Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1875-12-10
The Garden OF the Gods.

Helen Hunt writes In the Atlantic A
follows; The famous Garden of the Gods,
for which everybody asks as soon as he
| enters Colorado, and which nine out of
! ten people sec for the first time with a
| ludicrous sense of disappointment, is an.
other of these strange, rock.crowded parks.
| Who Is responsible for the inappropriate
| name, Garden Of the Gods, do not know
one more signally Uniting could hardly
have been chosen. Fortress of the Gods
or Tombs Of the Giants would be better.
This park lies only three miles from Colo.
RADIO Springs, and its grand gateway is in
full sight from every part of the town.
Fancy two red sandstone rocks 300 feet
high, of irregular outline and surface, RIG.
ing abruptly and perpendicularly like a
wall, with narrow passageway between
them. The rock on your right, vs. you en-.
ter from the east, is of the deepest brick
red the one on the left Is paler, more of
a flcsh-color, At their base Is thick
growth of low oak bushes, vivid light
green in summer, in winter SCARCELY
less vivid brown, for every leaf hangs on
until April. These rocks arc literally
frelted full of holes and riits-tlny, round
holes as smooth as If an auger had bored
hlem; ghaStly crevices and chnsms
smoothed and followed like sockets in
gigantic skeletons. Thousands of swal.
lows have nests in these, and at sunset il
is beautiful sight to see them circlInd
high in the air, perching for a moment
on the giitering red spires and pinnacles
at top of the wall, and then swooping
downward and disappearing suddenly
where no aperture is to be seen, as II
with their little bills they had cloven
way for themselves into the solid rock.
Within few feet of the top of the high
est spire, on the righthand rock, Is
small, diamond-shaped opening, null
ioncd window, through which is always
to be seen the same diamond shaped bit of
sky bright blue, or soft gray or shadowy
white, if a cloud happens TO pause so as to
ill the space. Passing through this ma
lestic gateway you find yourself in the
weirdest of places. Your red road winds
along over red ground thinly grass.gruwn,
among low redHrs, pines and frs, and
through wild confusion of red rocks;
rocks of every conceivable and inconceiv-
able shape and size, from pebbles up to
gigantic powders, from queer, grotesque
little monstrosities looking like seals,
fishes, cats or mpeks, up to the colossal
monstrosities looking like elephants, like
huge gargoyles, like giants, like sphinxcs
eighty feet high, all bright red, all mo-
notonous and silent, with strange look of
having been just stopped and held back
in the very climax of some supernatural
catastrophe. The stiffness, the absence of
living things, the prcponderahre of gro.
tesquc shapes, the expression of arrested
action, give to the whole place in spite of
its glory of culoring, spite of the grandeur
Of its yistas ending in snow-c covered peaks
only ysixmiles away, spite ofits friendly and
familiar cedars and pines, spite of an oc-
casional fragrance of clematis, or smile of
a daisy or twitter of sparrow, spite of
all these, a certain uncannyness of atmos-
phere which is at first oppressive, 1
doubt if ever one loved the Garden of the
Gods at first sight One must feel his way
to its beauty and rarehess-must learn to
like new language; even if one has
known Natures tongues well he will be
foreigner here. l have fancied that its
speech was 10 the speech of ordinary ma
ture what the Romany is among the dia-
lects of the civilized-tierce, wild, free,
dcfantly tender and l believe no son of
the Romany folk has ever lived long among
the worlds people without dropping and
plnlng.