated limestone, and split so as to show skeletons, not scales. This afternoon came news from Mrs. W. Her hus- band has telegraplied her, and she will go to Leadville to-morrow. I promise to stay with her two or three 28 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. days, if, at the end of that time, she will go on with me to Colorado Springs. Augusts, 1880. — With well-supplied luncheon bas- kets, we took the cars for the South Park Eoad. We did not know it, but it happened to be the very first day the South Park train had run into Leadville ; and, in- deed, this road itself was started less than two years ago. When I left the main line of travel at Cheyenne, I went south a hundred miles to Denver. From Denver to Leadville I go southwest on a narrow gauge road; one hundred and fifty more ; and as we took fourteen hours to make the distance, it enabled me to see the country fairly well. When the engineers first entered the Platte Canon, which traverses the South Park, not only had no vehicle ever passed through it, but no Alpine climber had attempted it ; no trapper's imagination had suggested the possibility of a trail There were few places where the banks of the river were not precipitous cliffs, stretching heavenward for a thousand feet. For twenty miles the road goes over a rolling prairie, with little farms thrifty and pleasant in the summer sun, but grew- some enough, 1 11 warrant, when the snow begins to fall. The surveyors gave up the theodolite for triangulation and stadia-hairs ; while nitro-glycerine did duty for shovel and pick. In a dozen places, at least, they made a new channel for the river, that the old channel might serve as a bed for the railway. Cuts forty feet deep were made through solid granite. Walls which cannot be distinguished from the everlasting hills were reared to defend the road. Men were lowered from five hun- ^ dred to a thousand feet, by ropes, to drill the holes to MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 29 which they attached the platforms upon which tliey were to work. The road crosses the river several times. It is a succession of curves. More than once I looked directly out of the window near which I sat into the win- dows of the cars behind. Two miles of this road it cost $32,000 to build; and the cheapest mile cost $4,000. This miraculous engineering is to the credit of a Mr. Eicholtz ; and very proud he is of his work. The road runs under narrow, projecting ledges, by the side of the turbulent Platte Eiver. Its surroundings have a cool, green look. Spires and pinnacles of red granite rise here and there. At one point the grade is 137 feet to a mile ; at Kenosha, seventy-six miles from Denver, the road ascends the mountain spirally at a grade of 185 feet. At first we entered a wide grassy vale, with a perfectly clear view of the whole " Continental Divide." Not one traveller in a thousand sees this. The view is often limited to the nearest Foot Hills. A thrill of de- light passed through me at the first glimpse of this magnificent mesa. At the mouth of the canon we came upon mining sheds, and men were at work fifty feet above us, digging a ditch to irrigate the cliffs. The river is a series of rapids. Forty miles out we came upon a little camp. Curious dome-like rocks and spires, thick-set as those of the Cathedral at Milan, rise a thousand to fifteen hundred feet above us, — it does not matter whicli ; for I have already learned that in Na- ture as in mathematics there is a point at whicli mensu- ration passes human perception, and can be appreciated only by the Infinite. Some of the Foot Hills are crowned with groves, and in the grass a tiny scarlet flower be- trays, by its fine color, the character of the soil. Pent- stemons, pink, purple, scarlet, crimson, make lines of 30 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. living light athwart the grass. Every now and then there is a low opening into the hillside, like a door or a fire-place. The jambs are stoned up, and overhead a slab of heavy granite makes a sort of mantel, and holds up the crumbling shaft. The liills and the moraine at the foot of them are covered wdth a net-work of dead branches, which has a curious effect. Then the valley opens to a park-like glade, and snowy tents of invalids offer lovely suggestions of summer life. It is all so green, and so sweet with the breath of pines. The angles of the hills open wide. An elegant city carriage with two prancing horses held by the lightest traces dances across our path. The open stretches into enamelled meads. I half expect to meet Persephone. Primroses, purple vetch, zinnia, and nodding sunflowers half liide and half parade their charms ; painted-cup quivers like a flame. At Kenosha the mountain is 10,200 feet above the sea. We wind up 185 feet to the mile. The sight is still a new one. A