CHAPTER X.

Life in the mountains was not half so ideal as we once foolishly might have imagined. Still, the visit thither had surpassed our expectations, and it was with no little regret that we bade farewell to the familiar barn the following morning. We settled a bill with the pächter at parting, including the dinner given to the knowing Ignaz. It amounted to the sum of one gulden. Who would not stay up at an Olm?

Again we gave the day to the ten-mile walk, now a steep but pleasant descent, choosing the village of Rein as our first halting-place. It was still early, a lovely autumn morning, the mountains rising in all their impressive majesty, but for a time all our powers of admiration and enjoyment were suddenly marred by the sight of meek sheep led to the shambles at the very window.

We would have hurried on, if we could, without stopping, but we had rashly promised to write our names in the important visitors' book, besides paying a small bill for wine. The landlord could not at all perceive why, as meat had to be eaten, any one could object to a preliminary exhibition, especially when the butcher could only make his rounds at stated times, and it was so convenient by the kitchen door. Indeed, so deadened in delicate perceptions were these people that the landlord observing a rare plant in one of our hands, he actually called the butcher in to tell us its name. The man, having at that moment ended his first stroke of business, came in red-handed, and proved a botanist. It was a _Woodsia hyperborea_--that was the Latin name--and was rare in those parts, he said; but the Herrschaft should come earlier for flowers. July was the month. Then there was geum, and pale blue-fringed campanulas, and rich lilac asters, yellow violets, the white scented wax-flower, arnica and yellow aconite, both excellent medicines; there were thunder-flowers, and blood-drops, and grass of Parnassus, and hundreds more, all cut down by the scythes. There were four thousand plants and upward in the Tyrol; only, alas! like the gentians, many species were being perfectly exterminated.

His energy interested us, and his hands were under the table. Frau Anna expressed great disappointment at the various beautiful gentians, common in Switzerland, being rare in the Tyrol.

"Ladies," replied the botanist with emphasis, "you know not the reason? Why, there is hardly a species of gentian which is not torn up by the roots for the making of schnapps. Schnapps is good when rheumatism works in the bones: there is then no better lotion; and a thimbleful of cheerfulness in the morning, and another of sleep at night, are what I wish for our wirth, myself and every peasant daily; but why need they pull up all the gentians, which were bits of heaven scattered over the mountain-sides? I know that their roots are better for schnapps distilling than those of other plants, or even than bilberries or cranberries; but oh for a little moderation, cutting the roots gently! for whilst a bit is left in the ground the plant springs up again. 'Poor as a root-grubber' is the proverb. I'm glad it is. For if they were not so wanton, they would not be so poor. They mostly come from the Zillerthal. It's a special trade. The men climb the mountains as soon as the snow melts. They build themselves rude huts, and spend the summer searching for and digging up roots. Now, however, as they have cut their own throats, so to speak, they must climb often to high mountain-ledges, letting themselves down by ropes, to gather fine roots, which they still sometimes find of the thickness of my wrist. In the late autumn they collect their bundles of dried gentian roots, which they carry to the distilling vats, where the _Enzian_, so dear to the Tyroler, is made."

And the butcher, who had grown quite pathetic over the gentians, rose to return to his occupation. It was curious to observe the honorable position which he held with landlord, landlady and Moidel. What a surgeon or soldier would be in a higher class, that the butcher was to them. In this case, too, we joined in respect--a feeling we might entertain for many more of his trade, perhaps, had we the opportunity of judging. But we must onward.

Ere long a young woman wearing a pointed black felt hat, ornamented with yellow everlastings, overtook us and joined company with Moidel, giving us, however, equally the benefit of her conversation, whilst she insisted upon carrying a bag. She lived in Rein, she told us, and had now to consult the doctor in Taufers a second time about perpetual stitching pains in her throat. The doctor said it was quinsy, and arose from cold. Perhaps, she said, if she could bring herself to smoke a meerschaum, like other women in Rein, she might keep the mischief out; but it struck her as a disgrace to a female, and it made a great hole in the pocket. Those who were born in such a village as Rein were in an evil plight. The cottages were badly built, the kitchens reeked with smoke, and were so bitterly cold in winter, though the fowls had to roost there, that water froze in them. In fact, no one could stay in the kitchen in winter. Then all the family must crowd into the stube, living and sleeping there. When Nanni Muckhaus had the typhus she and her children and grandchildren must lie down together; and then all the neighbors had to visit her, unless they chose to pass as brutes; and so that was how the typhus spread. Fortunately, her husband and she were alone: they had no burdens. Still, life was hard--a vale of tears or a vale of snow. If the gentry could see the Reinthal in the winter, choked up with avalanches, they would say so. Her man had, however, enough to keep them. He had a license for the shooting of gemsen and other game, which he might use from holy Jakobi's Day to Candlemas. He had this year killed only five gemsen so far. The Post at Taufers was greedy for gemsen now, and bought up every ounce of the flesh at nineteen kreuzers the pound--bought snow-hens, too, at forty kreuzers each, and would never let her husband's gun be idle. When Candlemas came, and he could no longer shoot, then he worked in their fields; for we might not think it, but he, being a thrifty soul, had saved fifty gulden and bought some land. But oh the labors, the toils to which a Reinthaler was subjected! If his land lay on the mountain-side, he and his woman must slave and toil like beasts of burden, for what would be the help of horse or cow for riding, driving or ploughing on such steep, upright land? "The holy watch-angels help us!" she said. "Look up there and you will see, ladies, the truth of what I tell you."

Pointing with her finger, she drew our attention to the small figure of a man working upon a dizzy height some three thousand feet above us, his legs, like a pair of compasses, comically revealing a triangle of blue sky between them, whilst we with difficulty made out the figures of two women helping him.

"That's Seppl Mahlgruben and his daughters cutting down their green oats, too tardy to ripen. Some years since Moidel, the eldest girl, working on that precise point, knelt one inch too far over the precipice and was hurled into eternity, where a better fortune, I pray God, awaited her than the cruel trials of Reinthal."

