CHAPTER XVI.

All the pleasures and enjoyments of traveling flow from the gratification of the eye. When beautiful, wonderful and sublime objects are presented to the eye the attributes of those objects powerfully affect the sensibility, giving rise spontaneously to exalted and pleasur able emotions, that may carry the mind to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. But while a view of many objects afford pleasure to the highest degree, but few of them inspire enthusiasm. Then again we are differently affected 'by the same object according to the standpoint from which we regard it. For instance, our point of observation may 'be the top of a high building, the point of a pinnacle, the top of a tower, or the summit of a mountain. The pleas urable emotions that arise in this case, spring from the extended view and the number and variety of the objects seen. All of these objects when taken singly, may be incapable of inspiring any emotion whatever, yet when taken in by a single glance, afford the highest kind of pleasure. It is the view that affects us rather than the form and character of the multiplicity of objects that compose it. A view however is incapable of awakening enthusiasm in its highest sense. We generally call views beautiful, grand, and even magnificent, but never sublime."

Again, our standpoint may be at the head of a lane, in the opening of a row of trees, or we may look down lengthwise between the two sides of a mountain gorge, and we may call the vista beautiful or charming, but never magnificent, much less sublime. The emotions excited by fine vistas, though highly pleasurable, are not even of so ex

alted a character as those arising from a grand and magnificent view.

Finally, our standpoint may be, in front of a splendid building, at the bottom of Niagara, in the abyss of a mountain chasm, or at the foot of a precipitous, craggy, cliff overhung by toppling rocks, and crowned by mountain pines; then in looking up, we are smitten with wonder, awe and astonishment. We had seen the same objects at a distance; they then were component parts of our views and vistas, and as such merely objects that filled up points in the more or less extended space in sight. We hardly regarded even their forms, much less their attributes. But now we are regarding them singly. We then only saw enough of them to perceive they were trees, houses, cliffs, cascades, precipices or mountains, but we now see that. they are extraordinary trees, houses, cliffs, precipices, etc. Then we saw no attributes except such only as enabled us to classify them; now we see nothing but attributes. We now see they have beauty, symmetry, harmony, vastness,. grandeur in all grades up to the highest degree of sublimity. These fix the gaze and rivet the attention; a glow darts through our veins, the imagination is set on fire and onthusiasm is awakened; and then if under the influence of their inspiration we attempt to give utterance to our feelings we call the sight beautiful, grand, magnificent,

sublime.

To meet fully the demands of the traveler the country visited must possess objects and scenery that will afford all of these three sources of pleasurable emotions; namely,. beautiful and charming vistas, grand and magnificent views, and grand, stupendous, magnificent and sublime sights.

Of late years traveling has degenerated almost exclusively into sight-seeing of the lowest order. Our citizens visit the large towns and cities of our own and of foreign lands, which have more fame for being dens of iniquity and infamy, than for affording sublime and inspir ing sights. The rich, large. munificent and splendid

cities of continental Europe especially, seem to have particular attraction to those having the desire and the means to see the World; by which they understand the manners, customs, habits and vices even of man. As for sublime sights, they believe they have seen everything worth seeing, when they have looked at, although they may not have taste enough to admire, the most famous specimens of architecture in the world.

The ancients had seven wonders: 1st. The statue of the Sun, at Rhodes; 2d. The Mausoleum of the King of Caria; 3d. The statue of Jupiter, by Phidias; 4th. The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus; 5th. The walls and hanging gardens of Babylon; 6th. The Pyramids of Egypt; and, 7th. The Palace of Cyrus, the younger; these were what they called the seven wonders of the World, and, as is seen, every one of them was the work of human hands.

It is, therefore, an ancient idea, that the great, the grand, the beautiful and sublime, must be sought in the works of Man. Which are the greater and more sublime, the works of Nature or the works of Man, is not even admissible as a question; for it has been truly said, "Man made the city, but God made the country." In the cities, Man has built St. Pauls and St. Peters, the Louvre, the Tuillierios Sans Souci, arches, columns and domes; but Nature built Niagara, the Alps and the Andes, the cliff, the gorge and the abyssimal chasm. Of Man's works we have less in this country than there is elsewhere, but of Nature's more. Not only inore, but of a higher order, and of a unique. type. They have only to be known to be appreciated; not only by us, but by the World.

