It is a mere gash cut by the torrent,
twisted, walled, chasmed, weather stained with the most brilliant
coloring, generally dark with shadow, but its utter desolation
occasionally revealed by a beam of intense sunshine.
A few
stunted pines and cedars, spared because of their inaccessiblity,
hung here and there out of the rifts. Sometimes the walls of the
abyss seemed to meet overhead, and then widening out, the rocks
assumed fantastic forms, all grandeur, sublimity, and almost
terror. After two hours of this, the track came to an end, and
the canyon widened sufficiently for a road, all stones, holes,
and sidings. There a great "Concord coach" waited for us,
intended for twenty passengers, and a mountain of luggage in
addition, and the four passengers without any luggage sat on the
seat behind the driver, so that the huge thing bounced and swung
upon the straps on which it was hung so as to recall the worst
horrors of New Zealand staging. The driver never spoke without
an oath, and though two ladies were passengers, cursed his
splendid horses the whole time. Formerly, even the most profane
men intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but
they "have changed all that." Every one I saw up there seemed in
a bad temper. I suspect that all their "smart tricks" in mining
shares had gone wrong.
The road pursued the canyon to Idaho Springs, a fashionable
mountain resort in the summer, but deserted now, where we took a
superb team of six horses, with which we attained a height of
10,000 feet, and then a descent of 1,000 took us into Georgetown,
crowded into as remarkable a gorge as was ever selected for the
site of a town, the canyon beyond APPARENTLY terminating in
precipitous and inaccessible mountains, sprinkled with pines up
to the timber line, and thinly covered with snow. The area on
which it is possible to build is so circumcised and steep, and
the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there,
and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded
me slightly of a Swiss town. All the smaller houses are shored
up with young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown
away by the fierce gusts which sweep the canyon. It is the only
town I have seen in America to which the epithet picturesque
could be applied. But truly, seated in that deep hollow in the
cold and darkness, it is in a terrible situation, with the alpine
heights towering round it. I arrived at three, but its sun had
set, and it lay in deep shadow. In fact, twilight seemed coming
on, and as I had been unable to get my circular notes cashed at
Denver, I had no money to stay over the next day, and much feared
that I should lose Green Lake, the goal of my journey. We drove
through the narrow, piled-up, irregular street, crowded with
miners standing in groups, or drinking and gaming under the
verandas, to a good hotel declivitously situated, where I at once
inquired if I could get to Green Lake.
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