Moidel told us afterward that she thought our informant took too gloomy a view, probably occasioned by "her stitching pains." Still, she owned to its being a toilsome, perilous life in every season of the year save summer.

In a broad sylvan meadow at the end of the narrow defile, within sound of the chief waterfall, we had the joy of seeing again the rest of our party, who had made an afternoon excursion thither to meet us. At a quiet, rural little inn just below, with an outside gallery possessing a view of the still, deep gorge in front and softer meadows beyond, kind hearts had already ordered coffee and rolls for nine. All were unanimous, however, that the ample supply was sufficient for ten, and the good woman of Rein was pressed to enter and partake. This she gratefully declined, adding, however, that it would be friendly and helpful of us to allow her to drink a cup of coffee there at six in morning on her return journey to Rein. Not that she had expected the least attention to be offered her, and hoped that it was not intended as a different mode of payment for her carrying a lady's handbag. Although we had felt that one good turn deserved another, we made her mind easy on that score, and she went tripping forward.

For us there was still no hurry. The evening sky was brilliantly clear, the mountain-summits and dark fir woods shone forth a burnished gold, so that it seemed almost a sin to dive into the deep shadows of the valley below. Besides, the inn possessed some beehive sheds, and a view beyond which must not escape the pencil of the artists, who busily sketched whilst the others rested, enjoying the great crimson bars of sunset drawn across the dewy valley to the rippling sound of a mad, merry little mill-brook.

How much sympathy and respect has been afforded in all ages and climes to those serviceable creatures, bees!

The little citizens create, And waxen cities build.

Unlike Virgil, the good Tyrolese, however, would call them monks and nuns dwelling in cells, rather than "citizens." Formerly they delighted in erecting the most ornamental dwellings which they could devise for them, helping them in their constant toil by planting balmy thyme and other sweet honey-yielding flowers around the hives. These were constructed of wood, gayly painted with holy monograms and devices to add a blessing and security to the provident labors of the little inmates. They were, in fact, _beatified bees_, who had to be solemnly invited to attend the death mass when the owner died, else they would fly away, refusing to stay. If a swarm of bees hung to a house, it was simply as a warning that fire would break out there.

The beehives at this little inn still stood fresh, compact, with flowers blooming around them, the kindly woman evidently taking great pride in her bees. This, however, is not always the case. The grand beehives, like the grand old halls and castles of the Tyrol, are falling into decay: in both instances the paintings on the walls are peeling off or growing indistinct; the present generation has either lost its love for honey or much of its reverence for the bees--a fact difficult to define amongst a people with almost credulous veneration and intense belief in old customs. Still, much of the freshness and simplicity of the peasants is passing away with the discarding of their picturesque costumes.

As a certain endurable routine had been arrived at within the walls of the Elephant, we agreed, before retiring to rest, to remain still several days there, availing ourselves of the splendid weather to explore more thoroughly the beautiful, varied neighborhood of Taufers.

But, alas! the clear brilliant air and the deep rosy sunset had deceived us. The next morning mists and clouds obstructed the view, finally dissolving into a pitiless downfall, that detained us prisoners in the house, which was silent as the grave but for the rain steadily pattering against the casements.

Weary of the wet and without occupation, our disengaged minds, wandering out into the mist and rain, dreamily contemplated a slow band of pilgrims defiling along the distant hillside. Had the day been bright and clear, we should have seen them as sheaves of corn or clover stuck to dry upon light stakes with branching arms, the upper bundle being placed aslant to act as shelter to the rest. As it was, however, in the plashing rain it required no effort to believe them tired, defenceless pilgrims ever wandering on. Some despondingly beat their arms upon their breasts, others, heavy and exhausted, fell upon their knees; here a woman defended her infant from the biting blast, there an old man with rugged hair looked mournfully backward; but these were only a few amongst the endless figures of the tragic band, on a long, unceasing march.

Everywhere in the Tyrol, especially in the gloaming, whether in Alpine meadow or arable land of the valley, such weird companies may be seen. Bands of Indians, societies of cowled monks, ancient Italians fleeing from a buried city, wandering Israelites,--such and many others are the shapes which these drying sheaves of corn, hay or clover assume, all combining to act as one vast funeral procession of the summer that is no more.

In the afternoon a different company from these natural objects in the distance came to occupy our minds for the time being. Gradually the up stairs sitting-room, which we had foolishly perhaps imagined reserved for our party of nine, became invaded by priests in long coats down to their heels and muddy top-boots. We, the new-comers from the mountains, now learnt that this was the daily occurrence, and really the most unpleasant feature of the house, where the landlord and landlady remained as sleepy and unimpressionable as ever. We were soon, in fact, obliged to vacate the room, driven out not only by the fumes of bad tobacco, but by the unsatisfactory stare which was leveled at each intruder. The kellnerin, generally a slow, incommunicative mortal, now passed, from cellar to sitting-room in a flutter of excitement, her tongue, otherwise dormant, moving like a mill-clapper in the enlivening society of her spiritual fathers. These were the shepherds of the different adjoining parishes, whose custom it was to derive mental and corporeal comfort in sipping their acid wine and smoking their cheap tobacco in company. There might not have been any great harm in it, but nevertheless it seemed an apparent falling away from the singularly bright example which a good man, born only ten minutes from the Elephant, in the village of Mühlen, had once set them.