valley gracious as Paradise and noiseless as tlie night opens from a bend in the river five hundred feet below. Gay teams with four horses catch a glimpse of us, and wave through the silence white banners of cheer. Delicious white lilies with speckled hearts, scarlet honeysuckles and cranberry blossoms, with bells twice as long as those which grow in New England, tantalize us as we fly past. The South Park opens as we descend. The whole chain of mountains stretches across the eastern side. It seems only flecked with snow, but the white specks cover acres of ground, and are from five to eight hundred feet deep. Near us the yarrow blooms bitter-sweet, as on my eastern hills. Pike's Peak is cut into the sky, as if by intaglio. Every- where beyond the Mississippi we encounter "parks." MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 31 Sometimes they are vast extents of geysers, of eccentric rocky spires, or frowning cliffs, as in the valley of the Yellowstone. Sometimes they are green glades, span- gled with flowers, and showing perennial drought in dwindling trees. South Park is a cup-like plain, set within mighty walls, and some thirty miles by sixty in extent. Its rim is dappled by hills that in the winter lift their heads out of the snow, from three to five thou- sand feet above the sea. The South Platte crosses the Park. This and the trout-brooks are full of fish, the cov- erts teem with small game, and from the cliffs the sheep, elk, and deer eye the sportsman placidly. We stop in the wilderness. Far away is a miners shanty. As a second-class passenger drops off, with a dozen hand parcels which his late companions toss toward him, a tidy wife, leading a little child by each hand, comes to meet him, while tvv'o or three larger boys race on before, each striving to be the first to grasp a bundle. It is a pretty sight. Life's brightest pinna- cle is touched here, far below the summit of Cathedral Rock. Mounds of moraine begin to rise abruptly. I see the Buffalo Peak, and recognize the lumbering like- ness. Here we come to what has been until lately the end of the freighting road. The long trains of mules and wagons, coupled two together, follow a single driver over the natural road of the ravines, and are so pictur- esque that it is pleasant to encounter them. The profits of the teamsters are said to be very large. The men live with their mules, and are almost as brutal. I have long since made up my mind that there is no sin neces- sarily connected with the habit of swearing. Coarse- ness there must be, but no intentional wrong against Deity itself if a man does not know what Deity is. To 32 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. some unknown power these men address imprecations which are not only terrific, but which are perfectly unin- telligible to the listener. Like the Negroes of Bambarra, they neither talk nor want anybody to talk to them, and answer without lifting their eyes when busy among the teams. All along the way they travel the air is scented with dead horses and littered with broken waixons. Here are platforms still heaped with bullion. The wagons which brought food will take this away. If it stood here for a year it would be safe, for it is too heavy for a tliief to lift. Out of the side of the mountain, without preface or apology, darts a volume of water. It is as thick as a man's body, and widens into a trout-creek, to run the next nine miles. You cannot put a pin between the fish. One man caught thirty-four before breakfast to-day with no more delay than transferring them from the stream to his bucket involved. Then come groves of pinole, looking like a ragged old apple-orchard, capital for firewood, and bearing under the scales of its cones a kernel the size of an acorn, sweet and tender, such as they grind into flour for bread in Sweden. The volcanic limestone which yjleased me so much with its soft tints in Denver yields $35 worth of silver to the ton, and was used by the Mexicans three hundred years ago. It looks as clean as if cut to-day. No sort of moss or lichen will cling to it ; and this cannot be due to the dryness of tlie climate, but to the indestructible character of the stone. Parasites grow on other stones, and on all the old tree trunks. Ten miles from Buena Vista a cliff of white chalk makes a most unexpected appearance, and rises two thousand feet. Wherever the mountains are cut you see the granite disintegrating. They are everywhere MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 33 SO shaky and full of fissures that it seems as if any great convulsion might prostrate the whole range ; and yet in the sunset light where Harvard, Princeton, and Yale wall out the valley of the Arkansas, how solid and in- domitable they look ! A little way back is Weston, a deserted mining camp, where they liave been opening graves