The next morning we crossed another lofty range, the ascent of which was wild and picturesque, and thence descended into South Park. Less in size than the San Luis, and more broken in surface, the South Park nevertheless has the same general characteristics, though more nearly circular. Its enclosing mountains are abrupt and bold, and the views from many points are very striking and charming. Passing out of it to Denver, we ascended the range from which Leutze is said to have conceived his well-known painting in the Capitol at Washington, "Westward the star of Empire takes its way." The facts are little like the painting aforesaid, because no emigrant train would ever attempt to pass over such an impossible road, as Leutze has painted: but the landscape from the point referred to is nevertheless noble and grand. The range there, I believe, is about eight thousand feet above the sea. South Park, at your feet, extends say, thirty miles north and south, by twenty east and west; down in its bosom nestles a necklace of exquisite little lakes, with streams flashing onward from the mountains to them; while beyond--all along the west, in fact--runs the perpetual Snowy Range, notched and peaked, clear cut and beautiful against the sky, though not so grand and stately as we had seen it farther south. To the north of the road the range shoots up nearly a thousand feet higher, but the view from there did not compensate us for our toil in ascending it. The whole view here, though fine in its way, lacks breadth and sublimity, as a specimen of Rocky Mountain scenery, and Leutze would have done better (in my judgment) had he gone to Sangre del Christo or perhaps Poncho Pass. The sky and general coloring of his painting are good; but how inadequately, how feebly they express the exquisite serenity and unapproachable glory of the Mountains! Bierstadt's skies, though thought impossible east, are nearer to the truth, as our critics will yet learn, when they come to know more of Colorado. [Illustration: TWIN LAKES (South Park).]