The priest Michael Feichter, at his death in 1832 the head of the clerical seminary at Brixen, became for a time, through his extreme goodness and grace, the unseen regenerator of the Church in the Tyrol. A simple, guileless man, with intense love and cheerfulness, he acted as if God his friend were ever by his side. The entire Bible, which he had chiefly studied on his knees, he knew literally by heart. Birds, flowers and stones gave him subjects for stirring sermons, and his evening conversations with his pupils were fraught with the most beneficent consequences through his intense sympathy and the power he unwittingly possessed of diving deep into the conscience. Sorrows were met invariably by him with a cheerful "Dominus providebit" or "parcat Deus." Cheating and deceit pained him greatly, and he therefore rejoiced to become acquainted with honest Jews, conscientious officials and religious soldiers. Thoughts of wealth and station never troubled him. He walked like a child through the world. When unable to wear his scholastic gown he moved about, his serene face beaming with cheerful urbanity from under the shadow of a broad-brimmed cocked hat, his pride and delight, as it spared him both sunshade and umbrella. His old coat of an antique cut still bore on the under side of a flap the dyer's mark. His waistcoat and stockings were of black knitted wool. On festive occasions, however, he fastened to the back of his coat collar a fluttering band denoting his doctorate. There was something humorous in his appearance: he knew it and laughed at it, and yet, says one of his pupils, "though we joined in the laugh, his whole person and demeanor touched us deeply: we knew that he was not of this world."

Was it strange that we felt a great discrepancy between the memory of this guileless man and some of the self-indulgent priests, once his pupils, in the upper stube?

The next day, the rain promising still to detain us prisoners, Moidel, fearing that her important services must be missed at the Hof, bravely defied wet and mud and tramped resolutely home. In the afternoon, utterly tired out, we too determined to shift our quarters to Edelsheim, and, engaging a large jolting vehicle, were borne through mire, rain and mist from the Elephant to the Hof.

Long before we reached the door we saw cheerful lights gleaming from the long rows of windows. Anton, Moidel, the aunt, Uncle Johann were at the door to receive us and our belongings. They felt sure, somehow, that we should come.

The floors of our rooms had been scrubbed white as snow in our absence, but we must not hesitate to enter with our damp shoes. Were not the rooms our own? Letters and newspapers were carefully laid according to their various directions, and with flowers and dainty dishes covered the supper-table. Moro, the good house-dog, stood by our chairs or caressed the hand of his favorite, E----. We felt that we had come home--to our home in the Tyrol.

MARGARET HOWITT.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

COLORADO AND THE SOUTH PARK.

On the 15th of August, 1871, two brothers and a sister--Sepia, an artist, Levell, an engineer, and Scribe, who is the narrator--left Chicago by the North-western Railroad, bound for Denver in Colorado, about eleven hundred miles west. The first day we were climbing the gradual ascent from the Lakes to the Mississippi, which we crossed at 4.30 P.M., at Clinton. The thirty years which had elapsed since I first traversed this region had changed it from wild, unbroken prairie to a well-cultivated country, full of corn-fields, cattle and flourishing towns. Then I traveled in a wagon four miles an hour, and had to find my own meat in the shape of a deer from the grove, a grouse from the prairie or a duck from the river. Now we rushed across the State in six hours, stopping fifteen minutes for dinner in a fine brick hotel, metropolitan in charges, if not in fare. In 1840, when we arrived at the great river, we waited two or three hours for the ferry-boat, and finally had to cross in a "dug-out," which seemed but a frail vessel to stem the rapid currents and whirling eddies of the Mississippi. Now we crossed upon a railroad bridge of iron, which cost more money than all Iowa contained in 1840. Still, I fancy that the first method of traveling was the more interesting.

Through the still summer afternoon we rushed on over the rolling prairies of Iowa, dotted with towns and villages and covered with great corn- and wheat-farms. Here in 1840 was absolute wilderness: we made our hunting-camp seventy-five miles west of the river, and we were twenty miles away from any white settler. Wolves howled and panthers screamed around our camp, we lived upon elk and deer meat, and our only visitors in two weeks were some Sac and Fox Indians, who disapproved of our intrusion upon their hunting-grounds.

At 9 A.M. on the 16th we arrived at Council Bluffs, and crossed the turbid and furious Missouri in a steam ferry-boat to Omaha in Nebraska. For many years Council Bluffs was one of the remotest military posts: to go there was to be banished from the world. Now it is a town of ten thousand inhabitants, struggling to overtake its rival on the other bank, Omaha, which has sixteen thousand.

Here our baggage was rechecked for Denver, for at Omaha begins the Union Pacific Railroad. A great road it is, and great are its charges. On the North-western, as on most others, the charge is about four cents per mile, but the Union Pacific, to which corporation Congress gave the usual land-grant, and more than enough money to build the road, cannot afford to carry you for less than ten. This may arise from the custom which has prevailed of giving free passes to all Congressmen, governors, editors and other privileged classes, so that, half the passengers paying nothing, the others have to pay double. Not only are the fares high, but you are charged for extra baggage. Like the elephant, who can drag a cannon or pick up a pin, this great corporation is able to give free passes to a whole legislature or to charge me twenty-five cents for five pounds of extra baggage.

From Nebraska into Wyoming, and we are nearly out of the United States, though the old flag still flies over us. The people here talk about going to the "States." All the region hereabouts, from the middle of Nebraska, lies in what used to be called by the French _Les Mauvaises Terres_, or "Bad Lands," and was eloquently described by Irving in _Astoria_ as the Great American Desert. "This region," he writes, "resembles one of the immeasurable steppes of Asia, and spreads forth into undulating and treeless plains and desolate sandy wastes, which are supposed by geologists to have formed the ancient floor of the ocean countless ages ago, when its primeval waves beat against the granite bases of the Rocky Mountains. It is a land where no man permanently abides, for in certain seasons of the year there is no food either for the hunter or his steed. The herbage is parched and withered, the streams are dried up, the buffalo, the elk and the deer have wandered to distant parts, leaving behind them a vast, uninhabited solitude."

But this "land where no man permanently abides" is rapidly being settled, and is found to be rendered very fertile by the simple process of irrigation, which costs less than the manuring of Eastern farms. So the Great American Desert recedes before the immigrant, and, like the noble savage, is found to be a myth.

