We are now in the famous Creede mining region, where, besides silver to lure the avaricious seeker of riches, there is much to excite the admiration of the tourist and lover of nature. La Gorita Mountains lie towards the north in vast banks of haze, and the southern horizon is broken by the San Juan range. Here, also, is a region of surprising springs, where boiling-hot and ice-cold waters gush out of neighboring hills, and in places actually strike hands to neutralize each other. Creede, which is ten miles from Wagon-Wheel Gap, is a typical mining camp, full of excitement and all the concomitants of a new and rich discovery, though it is rapidly acquiring civilized ways. Willow Gulch is the scene of greatest activity, and there is now to be obtained, for a fair equivalent, everything from bad fighting whiskey to a spring bed, though the latter is still a scarce luxury, particularly in the immediate vicinity of Willow Gulch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: ANIMAS CAÑON.—Animas Cañon is on the Silverton branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, just beyond the station of Rockwood and about 470 miles from Denver. The gorge is formed by the breaking through the mountains of the Rio de las Animas Perdidas, or River of Lost Souls, as it is appropriately termed in musical Spanish. The railroad tracks are laid along a shelf cut in the solid rock wall of the cañon, 500 feet below the top of the mountain and 1000 above its foot. The grandeur of the scene may be inferred from this description. It requires a steady nerve or long practice in traveling over such places to enable one to look down this frightful precipice from the car windows, and it is no unusual thing to observe timid tourists hugging the inner side of the coaches as they dash by this dangerous spot. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CLIFF DWELLINGS IN THE RIO MANCOS CAÑON.] After our meeting and short stay at Alamosa, our party again divided, two of our photographers going south from that point, over the New Mexico extension of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, to Santa Fe, while the other proceeded east to Cuchara Junction, thence south to Trinidad, and from that place he went by way of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, to Santa Fe, where our party again united.