On the outskirts of Manitou the “Haunted House” was pointed out by the guide, who said that a man and his wife and their son had been murdered here.  No one would live in the house now.  He asked me if I believed in “Ghosts.”  I said I was not afraid of dead men, and that I did not think they came back to disturb us.  He seemed to agree with me, but hastened to say that he “met a clergyman yesterday who said he believed in them.”  The house in Manitou which, of all others, interested me most, was the pretty vine-covered cottage of Helen Hunt Jackson, who wrote “Ramona.”  It was she, who, with a fine appreciation of nature, gave this wild and secluded spot, with its riddles in stone, the suggestive name of “The Garden of the Gods.”

At noon on Friday, October 7th, I boarded the Pullman train at Colorado Springs, on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, for Salt Lake City.  On this train was my old friend the Rev. James W. Ashton, Rector of St. Stephen’s Church, Olean, N.Y., whom I had not seen for years, and from this hour he was my constant travelling companion for weeks in the California tour, ready for every enterprise and adventure.  At Pueblo were some quaint Spanish-looking buildings, and farther on we were among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  Our train gradually ascended the heights skirting the bank of the Arkansas River, which was tawny and turbid for many a mile.  But the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, with its eight miles of granite walls and its Royal Gorge towering nearly three thousand feet above us!  It is rightly named.  I cannot undertake to describe it accurately.  Here are grand cliffs which seemingly reach the heavens, and in some places the rocky walls come so near that they almost touch each other.  As you look up, even in midday, the stars twinkle for you in the azure vault.  As the train sped on, toiling up the pass through the riven hills and crossing a bridge fastened in the walls of the gorge and spanning the foaming waters, you felt as if you were shut up in the mysterious chambers of these eternal mountains.  It is a stupendous work of the Creator, and man dwarfs into littleness in the presence of the majesty of God here manifested as when Elijah stood on Horeb’s heights.

It was a pleasant task to study the scenery, wild beyond description at times; and then you would pass upland plains with cattle here and there, and mining camps.  That is Leadville, a mile or so yonder to the north; and the children who have come down to the station have valuable specimens of ore in their little baskets, to sell to you for a trifle.  Off to the left hand, a little farther on, was a “placer mine,” with water pouring out of a conduit, muddy and yellow with “washings.”  This emptied itself into the Arkansas River, which, from this point down to the foot of the mountains, was as if its bed had been stirred up with all its clay and other deposit.  Above this junction the waters of the river were clear and sparkling.  It is a