On the railroad midway between Cheyenne and Denver lies the new town of Greeley. Although not on the maps in 1870, it now contains fifteen hundred inhabitants, forty or fifty stores, six hotels, churches, schools, and all the apparatus of civilization. This aspiring town, 4779 feet above the sea-level, is an example of those colony towns so successful in the West, and on which we must depend for rebuilding society in the South. Greeley is surrounded by fertile farms, and every city lot looks fresh and green: all this is effected by irrigation. Two canals have been dug from the head-waters of the Platte--one twenty-six miles long, which will water fifty thousand acres; the other ten miles long, to furnish water for the town and five thousand acres. The prairie where it is not irrigated now, in midsummer, looks burned up and covered with a parched herbage, which, however unpromising to the eye, is really good sweet hay, dried and preserved by the hand of Nature for the buffalo and antelope, and now cropped by the flocks and herds of the white man.

Denver, the capital of the Territory, contains about eight thousand inhabitants. It is a true specimen of a Western town which fully believes in itself, and blows a loud trumpet from its elevation of five thousand feet. It was said of old "that the meek shall inherit the earth," but it was not by _that_ quality that the Denverites obtained their location. Here are plenty of hotels, three banks and a mint: five railroads centre here, bringing in ten thousand tons of freight per month. Denver has schools and churches in satisfactory numbers, and her merchants sell ten millions of dollars' worth of goods per annum. Considering that the place was only settled in 1858, and has in these fifteen years been destroyed both by fire and water, and almost starved by an Indian blockade, it must be admitted to be a pretty smart specimen of a Western city.

We ride in a 'bus, city fashion, to the Broadwell House, a fatigued-looking structure of the earlier period, but probably no worse than the others. Directly we begin to plan an excursion to the South Park, seventy-five miles distant, and going out to look for wagon and horses, we catch our first sight of the Rocky Mountains, a line of dim, misty heights, with the more pronounced outline of the foot-hills beneath. We engage a strong covered wagon, with a good pair of horses and a driver, the latter only seventeen years old, but owner of the team, and carrying himself man-fashion, with the precocity of the Western youth. The wagon is brought to the hotel and loaded, so as to be ready for an early start in the morning: we have a tent and camp-equipage, with gun and fishing-rods for Levell and Scribe, and the sketching-gear belonging to Sepia.

So on the 18th, at 8 A.M., we drive over the bridge which crosses Cherry Creek, and then cross six miles of uninhabited prairie, seamed with gulches, and brown with withered herbage and cactus--no verdure except along the canals, where several species of _Artemisia_ and a prickly poppy with a large white flower grow profusely. We then begin to mount the bare foot-hills, among which are curious masses of red rock as large as city churches, and washed by the storms of ages into various fantastic forms. We then enter a ravine or cañon through which flows Bear Creek, a tributary of the Platte.

Along Bear Creek are ranches where good crops of wheat are raised, and butter and milk made for the Denver market. The grass in this region makes the most delicious butter; indeed, I may say that I never tasted poor butter in Colorado. In the month of August it is as sweet and fragrant as the very best of our June butter in the States. The time will come when the butter of Colorado will be sent to the Atlantic cities: at present there is no surplus made.

We now began to ascend Bear Mountain by a road cut along its side: it was smooth and easy of ascent, but only wide enough for one carriage, with a precipice of several hundred feet on either side, so that we shuddered to think of the consequences of our meeting a wagon. Happily, we met with none, although we overtook one, and had to keep behind it till we reached the summit. Then down the other side to a strip of bottom-land on a creek, where we camped for the night, having come twenty miles from Denver.

_August_ 19. Rose at five and breakfasted on fried pork, corn bread and coffee. Started at ten, and drove fourteen miles to Omaha Ranch; then to St. Louis Ranch, six miles, Roland's Ranch, five miles, and Bailey's, five miles, on the North Fork of the South Fork of the Platte. The weather was fine, and the air beautifully clear and bracing. The road wound among the mountains, up a rocky ravine, down a wooded cañon, then through little parks, surrounded by high hills and set with magnificent sugar pines, and carpeted with fresh grass and abundant flowers. In the ravines and on the mountain-sides the road was narrow, but we were lucky and met nothing, although we frequently overtook the immense wagons drawn by five or six yoke of oxen, and driven by the most ferocious-looking teamsters whom I have ever seen, brandishing enormous whips, which crack like rifle-shots in the woods. We found, however, that, being civilly entreated, they would always turn out of the road to let us pass. We were now at an elevation of probably six thousand feet, having been constantly ascending since we left Denver; and this evening we rose still higher, having climbed a long mountain which overlooked the head-waters of the Platte.

Our last descent of fifteen hundred feet in three miles brought us to the neat log tavern kept by W.L. Bailey, where we found a supper of trout just from the river, together with mountain-raspberries and delicious cream, and clean, comfortable beds. When we looked out next morning everything appeared so pleasant in this sheltered valley, and the house was so comfortable, that we determined to stay here a day and enjoy some sketching and fishing. Sepia took her pencils and ascended the hill behind the house, and we others got out our rods and followed the example set us by Simon Peter.

The Platte, which ran through the meadow about a quarter of a mile away, was a brown, shallow stream, twenty feet wide, fretting over a rocky bed, with little pools and rapids which had a promising look; so we looped on a red and a brown hackle and began to cast. Levell walked down stream about a quarter of a mile before he began, so as to leave a piece of water for the Scribe. The sun shone very bright and hot, and only a few small trout answered my invitations. They were darker and less brilliant in color than our _Salmo fontinalis_, and were, I think, _Salmo Lewisii_, which inhabits these waters. The valley was about half a mile wide, and shut in on each side by mountains of red granite, crowned with pines. Bailey's people were making hay in the valley, and I sat down on a fragrant haycock to await the return of my companion. Presently I observed a horseman coming up the valley: he was a hunter, followed by a couple of hounds, with the carcass of a mountain-sheep, or bighorn (_Ovis montana_), on the saddle in front of him. He told me he had killed it on the mountain behind us, and was taking it to Bailey's for sale. It was an animal something in color like a deer, and about as heavy, though shorter in the leg, with very large curved horns, like those of a ram. He said they were numerous in these mountains, and he had killed six of them in a day, but had to lower them down the precipices with a lariat, which was hard work. I asked if the story was true that these creatures would throw themselves from high rocks, and, turning over in the air, pitch upon their horns with safety. He said he had hunted them many years, but never saw that performance. Being asked if he thought they could do it, he replied that he reckoned they _could_, but would be smashed if they did. Being interrogated on the subject of grizzly bears, he replied that there _were_ grizzlies hereabouts, but that he never hunted them: he had no use for grizzlies.

