roads over heights, and through depths, and among peaks, that would appal most eastern engineers, and thus enable us to conquer nature in her mightiest strongholds. The last day out from Denver, we ascended Bradford's Hill--our last serious climb--about noon. This is in reality the first range of the mountains, and gets itself up to some 8,000 feet above the sea; but is yet termed a "Hill," in Colorado parlance. We all got out or dismounted and walked up, to relieve our worn animals, and became well blown ourselves before reaching the summit--the atmosphere grew so rare. As we rounded its western shoulder, we caught a grand view of the Snowy Range again, solemn and sublime over and above all intervening peaks and ridges; but with one accord, all hastened forward to behold once more the Plains, the Plains! Yes, there they were, in all their immeasurable extent! We were out of the Mountains--our long jaunt almost over. No more cañons. No more forests. No more snow-squalls. No more rides, hour by hour, through narrow valleys and defiles, where the whole man feels "cabined, cribbed, confined." No. There were the Plains, illimitable, grand, in all their immensity and sublimity. We thought the view from Sangre del Christo fine, and so it is; but as a view of the Plains proper, without the Mountains thrown in, this view from Bradford's Hill, I think, perhaps surpasses it. There is no end to the vast outstretch and outlook, and in the serene atmosphere of that region the eye ranges over it all with an ease and freedom, only equalled by the eagle himself when poised in mid air. To say that the Plains are visible for miles on miles--north, south, east--is but a feeble description of the wonderful panorama, that there unfolds before you. To the south appeared Castle Rock and its sister buttes, that we had passed three weeks before, looking now like mole-hills beneath us. Issuing from the Mountains at our feet, we could trace the South Platte and Cherry Creek to where they unite near Denver, and then follow the Platte on and on to the east, till lost in the far horizon. Denver lay like a toy-city, seemingly at the base of the Mountains, though really twenty miles away. Over all, was one of those perfect days, "So cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky." as old George Herbert wrote, which no Bostonian or Gothamite ever truly witnesses--with not a cloud or haze even visible, the air so pure it was joy to breathe it and ecstacy to gaze abroad through it. Verily, here in Colorado, if anywhere. "The sky _is_ a drinking cup, That was overturned of old, And it pours into the eyes of men Its wine of airy gold; We drink that wine all day Till the last drop is drained up, And are lighted off to bed, By the jewels in the cup."