“But for the distance from the large cities of the country, Colorado seemed to be a most favorable part of the shadow; it was little subject to storms, and reputed to be enjoyable in climate and abundant in hospitality.

“My party chose Denver, Col.  I had a friend who lived in Denver, and she was visiting me.  I sought her at once, and with fear and trembling asked, ’Have you a bit of land behind your house in Denver where I could put up a small telescope?’ ‘Six hundred miles,’ was the laconic reply!

“I felt that the hospitality of the Rocky mountains was at my feet.  Space and time are so unconnected!  For an observation which would last two minutes forty seconds, I was offered six hundred miles, after a journey of thousands.

“A journey from Boston to Denver makes one hopeful for the future of our country.  We had hour after hour and day after day of railroad travel, over level, unbroken land on which cattle fed unprotected, summer and winter, and which seemed to implore the traveller to stay and to accept its richness.  It must be centuries before the now unpeopled land of western Kansas and Colorado can be crowded.

“We started from Boston a party of two; at Cincinnati a third joined us; at Kansas City we came upon a fourth who was ready to fall into our ranks, and at Denver two more awaited us; so we were a party of six—­’All good women and true.’

“All along the road it had been evident that the country was roused to a knowledge of the coming eclipse; we overheard remarks about it; small telescopes travelled with us, and our landlord at Kansas City, when I asked him to take care of a chronometer, said he had taken care of fifty of them in the previous fortnight.  Our party had three telescopes and one chronometer.

“We had travelled so comfortably all along the Santa Fe road, from Kansas City to Pueblo, that we had forgotten the possibility of other railroad annoyances than those of heat and dust until we reached Pueblo.  At Pueblo all seemed to change.  We left the Santa Fe road and entered upon that of the Rio Grande.

“Which road was to blame, it is not for me to say, but there was trouble at once about our ‘round-trip ticket.’  That settled, we supposed all was right.

“In sending out telescopes so far as from Boston to Denver, I had carefully taken out the glasses, and packed them in my trunks.  I carried the chronometer in my hand.

“It was only five hours’ travel from Pueblo to Denver, and we went on to that city.  The trunks, for some unexplained reason, or for no reason at all, chose to remain at Pueblo.

“One telescope-tube reached Denver when we did; but a telescope-tube is of no value without glasses.  We learned that there was a war between the two railroads which unite at Pueblo, and war, no matter where or when it occurs, means ignorance and stupidity.

“The unit of measure of value which the railroad man believes in is entirely different from that in which the scientist rests his faith.