In a couple of hours Levell returned, having fished the stream for a mile or more: he had got about twenty small trout. We found that Sepia had been more successful than ourselves, for she had made some effective water-color sketches of the scenery.

_Aug_. 21. We started this morning at seven, and drove up the Platte Valley five miles to Slaight's, through a very picturesque region. Passed some heavy wagons bound to the mines, and met the mail-stage coming down the valley from Fairplay, with four horses at a gallop: we were luckily able to draw off and let them pass, which they did in a cloud of dust, through which could be dimly seen the long-bearded, red-shirted miners. A saw-mill at Slaight's, with two houses and some fields of oats. Then eight miles to Heffron's, at the forks of the river, where there are a post-office and one house. Two miles beyond we stopped to feed our horses in a lovely park-like bit of open forest of sugar pines. This species resembles the yellow pine of the Southern States, with the same rich purple trunk and widespreading branches. Many of them had been girdled by the Indians to obtain the sweet inner bark, which is a favorite luxury of the Utes. We see very few birds in these mountains, which are too wild for the warblers and insect-eating birds. We met with the mountain-grouse, a bird of about the size and color of _Tetrao cupido_, and one or two hawks. We also saw in the bushes at the roadside the mountain-rabbit (_Lepus artemisia_), which from its large size we at first mistook for a fawn. From Heffron's we continue to ascend for six miles, till just beyond a small lake we got the first view of the Park: it lay before us like a vast basin, some hundreds of feet below, surrounded with a rim of high mountains.

The Park itself is 9842 feet above the sea-level, or half as high again as Mount Washington. The surrounding rim is some two thousand feet higher, while in the distance, north, south and west, may be seen the snowy summits, fourteen thousand feet high, of Gray's Peak, Pike's Peak, Mount Lincoln, and

Other Titans, without muse or name.

The South Park is sixty miles long and thirty wide, with a surface like a rolling prairie, and contains hills, groves, lakes and streams in beautiful variety. It formerly abounded with buffalo and other game, and was a favorite winter hunting-ground of the Indians and the white trappers, but since the great influx of miners the buffaloes have mostly disappeared. Such, however, is the excellence of the pasture that great herds of cattle are driven up here to feed during the summer. Several towns and villages have sprung up around the mines in this vicinity, such as Hamilton, Fairplay and Tarryall, to which a stage-coach runs three times a week from Denver.

In our old atlases, forty years ago, we used to see the Rocky Mountains laid down as a great central chain or back-bone of the continent; but they are rather a congeries of groups scattered over an area of six hundred miles in width and a thousand miles long: among them are hundreds of these parks, from a few acres in extent to the size of the State of Massachusetts. These mountains differ so entirely from those usually visited and described by travelers, the Alps, the Scottish Highlands and the White Mountains, that one can scarcely believe that this warm air and rich vegetation exist ten thousand feet above the sea. In climate the Colorado mountains approach more nearly to the Andes, where the snow-line varies from fourteen thousand to seventeen thousand feet. Here snow begins at twelve thousand feet, and increases in quantity to the extreme height of the tallest peaks, about fourteen thousand two hundred and fifty feet, though even these are often bare in August. In these parks the cattle live without shelter in winter, and the timber is large and plentiful at eleven thousand feet elevation. Glaciers are wanting, but instead we have the rich vegetation, the wide range of mountains, the pure, dry and balmy atmosphere, and a variety, a depth and a softness of color which can hardly be equaled on earth.

Having stopped an hour to enjoy the view from the brow of the mountain which forms the rim of the Park, we were overtaken by one of the sudden rains which occur here, and had to drive six miles along the level bottom, till, crossing a brook, we found ourselves at sunset near a large log cabin, where we were glad to be allowed to lie down on the floor under shelter.

It was occupied by some young people named McLaughlin, two sisters and a brother, who had come up from the Plains, where their family lived, with a herd of cattle, from the milk of which the girls made one hundred pounds of butter per week, for which they got fifty cents a pound in the mines. In the fall they returned home, leaving the cattle for the winter in certain sheltered regions called "the range." They were stout, healthy young women, who did not fear to stay here all alone for days at a time while their brother was galloping about the Park on his broncho after his cattle. They did not keep tavern, but were often obliged to take in benighted travelers like ourselves, to whom they gave the shelter of their roof and the privilege of cooking at their stove. The house was about forty by twenty feet, all in one room, though one end was parted off by blankets, behind which they admitted the lady of our party. Sometimes they were visited by Utes, who are not unfriendly, though, like most Indians, they are audacious beggars. "They try to scare us sometimes," said Jane: "they tell us, 'Bimeby Utes get all this country--then you my squaw,' but we don't scare worth a cent." Their nearest neighbor is a sister four miles away, who is the wife of Squire Lechner, innkeeper and justice of the peace.

_Aug_. 23. Started this morning at eleven for Lechner's. Passed some deserted mining-camps, where the surface had been seamed and scarred by the diggers; then across a creek, where we saw ducks and a red-tailed hawk. Squire Lechner has a large log tavern on the brow of a hill: he was absent, but his wife took us in. Sepia went on the hill to sketch, and we others drove off in search of a trout-brook of which we heard flattering accounts. It was a very pretty stream, winding through the prairie with the gentle murmur so loved by the angler and poet, and lacked nothing but fish to make it perfect. It was rendered somewhat turbid by the late rains, so that if the trout were there they could not see our flies. We are told that trout are plenty on the other side of the mountains. "Go to the Arkansas," they say, "and you will find big ones."

