The best camping and sporting ground is a main point in the question. The South Park combines every advantage. The weather is sure to be good. There is plenty of grass, of water, and of game; and there are no Indians or mosquitoes: for though the latter are found on the ridges round the park, they are not found in the park itself. It is somewhere about twenty miles square. It contains also two small settlements, called Colorado City and Canon (pronounced Canyon) City. The topography is not given accurately in Appleton’s maps; for instance, Pike’s Peak, at the foot of which it lies, is represented as standing out on the plain quite detached, whereas it is only the highest peak in that part of the range. It is so much higher that from the neighbourhood of Denver it is the only point visible in that direction, and so becomes the steering mark for parties bound for the South Park. Colorado City is also put to the north of the peak, whereas it lies to the west of it. There are two routes to the South Park, one by way of New York, south shore of lake Erie, Chicago, Omaha and Shyenne by railway: this is about 2200 miles; then to Denver by coach, which is 110 miles more; concluding with a waggon journey to the park, of about 75 miles. This is the route I would recommend for several reasons. There is far more to see upon it, and it can be done in less time. Instead of merely coming down to the mountains on a line at right angles to them, you would coast along them for nearly two hundred miles. Yon would pass close under Long’s Peak, and through a very interesting part of the plain, in the neighbourhood of St. Vrain and Burlington. You might stop, if you pleased, for a day or two’s fishing at La Porte and Big Thomson. You would see Denver, which is a place of much interest, and a good place for getting your waggon, mules, and stores, and the man to act as cook and waggoner, and where you would find everyone ready to be helpful in giving information and advice. [Sidenote: _Routes and Sporting-grounds._] Or you might reach it in another way, by New York, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and the south branch of the Pacific Railway, which is now opened from St. Louis, by Kansas City, Leavenworth, and Lecompton, to a point called Pond Creek. By this route you would have to get your waggon and span of mules at Leavenworth, and would reach Pike’s Peak and the South Park by the Smoky Hill track. In this way you would have to travel a great deal further by waggon; and though you would pass through a very interesting country, and see many stirring and busy places, yet in these respects it cannot compete with the more northerly route. Why, to have seen Chicago is in itself an education.