“Before we quite reach the summit we get a grand view of the Continental Divide and Snowy Range, and those two white icebergs to the south they tell us are the Spanish Peaks, one hundred and eighty miles away. “And now we have almost finished our seventeen miles of climbing, and the high mountains that we have come over lie like level plains beneath us, and nothing obstructs our view; we are head and shoulders above the world. Up, up, until the Tip-Top House comes in sight, and we draw up before it and alight cautiously, so as to take the rarefied air by degrees into our lungs. “The Peak was reached at one o’clock. The sun was shining with mid-day brightness. The moon was also shining, undimmed by the sun’s brighter rays. To the east, “Manitou” and “Colorado Springs” seemed floating in space; to the north and west, Gray’s Peak, and the Snowy Range, and the smoke of the smelters at Leadville, seventy-five miles away; to the south, the “Spanish Peaks,” snow-clad, one hundred and eighty miles off, seemed only a few miles across the mountains. We stood fourteen thousand three hundred and thirty-six feet above New York and Brooklyn. “At about 2.30 o’clock we stow ourselves in the stages and begin our trip down the mountain, a much easier but more thrilling ride. Mrs. Hadden, I think, voiced the experience of some of the rest when she said she only took two breaths all the way down--one when she started, and another when she stopped. It _was_ exciting to be whirled around the sharp curves, at a rapid gait, especially when an overturned cart told the tale of some poor fellow coming to grief; but it really amused us to picture the antics the little donkey must have gone through in his involuntary tobogganing down the side of the mountain. Several of the turns were marvellous, the road almost returning on itself, and in one spot we could see seven different portions of the road in its serpentine windings. “Shall this pleasure ever end? Must we come down to every one’s level? “The sun has just disappeared behind the snow-clad peak. We can still see it shining on Cameron’s Cone and on the peaks to our left. ‘The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the towers which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain, Their rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect.’