Man never is, but always to be, blest.

We found Mrs. Lechner a friendly person, like her sisters. She told us that before her marriage her father kept this tavern. In 1864, most of the men being away in the Union army, they found the house one morning surrounded by a band of mounted rebels, who had come up from Texas through New Mexico to make a raid on the mines. They were a savage-looking band, about fifty in number, and were led by a man who had formerly worked for her father, and whom she recognized. They took what money and gold-dust was in the house, and seized all the best horses about the place; but when she saw them taking away her saddle-pony, she cried out, "Oh, Tom Smith! I didn't think you was that mean, to rob me of my pony! Wasn't you always well treated here?" He seemed to relent at this appeal, and not only restored her horse, but two of her father's also. The people collected and pursued the robbers, most of whom were captured or killed, but the leader escaped. Mrs. Lechner said she was glad he got away. "Tom must have had some good in him or he wouldn't have given me back my pony."

_Aug_. 24. Rose this morning at daybreak, and enjoyed the sight of a sunrise among these snowy peaks. Nothing can surpass the delicate tints of rose-color, silver gray, gold and purple which suffuse these summits in early morning. I called Sepia to sketch them, but what human colors can reproduce such glories? We left at seven, and drove to Bailey's, thirty-five miles, before sunset, stopping an hour at noon. On the top of a mountain, about 4 P.M., we were caught in a furious squall, attended with rain, snow and hail, with terrific thunder and lightning, which struck a tree close by. And here I must pay my tribute to the admirable qualities of our horses--steady, prompt and courageous; no mountain too steep for them to climb, no precipice too abrupt to descend; and they stood the pelting of that pitiless storm like four-legged philosophers. We found Bailey's house apparently full, but they made room for us. A handsome buggy and pair arrived soon after, from which descended a well-dressed gentleman and lady, whom we found to be the superintendent of a silver-mine at Hamilton and his wife. They told us that there was a very good boarding-house at that place, with fine scenery all around, which we ought to have seen. But in truth we had as much fine scenery as we could contain: we were saturated with it, and a few mountains more would have been wasted.

_Aug_. 25. A fine clear morning, and we started early, hoping to drive through to Denver, forty-five miles, but in about fifteen miles one of the horses lost a shoe, which it was thought necessary to replace, the road being rocky; so we went slowly to the junction, where was a blacksmith. He proved to be a mixture of tavern-keeper, farmer and blacksmith, and it was considered a favor to be shod by a man of such various talents. Deliberately he searched for a shoe: that found, he looked for the hammer. Who had seen the hammer? It was remembered that little Johnny had been playing with it. Johnny was looked for, and finally brought, but was unable or unwilling to find the tool so essential to our progress. "Look for it, Johnny," said the blacksmith; and he looked, but to no purpose. After waiting an hour for reason to dawn upon the mind of this infant, the blacksmith put on the shoe with the help of a hatchet, and we proceeded; but so much time had been lost night overtook us twelve miles from Denver. We tried at two taverns, which were full of teamsters, and we were obliged to diverge three miles down Bear's Creek Cañon to the house of Strauss. The good woman, after a mild protest, admitted us and gave us a supper of venison, with good beds. Strauss has a fine ranch along the creek, where he raises forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and his wife milks thirty-six cows and makes two hundred pounds of butter at a churning. Besides this, she cultivates a flower-garden, with many varieties of bloom, irrigated by a ditch from the creek.

Arrived at Denver at noon of the 26th, and found the mercury at 90°, and were glad to leave the crowded hotel next morning for Chicago.

I have only described what we actually saw, which was but a small part of the wonders and delights of Colorado. We were humble travelers, unattached to any party of Congressmen or of railroad potentates: we were not ushered into the Garden of the Gods, assisted up Gray's Park, or introduced to the Petrified Forest; but we saw enough of the new and beautiful to give us lasting recollections of Colorado and the South Park.

S.C. CLARKE.

THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY.

"Do you know anything about this 'grange' business?" asked a lady from the city the other day; and she added, "I can hardly take up a magazine or newspaper without falling on the words 'grange,' 'Patrons of Husbandry,' 'farmers' movement,' and all that."

"Why, I am a Patron myself," I replied.

"What! you have a _grange_ here in this little New Jersey sandbank?" she exclaimed incredulously, and plied me with a storm of questions.

It was a quiet, rainy evening, and I devoted the whole of it to answering her queries, reading documents from our head-quarters, and quoting Mr. Adams's treatise on the _Railroad Systems_ and other authorities to explain the present war between producers and carriers; and, believing that there are many others who, like my friend, are disposed to look into this "grange business," I will give them the substance of our conversation. A great deal of that which has found its way into the press touching our order is more characterized by confidence than correctness of statement. In a late magazine article it is stated that the organization known as the _Patrons of Husbandry_ "was originally borrowed from an association which for many years had maintained a feeble existence in a community of Scotch farmers in North Carolina." This statement has no foundation in fact. The order is not the out-growth directly, or even indirectly, of any pre-existing organization. It is the result, so far as it is possible to trace impulses to their source, of the suggestion of a lady, communicated some years ago to Mr. O.H. Kelley, the present secretary of the National Grange, and the person who has done more than any other to establish the order as it exists to-day. The suggestion was in substance this: Why cannot the farmers protect themselves by a national organization, as do other trades and professions? Mr. Kelley seized the idea with enthusiasm, worked out the plan of a secret society, and traveled over the country seeking to arouse the farmers to organize for their mutual advantage. He met with constant disappointment at first, and his family and friends implored him to abandon a project which threatened to absorb every cent he possessed, as it did all his time and energy. But he persevered against every discouragement, and to-day he may well be proud of the results of his devotion.

