158 In the United States vi 



situated at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and 

 with a capital hotel — kept by one Charpool, a Swiss 

 — having one of the best cooks and the best wine 

 cellars in America. Lord ! how we hungered for its 

 fleshpots when we were up in the mountains. The 

 Colorado Spring scenery is very fine ; the granite has 

 tilted up the sandstones and the limestones right on 

 end, and they stand up in pinnacles like gigantic 

 sharks' teeth, red and white, three hundred feet high. 

 The canons are fine, but I cannot think for a 

 moment of comparing what Rocky Mountain scenery 

 I have seen with the Alps or even the Pyrenees. 

 The so-called parks, wide dales up in the mountains, 

 are pretty, and the climate in them is glorious, and 

 the air so clear that mountains seventy-five miles 

 away look quite close. After Greely Station, between 

 Cheyenne and Denver, the land begins to improve, 

 and is cultivated : it looks as if the lighter and richer 

 portions of the glacial drift had begun to deposit 

 here, leaving the heavier sands and gravels to the 

 north. The grayish green plain is broken by long 

 lines of reddish brown willows marking the water- 

 courses ; here and there one sees groups of wild- 

 looking mounted men driving home the cattle, and 

 in the distance are the blue mountains — just like a 

 picture by Berghem. The more westward we go the 

 more English the people become, and the more 

 English the sound of the voices. I like the people 

 and the country out west infinitely better than in the 

 east. 



