Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-06-12
Explorations in the Rocky Mountains.


last glance of the mules given and the
short twilight rapidly falling under the
assault of the legions of darkness, we
don our overcoats and gather for our
nightly chat before going to bed.
Much of the pleasure of this hour, as
of every other, depends on our sur
roundings. Persons who call a trip with
government survey all pleasure ex-
cursion, would better think twice. A
thousand and one small vexations at
tend all the time. As a picnic, the expedi-
ton would be lamentable failure.
There is the fatigue at night, the frost
in the morning and the gale or the
scorching sun in at MONDAY; your
peeled nose and scaling ears and smart
ing neck testify to the power of the last.
The often encountered alkali dust not
only hurts your eyes and parches your
lips till they crack open but seems to
decompose your skin, rendering it so
tender that the least rough touch pro-
duces painful wound, and your hands,
which is almost impossible to keep
clean, become sore and unsightly. Then,
half the time your feet are wet, and get
cold In the stirrups, or the blankets be-
come damp and disturb your rest, Or
but there are plenty of other incon-
veniences. Sometimes the camp has to
be placed where there is not a single
pleasant feature near or remote-in the
midst of track of sun-baked mud and
glaring white rocks, for instance
where the only vegetation is prickly
grease-wood, like SO many Canadian
thistles, and where the principal deni-
zens are jack rabbits, rattle-snakes and
LIZARDS. But this is not a chapter
of complaints, and I hasten to dismiss
the wrong side of the texture.
Of all the lovely camping places in
my recollection, think one over in
Western Wyoming, among the. name
less heights between the Green and the
Snake rivers, bears the palm. A ravine
diverged from the valley we had been
travelling through, one side of which
was high, grassy bank, and the other
was wooded; but in the woods opened
a little glade, down which came an icy
rill, tumbling and foaming between
banks of moss solid to the waters edge.
All about were gigantic, yellow -barked
spruces, among which this little level
spot had remained clear, just capacious
enough for our tents. It was place
for perfect repose. The eye, weary
with incessant far-seeing, rested con-
GCGU OA OuC tCluduG SlOPC UAdG OuO OA1
the rest of the world. As, after the
turmoil and noise of the city, the bust
ness man pulls the blinds close together
and drops the curtain. shutting out the
turbulent scenes Of his daily struggle,
| and shutting in the peace and love of
his home, so we were thankful that we
could not see even the loftiest SUBMITS,
and gladly gathered round our cosy
hearthstone, where the spruce boughs
| cracked like salt and coils of black
smoke writhed up from the resinous
logs.
The night &c effect,'' as painters phase
| it, of such bivouac as this, is weirdly
| curious. One need not be afraid to
walk away from it into the gloom; the
Prince of Darkness is said to be a
gentleman. And, in fact, it is not dark
out there in the open air; for under
| the lamps of the consultations and in
| that strange light from the north, even
midnight in the high mountains is only
| gray. But beneath the star-proof trees
| there is the blackness of plagued Egypt
"a darkness which may be felt in thrusts
from thousand needle-pointed leaves
and rough cones, if one pushes too heed
| lessly into the recesses of the woods.
The blaze is orange-colored, the smoke
heavy and black, illumined redly under
meath. The pillars of the smooth fir
trunks within reach of the fire-light
stand like stockade about the camp,
but the shifting light penetrates be-
tween them and summons from the
darkness new boles, that step out and
retreat again as the capricious flame is
waited by the wind toward OF away
from that side.
While the centers of the great. gum
| my logs are eaten by the blaze, and
| while we sit on their ends and smoke
our pipes, what soul-inspiring talk is
heard! The stories flow as naturally as
the sparks explore the dark arch over
head, but it is no more possible to COM
municate the point and living fun Of
these narratives, told with the Western
freedom of language and usually apropos
of some previous tale, than it is to tickle
| your senses with the sizzle and delecta-
BILE flavor of the deer's juicy ribs roasting
in those ashes. Shut in by the shadowy
forest, we seem to inhabit little world
/ all by ourselves, with sky, sun, moon
and stars of our own; and we, converse
of you in New York as Proctor does OF
the inhabitants of other planets, and