Were I called upon to designate the country having the most beautiful and the greatest variety of scenery, and in its greatest perfection all the elements of grandeur, magnificence and sublimity, I would unhesitatingly name Colorado.

Lately it has become fashionable for tourists to visit the White Mountains. and ascend to the top of Mount Wash

ington; and when they return, they tell us they have been above the clouds. Why, any of the towns of Colorado, on the Plains along the flank of the Rocky Mountains, are as high above the sea as the top of Mount Washington; while those on the mountains are from three to four thousand feet higher. As for sights, go to the bottom of one of those awful chasms that seam the great Cordilleras in all directions, and look up the side of the cleft mountain that lifts its rocky escarpment to the clouds. How utterly insignificant is anything man has done, or can do, when. compared with this cyclopean work of Nature!·

Everywhere, in threading the labyrinthine mazes of the mountain canyons, these overhanging, cloudcapped and oftentimes beetling cliffs are met with But foremost amongst these stands Boulder Canyon, unequaled either in these remarkable mountains or in the world, for the variety, grandeur and sublimity of its scenery. Its only possible rival is the Yosemite Valley of California. But the Yosemite is a spectacle of a different order It is a valley quiet in all its aspects; the very embodiment of tranquility, if we except the Bridal Veil and the cascade of the main source of the Merced, pouring themselves into the head of the valley from under the everlasting snows and ice of the Sierra Nevada. But the Merced itself flows through the valley so gently that it scarcely shows a ripple upon its tranquil bosom. It even forms a calm lake in the centre, which is scarcely ever ruffled by a passing breeze. This lake is hedged in on all sides by lofty spruce, and the whole enclosed by a loftier wall of smooth weather-worn rocks. On this wall, said to be from 3,000 to 4,000 feet in height, rise high, huge and bald battlements of giganite rocks, named respectively, the Half Dome, the Dome, the Three Brothers, etc. All these have been eroded by the elements until they appear as though the waves of the sea had rolled over them for myriads of years and effaced every angular vestige. The Half Dome, however, appears as if, at a more recent period, one half of it had dropped in the

abyss below, and consequently on that side has a sharp angle. The Three Brothers are a beetling cliff from which jut three immense rocks, looking as though three hugo hexagonal crystals were superimposed one above the other, with their points directed horizontally towards the valley. Though the Yosemite has an exhuberant growth of spruce within it, yet the mountain wall and the country surrounding it are entirely bare. No sign of vegetation. is to be seen on it; and therefore its smoothness, combined. with the utter sterility surrounding it, give it an exceeding tame and commonplace appearance. In fact the wholeenvironment of the valley looks as though desolation had swept over the region and had blasted and annihilated all vegetal life, except what is enclosed in this secluded little dell, two miles long, and half a mile wide. The surroundings therefore have a dreariness and monotony that are absolutely painful, and the valley, or more properly dell, taken as a whole, fails to affect and impress the senses vividly.

Not so, however, with Boulder Canyon. Its walls are as steep and high as those of the Yosemite, yet they are not bleak, bare, smooth and sterile, but for fifteen miles. are fearfully wild, rough, bold, angular and grand, with their sides clothed, and their summits crowned with evergreen shrubs and trees. Its waters are not a calm lake nor an unruffled stream, but a milk-white, dashing, roaring mountain river, rushing through a rocky gorge often having a descent exceeding five hundred feet to the mile. In density of thicket and number of trees at any one point, it cannot be compared with the Yosemite, but in size it can,. for it has trees four feet in diameter and upwards of two hundred feet high. The Falls of the North Boulder can-not be compared with the Bridal Veil, but the whole river is a continuous cascade which immensely enhances the wildness of the scenery and stamps its impress on the mind. The Yosemite and the Canyon are therefore spectacles of entirely different orders. As already stated, one