pathless forests, down to the plains which spread below like a
cold and waveless sea, everything underwent a strange and marvellously
beautiful transformation; for, as the sun rose above the horizon in all
the fulness of its orbed splendour, the grey of the plains flushed into
purple, the wan peaks gleamed like rubies, the pines shone like so many
columns of gold, and the sky reddened with rose-hues like the blush on a
fair face. After breakfast the party resumed their ascent of the
mountain, and in due time arrived at the "Notch"--a literal gate of
rock--when they found themselves on the knife-like ridge or backbone of
Long's Peak, only a few feet wide, covered with huge boulders, and on
the other side shelving in a snow-patched precipice of 3,000 feet to a
picturesque hollow, brightened by an emerald lake.

"Passing through the 'Notch,'" says Miss Bird, "we looked along the
nearly inaccessible side of the peak, composed of boulders and _debris_
of all shapes and sizes, through which appeared broad, smooth ribs of
reddish-coloured granite, looking as if they upheld the towering
rock-mass above. I usually dislike bird's-eye and panoramic views, but,
though from a mountain, this was not one. Serrated ridges, not much
lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far as that
pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful chasms deep
with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the heavenly blue with
their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till the most distant range
upbore unsullied snow alone. There were fair lakes mirroring the dark
pine woods, canyons dark and blue, black with unbroken expanses of
pines, snow-slashed pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely
parks, watered and wooded, lying in the lap of summer; North Park
floating off into the blue distance, Middle Park closed till another
season, the sunny slopes of Esteo Park, and winding down among the
mountains the snowy ridge of the Divide (the backbone, or water-shed of
the Rocky Mountains), whose bright waters seek both the Atlantic and the
Pacific Oceans. There, far below, links of diamonds showed where the
grand river takes its rise to seek the mysterious Colorado, with its
still unsolved enigma, and lose itself in the waters of the Pacific; and
nearer, the snow-born Thompson bursts forth from the ice to begin its
journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Nature, rioting in her grandest mood,
exclaimed with voices of grandeur, solitu