After an early breakfast our Pullman Hotel, the “Dalmatia,” was taken over the Midland Railroad to Cascade City, passing through eight tunnels in going six miles to ascend about one thousand feet. We left our Pullman at Cascade City, and took carriages with four horses, for a seventeen-mile climb to reach the summit. The carriage road is a marvel of engineering skill. At the half-way house our horses were changed for four sure-footed mules. After leaving the timber line the prospect is wonderful, changing with every turn of the road, and there are eighty turns. The ascent of Pike’s Peak in time of flowers is a surprise for those who expect to see only the rough boulder and riven rock. “Flowers deck their inclined sides in great blocks of color, and litter their terraces and woodland edges in variegated confusion. There is no difficult pass where they are not found; no dusky glen that does not harbor them; scarcely any height on which their beauty will not appear to gladden him who toils to reach the summits.” “’Tis legend told of primal days When ‘Manitou,’ like clay, The gray rock mountain shapes did raise To celebrate his sway. He was not pleased. The mountains bare Were bleak and dull and gray. He snatched a rainbow from the air, To use its colors gay. Crumbling its bars, with chanted spell, Their radiant dust he threw, And everywhere a handful fell A million flow’rets grew.” As the early snow on the mountains had killed the flowers before our visit, a volume of pressed “Wild Flowers from the Rockies” was presented to each one of our party by our host. The flowers were gone but the Autumn tints had painted the grand old mountain, emerald, garnet, and gold. Miss L. I. S. says: “One curious fact I remember was, that the pine trees all presented branches on but one side of the trunk, and that the south, for the bleak north winds prove too severe for growth on that side, and instead of growing up, like well regulated trees, the branches all hang down, bended by their weight of snow, presenting a very singular appearance. “How many times our blood would run cold as we skirted a particularly sharp turn on the edge of a very steep precipice. “Snow was very plenty about us, and often we would be driving through piles two and three feet deep in some sheltered portion of the road. “Imagine, ye who were not there, sinking in above the hubs in snow, genuine snow in its pristine beauty, and then you can realize why his lordship, the Peak, looks so white at a distance. And now comes the time for the furs and mittens and lap-robes, and were it not for the bright sun I imagine some noses would have been very blue. “We had an unusually clear day for our visit, just what our favored party might have expected, for what was there that did not present its most attractive side to us.