too, through a broken vista of purple gorges, of
the illimitable Plains lying idealized in the late sunlight, their
baked, brown expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea
rolling infinitely in waves of misty gold.

We rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through the
forest, all my intellect concentrated on avoiding being dragged off my
horse by impending branches, or having the blankets badly torn, as
those of my companions were, by sharp dead limbs, between which there
was hardly room to pass--the horses breathless, and requiring to stop
every few yards, though their riders, except myself, were afoot. The
gloom of the dense, ancient, silent forest is to me awe inspiring. On
such an evening it is soundless, except for the branches creaking in
the soft wind, the frequent snap of decayed timber, and a murmur in the
pine tops as of a not distant waterfall, all tending to produce
EERINESS and a sadness "hardly akin to pain." There no lumberer's axe
has ever rung. The trees die when they have attained their prime, and
stand there, dead and bare, till the fierce mountain winds lay them
prostrate. The pines grew smaller and more sparse as we ascended, and
the last stragglers wore a tortured, warring look. The timber line was
passed, but yet a little higher a slope of mountain meadow dipped to
the south-west towards a bright stream trickling under ice and icicles,
and there a grove of the beautiful silver spruce marked our camping
ground. The trees were in miniature, but so exquisitely arranged that
one might well ask what artist's hand had planted them, scattering them
here, clumping them there, and training their slim spires towards
heaven. Hereafter, when I call up memories of the glorious, the view
from this camping ground will come up. Looking east, gorges opened to
the distant Plains, then fading into purple grey. Mountains with
pine-clothed skirts rose in ranges, or, solitary, uplifted their grey
summits, while close behind, but nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered
the bald white crest of Long's Peak, its huge precipices red with the
light of a sun long lost to our eyes. Close to us, in the caverned
side of the Peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal.
Soon the afterglow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung
out of the heavens, shining through the silver blue foliage of the
pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into
fairyland. The