The first grange was organized in St. Paul, Minnesota, and called the "North Star Grange," and it is one of the most efficient subordinate granges in the country to this day. Another was organized in Washington, one in Fredonia, New York, one in Ohio, another in Illinois, and a few others during the same year in different places. This was very nearly six years ago. Since that time they have been constantly increasing--at first slowly, then with a rapidity unheard of in the history of secret or any other organizations in this country or the world. We can hardly count three years since the order fairly began to grow, and now the granges are numbered by the thousand. Ten States on the twenty-fifth of June last had over a hundred granges, and seven of these between two and five hundred. Iowa to-day has seventeen hundred and ten, and others in process of organization. Thirty-one of the States and Territories had subordinate or both subordinate and State granges, according to the June returns. There were eight at that date in Canada, twenty-three in Vermont, five in New York State, three in New Jersey, two in Pennsylvania, and one in Massachusetts. Up to this time there has been little effort made to extend the organization into the Eastern and Middle States, but at present deputies from the National Grange are being sent to these "benighted regions," and the leaven is working finely. To show how rapidly the order is extending it will be only necessary to add that seven hundred and one charters for new granges were issued during the single month of May.

The discussion of party politics is excluded from the order by common consent, as well as by the terms of its constitution. How much this one wise provision tends to preserve harmony among those of different sects and political parties needs no comment. We know that on one or both of these rocks most great popular organizations have been wrecked. So far, the Patrons of Husbandry have worked together with great harmony, and the slight discords have been nothing more than the surface ripples on a great onward-setting current. Men and women are received on terms of absolute equality throughout all the seven degrees. Four are degrees conferred in subordinate granges, and the higher in the State granges or in the National Grange--the seventh in the latter only, constituting a national senate and court of impeachment, and having charge also of the secret work of the order. All officers are chosen by ballot--those of the National Grange for three years, of State granges for two years, and of subordinate granges for one year. The names of the first four degrees are respectively, for men and women, Laborer and Maid, Cultivator and Shepherdess, Harvester and Gleaner, Husbandman and Matron; and the initiations are not only exceedingly impressive and beautiful, but really instructive. It may also be added that they are never tedious, which will be agreeable information to those who, in entering secret societies, have been dragged through long, meaningless rigmaroles, conscious of being made a spectacle of, and preserving their temper only by the most strenuous efforts.

Into the initiations of the order of the Patrons there enter as machinery or symbols music and song, the expression of exalted sentiments, ceremonies replete, without exception, with significance and instruction, together with fruits and grains and flowers and simple feasts. Two fundamental objects of the organization are social and intellectual culture. The widespread realization of the importance of these among the people is the first great step toward securing them, and the first unmistakable sign that such step has already been taken is the rebelling against pure drudgery. Said the Master of the National Grange, Mr. Dudley W. Adams, in a late address: "It will doubtless be a matter of surprise to them" (editors, lawyers, politicians, etc.) "to learn that farmers may possibly entertain some wish to enjoy life, and have some other object in living besides everlasting hard work and accumulating a few paltry dollars by coining them from their own life-blood and stamping them with the sighs of weary children and worn wives. What we want in agriculture is a new Declaration of Independence. We must do something to dispel old prejudices and beat down old notions. That the farmer is a mere animal to labor from morning till eve, and into the night, is an ancient but abominable heresy."... "We have heard enough, ten times enough, about the 'hardened hand of honest toil,' the supreme glory of 'the sweating brow,' and how magnificent the suit of coarse homespun which covers a form bent with overwork."... "I tell you, my brother-workers of the soil, there is something worth living for besides hard work. We have heard enough of this professional blarney. Toil in itself is not necessarily glorious. To toil like slaves, raise fat steers, cultivate broad acres, pile up treasures of bonds and lands and herds, and at the same time bow and starve the god-like form, harden the hands, dwarf the immortal mind and alienate the children from the homestead, is a damning disgrace to any man, and should stamp him as worse than a brute."

Thus the farmers have joined the great strike of labor against drudgery, and it will never end until it is fully recognized that, while every unproductive life is a dishonorable life, drudgery is no less degrading than pure idleness. To be sure, the sages in all times have taught that there was a time to sing and dance as well as a time to labor, but it is not fifty years since it was generally accepted by the masses that a person might spend every day of his adult life in monotonous manual labor, and yet, other things being favorable, be just as intelligent, just as polished in manner, and graceful in bearing as if his occupation was varied and the more laborious portions of it never continued long at a time. To-day this fallacy is beginning to be generally recognized. Go into any farming district, and you will find that the farmer's sons who are regularly engaged in one kind of labor all day, as ploughing, planting, mowing, are great, awkward, heavy-mannered youths, while his daughters are, in comparison, easy in their movements and agreeable in their address; and simply because, though their labor has been as unremitting, it has been far less monotonous. As a general rule, they go from one thing to another, and through a great variety of muscular exercises from hour to hour.

It is no wonder, then, that the farmers' sons, to get rid of the terrible monotony of farm-labor as now organized, find peddling tin kettles an acceptable substitute, or turning somersets in a third-class circus a fortunate escape. The reason why our country youths are so impatient of farm-labor is not that they are less virtuous than formerly, but that they are wiser; and the railroad has opened a thousand fields for their ambitious daring undreamed of as possibilities in the olden time. Not even the combination of attractions afforded by the granges, with their libraries and reading-rooms, their processions and picnics, the decoration of grange halls in company with the ladies of the order, the working of degrees, the music, social reunions, balls and concerts, can keep young men on the farm unless something is done to render the labor less monotonous and disagreeable.