to remove tlie dead to a cemetery. There thirty- seven bodies lay as they died, " in their boots ; " and two who had killed each other in a fierce quarrel were found in the same box ! As I dwelt almost without hope on this sad story, gazing absently at the dark ledge full of the crevices in which such graves are made, a burst of sunlight kin- dled a distant peak lying far back of all the rest, and brought it into sudden life and beauty. So may a diviner light kindle some day the darkest recesses of the darkest human hearts, and rebuke our coward thoughts ! My companions to-day were three gentlemen from Cincinnati. Two of them were superintendents of the Adams Express, and the other had charge of the local telegraph line. They got me a campstool, set me out on the rear platform, told me stories, and gathered me flowers all day. The car was clean, the porter attentive, and the day passed like a festival. Our arrival after dark at Leadville was unfortunate. Mucli as I wished to see the place, — and I did wisli to see it, not for its own sake, but as a type of other places, passed and passing, — I would not have gone to it alone. When I joined Mrs. W. it did not occur to eitlier of us that we might not find quarters together. As her hus- band was a resident, our plan seemed very simple. But this was the first attempt the cars had made to run into the town. It was the darkest of dark nights, 3 34 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. not a lantern on the platform, no depot as yet in exist- ence. We were hurried into an old-fashioned stage- coach, without step or ladder, treading in the blackness over broken joists, carpenters' debris, and protruding sleepers. It is best to forget how I found my way in : I believe it was over the shoulders of men. Then Mr. W. made himself known by his voice ; but our telegram had not reached him, and I was obliged to go alone to a hotel, while he took his wife to a small room he had hired near the Survey. It is not worth while to say anything about the hotel. Fortunately I wanted noth- ing to eat. Leadville, Aug. 6.1880. — I wrote some letters and took them to the post before breakfast. What a villa- nous crowd I pushed through ! JSTot a woman to be seen. The street is fuller than Broadway seen as you look down to the Battery from Grace Church, for Leadville is the base of supply for all the Gulches. I made a vain at- tempt to drink a vile poison called coffee, and to eat some mountain trout embedded each in a pasty sarcophagus. Then went to tlie front window and leaned over the rail of the balcony to watch the crowd in the main street until' the W's. came for me. I did not feel par- ticularly ill, and strange to say, although I had found my pillow drenched with blood, it made hardly any im- pression upon me; and so great was the excitement created by my novel circumstances, that I wholly forgot the probability of illness in an altitude of eleven thou- sand feet. A surging mass of villanous faces swayed up and down before me. If there were faces that were only coarse or rude, they did not mitigate the impression. MY FIRST HOLIDAY. 35 Two policemen were murdered last week, and yet the one in front of me was not afraid of the two men as- tride their asses wliom he was seeking to separate and arrest. Gentle-looking men on superb horses dashed by now and then. Half-a-dozen women walked quietly by, as if to a day's work. There was not one here last year. There are a great many loiterers, although more than a thousand have gone away since the failure of the little Pittsburgh and the Chrysolite. Broad hats; broader backs astride well stuffed saddle-bags ; Mexican ponchos, shooting boots ; bells jangling on the necks of mules, used as a warning when they enter a narrow pass ; a string of pack-horses or pretty gray jacks, and at last a man on horseback with three or four led mules, entirely hidden by their packs, consisting of feather beds, furniture, and cooking-stoves ! By and by a little child of four years old or so, in a knitted cloak of shaded crimson wool, in a delicate lace cap lined with a crimson silk which told of some far-off home, came slowly down the street. Her little hand rested on the neck of a lovely young burro of soft gray color, as graceful as an antelope. She leaned against the creature and walked steadily through the crowd. Now and then the animal paused in a way which sug- gested its native obstinacy. She lifted her hand, gave it a little hit behind with a fairy fist, and moved on through the always parting crowd. I fancy there was a servant close behind, but the crowd was so dense no one could distinguish him. She might have been the — ** Heavenlj' Una, with her milk white lamb." One is not apt to think of the old warriors, scarred in the cause of freedom, as likely to go crazy over gold 36 MY FIRST HOLIDAY. nuCT