nothing to see except some dog towns,
with their quaint little sentinels; but the view in front was glorious.
The Alps, from the Lombard Plains, are the finest mountain panorama I
ever saw, but not equal to this; for not only do five high-peaked
giants, each nearly the height of Mont Blanc, lift their dazzling
summits above the lower ranges, but the expanse of mountains is so
vast, and the whole lie in a transparent medium of the richest blue,
not haze--something peculiar to the region. The lack of foreground is
a great artistic fault, and the absence of greenery is melancholy, and
makes me recall sadly the entrancing detail of the Hawaiian Islands.
Once only, the second time we forded the river, the cotton-woods formed
a foreground, and then the loveliness was heavenly. We stopped at a
log house and got a rough dinner of beef and potatoes, and I was amused
at the five men who shared it with us for apologizing to me for being
without their coats, as if coats would not be an enormity on the Plains.

It is the election day for the Territory, and men were galloping over
the prairie to register their votes. The three in the wagon talked
politics the whole time. They spoke openly and shamelessly of the
prices given for votes; and apparently there was not a politician on
either side who was not accused of degrading corruption. We saw a
convoy of 5,000 head of Texas cattle traveling from southern Texas to
Iowa. They had been nine months on the way! They were under the
charge of twenty mounted vacheros, heavily armed, and a light wagon
accompanied them, full of extra rifles and ammunition, not unnecessary,
for the Indians are raiding in all directions, maddened by the reckless
and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their chief subsistence.
On the Plains are herds of wild horses, buffalo, deer, and antelope;
and in the Mountains, bears, wolves, deer, elk, mountain lions, bison,
and mountain sheep. You see a rifle in every wagon, as people always
hope to fall in with game.

By the time we reached Fort Collins I was sick and dizzy with the heat
of the sun, and not disposed to be pleased with a most unpleasing
place. It was a military post, but at present consists of a few frame
houses put down recently on the bare and burning plain. The settlers
have "great expectations," but of what? The Mountains look hardly
nearer than from Greeley; one only realizes their vicinity by the loss
of their higher peaks. This h