garments daily, taking care that there are no witnesses of my
inexperience. Yesterday a calf sucked one into hopeless rags. The
rest of the day I spend in mending, knitting, writing to you, and the
various odds and ends which arise when one has to do all for oneself.
At twelve and six some food is put on the box by the door, and at dusk
we make up our beds. A distressed emigrant woman has just given birth
to a child in a temporary shanty by the river, and I go to help her
each day.

I have made the acquaintance of all the careworn, struggling settlers
within a walk. All have come for health, and most have found or are
finding it, even if they have not better shelter than a wagon tilt or a
blanket on sticks laid across four poles. The climate of Colorado is
considered the finest in North America, and consumptives, asthmatics,
dyspeptics, and sufferers from nervous diseases, are here in hundreds
and thousands, either trying the "camp cure" for three or four months,
or settling here permanently. People can safely sleep out of doors for
six months of the year. The plains are from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high,
and some of the settled "parks," or mountain valleys, are from 8,000
to 10,000. The air, besides being much rarefied, is very dry. The
rainfall is far below the average, dews are rare, and fogs nearly
unknown. The sunshine is bright and almost constant, and three-fourths
of the days are cloudless. The milk, beef, and bread are good. The
climate is neither so hot in summer nor so cold in winter as that of
the States, and when the days are hot the nights are cool. Snow rarely
lies on the lower ranges, and horses and cattle don't require to be
either fed or housed during the winter. Of course the rarefied air
quickens respiration. All this is from hearsay.[8] I am not under
favorable circumstances, either for mind or body, and at present I feel
a singular lassitude and difficulty in taking exercise, but this is
said to be the milder form of the affliction known on higher altitudes
as soroche, or "mountain sickness," and is only temporary. I am
forming a plan for getting farther into the mountains, and hope that my
next letter will be more lively. I killed a rattlesnake this morning
close to the cabin, and have taken its rattle, which has eleven joints.
My life is embittered by the abundance of these reptiles--rattlesnakes
and moccasin snakes, both deadly, carpet snakes and "green racers,"
reputed dangerous,