The glory of Colorado, in the splendor of its waterfalls, the awesomeness of its mountains, the wealth of its mines, and the picturesqueness of its natural parks, is by no means confined to those Rocky Mountain districts which we have just pictured and described, for greater marvels remain to be spoken of, and pictorially represented. Returning to Denver, our tour took us southward, across a plain that hugs the gnarled bosom of the Continental Divide, by the pearl of Palmer Lake, and on to Colorado Springs and Manitou, the twin cities that sit at the feet of Pike’s Peak. Here we are compelled to pause in a spell of mighty wonderment before the amazing prodigies of a riotously eccentric nature, that bursts into an exuberance of dashing cascades, top-lofty mountains, darkling cañons, gruesome formations, monolithic spires, babbling brooks and magnetic springs. Here are God’s acres of tumultuous stone, grand, amazing, chaotic, aberrant; a pantheon of forces, a Jovian council, a mythologic assemblage that sits like a Sanhedrim on the issues of Titanic upheaval, erosion, conglomeration and elemental disturbance. There, rising like a giant specter above its lesser brothers, and dipping its hoary head into the milky baldric of the heavens, stands Pike’s Peak, the grand old sentinel of millenniums, with sides gashed by tumbling cataracts and yellow with quivering leaves of the frosted aspen. So lofty that the stars can almost whisper to it, and the clouds, when tired of sailing through the sky, circle and settle upon its peak, while eternal night sleeps undisturbed, save by the lion’s call, in the deep gorges that split its base. The first white man who caught sight of this towering mountain was Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who was sent out by the Government in the year 1806 to make an exploration of the Territory of Louisiana and the Provinces of New Spain, a district now characterized as the great Southwest. From his diary of Saturday, November 15th, 1806, we quote the description of his discovery: [Illustration: THE STALACTITE ORGAN, GRAND CAVERNS.] “Passed two deep creeks, and many high points of rocks; also large herds of buffaloes. At two o’clock in the afternoon I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right, which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with the spy-glass and was still more confirmed in my conjecture, and in half an hour it appeared in full view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill, they with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican Mountains.” On the 26th, following, this intrepid explorer attempted an ascent of Cheyenne Mountain, ten miles to the east of Pike’s Peak, from which to make an observation of the more lofty eminence, which he thus describes: