with nature for her close imitation of art but in another hundred yards nature glorious is herself again raising one s thoughts reverently upwards to her creator and ours grandeur and not softness are the features of park the which begin so softly are soon lost in the dark forests with their peaks of rosy granite and their stretches of granite blocks piled and poised by nature in some mood of fury the streams are lost in nearly or quite inaccessible awful in their blackness and darkness every valley ends in mystery seven mountain raise their frowning between us and the plains and at the south end of the park long s peak rises to a height of feet with his bare head with eternal snow the lowest of the park is feet high and though the sun is hot during the day the near the point every night of the summer an immense quantity of snow falls but partly owing to the tremendous winds which drift it the deep valleys and partly to the bright warm sun of the winter months the park is never a lady s life in toil up and a number of cattle and horses are out of doors on its sun cured of which the grass is the most valuable the soil here as elsewhere in the neighbourhood is nearly everywhere coarse grey dust produced probably by the of the surrounding mountains it does not hold water and is never wet in any weather there are no here the snow mysteriously by rapid grow but do not and when well advanced are cut and for winter potatoes yield abundantly and though not very large are of the best quality throughout has not attempted anything else and probably the more vegetables would require the wild flowers are gorgeous and innumerable though their beauty which in july and august was over before i arrived and the recent snow have finished them the time between winter and winter is very short and the growth and blossom of a whole year are compressed into two months here are roses blue painter s brush and fifty others blue and yellow and though their blossoms are by the cold every morning they are the grass and drooping over the brook long before noon making the most of their brief lives in the sunshine of letter viii the rocky mountains after many a long hunt i have only found the and the but i hear that the is also found and do not appear to be known here coming almost direct from the one is dissatisfied with the of the foliage indeed foliage can hardly be written of as the trees properly so called at this height are exclusively and bear needles instead of leaves in places there are patches of which have turned a and along the streams bear vines and roses the with their crimson leaves the pines are not imposing either from their or height their colouring is and though they are effective singly or in groups they are sombre and almost when as here along the mountain sides the timber line is at a height of about feet and is singularly well defined the most attractive tree i have seen is the silver near of kin to what is often called the fir its shape and colour are both beautiful my heart towards it and i frequent all the places where i can find it it looks as if a soft blue silver powder had fallen on its deep green needles or as if a frost which must melt at noon were resting upon it anyhow one can hardly believe that the beauty is permanent and the summer heat a lady s life ut and the winter cold the universal tree here is the but it never any very considerable size and there is nothing to compare with the red woods of the far less w th the of as i have written before park is thirty miles from the nearest settlement and it can be reached on horseback only by the steep and track by which i came passing through a narrow in the top of a ridge feet high called the devil s gate takes a lumber with four horses over the mountains and a engineer would have no difficulty in making a road in several of the over which the track hangs there are the remains of which have come to grief in the attempt to s feat which without evidence i should have supposed to be impossible it is an awful road the only in the park are and a married man a mile higher up mountain jim s cabin is in the entrance four miles off and there is not another cabin for eighteen miles towards the plains the park is and the huge tract of country beyond is almost altogether hunters occasionally come up and camp out here but the two who however are only for various reasons are not disposed to encourage such visitors when who letter viii the mountains is a very successful hunter came here he came on foot and for some time after settling here he carried the flour and necessaries required by his family on his back over the mountains as i intend to make park my until the winter sets in i must make you acquainted with my surroundings and mode of living the queen anne mansion is represented by a log cabin made of big logs the should be filled with mud and lime but these are wanting the is formed of young then a of hay and an outer of mud all nearly flat the floors are roughly the living room is about sixteen feet square and has a rough stone chimney in which pine logs are always burning at one end there is a door into a small bedroom and at the other a door into a small eating room at the 