MOUNTAIN TRAIL. 189 
home a week, rather than venture over the mud 
of roads that, to my eyes, accustomed to the 
depth to which mother earth softens at the touch 
of spring in Wisconsin and Illinois, seemed re- 
markably good. In these latter States I have 
known roads that bore the reputation of being 
next to impassably steep and sideling; yet which, 
after travelling along mountain-sides in Colorado, 
where the large wheels of a wagon had to be 
placed on its lower side, and the smaller ones on 
its upper side, and the vehicle then steadied by 
ropes wound around trees to keep it from over- 
turning, seemed only sufficiently uneven to give 
pleasant diversity — I wondered, in contrasting the 
two, that any one should think of complaining of 
such trifling inequalities. So about this trail over 
Dartt Pass I shall make no absolute assertion. A 
traveller among the Himalayas, or even the 
higher Andes, might have called it very good, 
and have regarded any other statement as simply 
evincing a lack of experience in the possibilities 
of travel. It is true, when their horses were a 
halter’s length behind them, they had to look 
below the level of their own feet to see those 
patient beasts’ advancing ears ; but I dare say 
they were fortunate in being able to see them 
even then ! 
In many places, too, the poor creatures found 
it almost impossible to pick their way over great 