One of the Patrons during a late discussion of these questions predicted, from the growing intelligence of the people, and their better understanding of the possibilities of organization, that within a few years we shall see magnificent social palaces, something like the famous one at Guise, in many places in this country; and he went on to show how social and industrial life might be organized so as to secure the most complete liberty of the individual or family, magnificent educational advantanges, remunerative occupation and varied amusements for all, with perfect insurance against want for orphans, for the sick and the aged. Each palace was to be the centre of a great agricultural district exploited in the most scientific manner, and through the varied economies resulting from combination all the luxuries of industry and all the conditions for high culture were to be secured to all who were willing to labor even one-half the hours that the farmer now does. It was a glowing picture, and certainly very entertaining, whether a possibility of this, or, as one of the company suggested, of some happier planet than ours.

But whatever dreams for the future may be entertained by some of the Patrons, it is certain that they have work directly at hand, and that they are grappling it with a will. The Iowa granges, through agents appointed from among their members, now purchase their machinery and farming implements direct from the manufacturer and by wholesale. That State saved half a million during 1872 in this way, and Missouri, through the executive committee of her State grange, has just completed a contract in St. Louis for the same purpose. All members of the granges are thus enabled to secure these articles at greatly reduced prices; and as there are over three hundred and fifty granges, with a larger membership than in many other States, this is a very important item.

Now, in regard to the railroads, with which it is generally supposed the Patrons of Husbandry are in fierce conflict. Certainly, to the outside observer, the agriculturists of the South and West seem to have most grievous burdens to bear. It costs the price of three bushels of corn to carry one to the grain-marts by rail, and the whole world knows that they have been burning their three-year old crops as fuel in nearly all the Western States. Meanwhile, it seems clear that there is not too much corn raised, since a great famine has just swept over Persia, and others are threatening in different parts of the world.

The present high rates of transportation were never anticipated by the farmer. If in the beginning some great route charged high rates for carrying, his dissatisfaction was soothed by the assurance that the road had cost an enormous outlay of capital, and that as soon as the company was partially reimbursed the rates would be lowered. The sequel generally proved that the rates went up instead of down, and the still angrier mood of the farmer was again quieted by a new hope: a great competing railroad line was projected, and finally finished. Competition would certainly bring down the prices. This was the reasonable way to expect relief. Competition always had that effect. Alas for the simple producer! He had borne his burdens long and patiently only to learn the truth of George Stevenson's pithy apothegm, that "where combination is possible competition is impossible." The two great companies combined, became consolidated into one, and, having their victim completely in their power, swindled him without pity and divided the spoils between them.

The characteristic of the day is the tendency to consolidation. But nothing can prevent the people from fearing the results of great monopolies and "rings," or from organizing to circumvent their schemes. Those who make no calculation for the growing intelligence of industry are walking blindly. Never were the people so conscious of their power--never so fully aware that in this country the machinery for correcting abuses lies in the degree of concentration with which public opinion can be brought to bear in a given direction. Once let the people become fully aroused to the existence of an evil or abuse, and there is no interest nor combination of interests that can long hold out against them. The trouble heretofore has been the multiplicity of conflicting opinions everywhere disseminated, and the consequent difficulty of agreeing upon measures, and uniting a great number of people in their adoption for the accomplishment of certain ends. If we may rely upon the promise of the order of the Patrons of Husbandry, now slowly and surely sweeping toward the eastern shores of the country, and yet still widening and extending in the West, where it rose, we may hope that this is the great moving army of the people so long waited for, which is to work out the vexed problems of labor and capital by a sudden but peaceful revolution.

The record of the vast work that the order of the Patrons has accomplished for its members exists at present in a detached and scattered form among the different granges, and in piles of yet unused documents at the national head-quarters. The full history of the movement is promised, and in good time will doubtless appear.

Since the first part of this paper was written the Iowa granges have increased to over one thousand seven hundred and fifty. Twenty-nine new ones were organized during the week ending July 24. Over one-third of all the grain-elevators of the State are owned or controlled by the granges, which had, up to December last, shipped over five million bushels of grain to Chicago, besides cattle and hogs in vast quantities; and the reports received from these shipments show an increased profit to the producers of from ten to forty per cent. over that of the old "middlemen" system; and by the complete buying arrangements which the Western granges have effected it is calculated that the members save on an average one hundred dollars a year each. Large families find their expenses reduced by three or four hundred dollars annually, aside from amounts saved on sewing-machines, pianos, organs, reapers, mowers, corn-shellers and a hundred other costly articles; all of which any member of any grange can obtain to-day at a saving of from twenty-five to forty per cent. They are ordered in quantity from the manufacturers by the agents of the State granges of the West, and a single order even from a member of a new-formed grange in Vermont will be incorporated in the general State order. The granges of the Eastern and Middle States are as yet mostly engaged in the work of organizing, and have not yet realized the pecuniary advantages accruing to older granges. By this vast co-operative and entirely cash system all parties are well satisfied except certain unfortunate middlemen, who find their "occupation gone," and themselves obliged to become producers or to enter into the sale of the numerous small and low-priced articles not yet affected by the movement.

MARIE ROWLAND.

[It is desirable that an organization which is assuming such proportions and promising such results should be examined from every point of view, and the foregoing article, written from that of an enthusiastic member of the order, will, we may hope, assist in throwing light upon the subject. If there is some degree of vagueness in its statement of the aims and purposes with which the movement has been set on foot, it is probable that this exactly represents the state of mind of the great majority of those who are engaged in it. The one tangible thing which it would seem to be accomplishing, a combination of the farmers for the purchase of pianos and agricultural implements at wholesale prices, is not of a very startling character; and if this can be attained at no greater cost or trouble to the individual "Patrons" than that of "decorating the granges" and taking part in the singing and the symbolical rites, a considerable advantage will no doubt have been gained. How the cost of transportation is to be reduced, or why the railroads, by facilitating the exchange of productions, should have become the _bête noire_ of the producers, are points on which more definite information would seem to be required. But "the people" being now "aroused," and the revolution in progress, we have only to await events in that hopeful state of mind which such announcements are calculated to inspire.--ED.]

ON THE CHURCH STEPS.