The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1890-11-13
Crossing the Rockies.


mountain gates of the est,-"Ihe
Gap" = between enormous peaked
and turreted masses, spruce-clad for
more than half their height. No soft
fluctuations, no smooth curves IN
these huge forms: only prodigious
tossing of strata forced up at sharp
est angles in straight splinterlng
lines,-a shelving and sheetlng of
igneous rock, snow powdered anti
grim. Peaks above peaks, = slate
gray below, white sprinkled above
appear on either hand, and slowly
pass, as with an awful slow gliding
of their own;- and bases. receding,
take a deep smoky blue. Our course
is a valley, narrow but level as a
prairie between the attitudes. And
the solemn dark spruce, thickly mar
shaled along the way,-rank height
ening Doresquely behind rank as
they climb, = tower gigantic here,
and begin at last to Cypress by their
funeral aspect, to create fancles OF
endless journeying through a mea-
sureless cemetery.
Unlike anything ever seen before
is tais first spectacle of the Rockies
to me;-this vision Of world shell
rifted and wrinkled by infinite forces
unknown;- mile thick Jagged frag-
ments of it pitched up at all angles.
One mountain we pass has three
Jagged SUBMITS, with vast clefts be-
tween. Other peaks before us rise
miles above the track; yet We are
running now at an elevation of more
than four thousand feet.
The line becomes sleeper,
sweeping upward by immense wind
ings; and as we rise, the mountains
rise always with US while the hours
pass, grouping closer and closer to
our track, till the valleys narrow into
canons. And the majesty of the
spectacle, always growing, strikes
the observers dumb. None of my
fellow-travelers, watching the seen
cry from the platform Of the "Yoko-
hama," exchange word, not even
two young people evidently on their
wedding journey, who at other times
maintain uninterrupted conversation
in undertones. s. $ The legions of
the spruce, always preserving the
same savage independence of polse,
perpendicular as nasts, now climb
six thousand feet above us,-cl1mb
perhaps even higher, until the hens
of the perpetual SHOWS mass over
them and hide them from sight Far
above their Hottest outposts, peaks
are lifting glaciers to the sun. But
we are too close to these immensltles
to understand all their magnihcence.
At Stephen we reach the loftlest
point of the route; we are nearly five
thousand three hundred feet above
the sea,-but we are still walled up
to heaven.
Only thereafter, as we descend,
does the most colossal scene of the
mighty panorama begin to unfold it
self. At first the descent is slow,
cautious; then it rapidly quickens
into hurricane speed,-the train
rocking like a ship as we rush
through the canons and gorges and
Notwithstanding the hills with a
roar of iron and ringing of steel
magnihed and multiplied in the
frosty air by wondrous echoings.
Then IS one gazes back in amaze
ment at the attitudes passed, which
seem now to glide slowly to right
and left alternately as they recede,
the whole stupendous magnlficence
of them is seen at last : *
Above all, one pyramidal peak,
ghost-white as the Throne of the
Vision of John, ever lifts itself high
er behind us as we flee away. Again
and again the road turns in vast
spirals as we circle the hills; we
thunder through long chasms and
pass continually from sun to shadow
and from shadow to sun; and other
mountains interpose their white
heads, their spruce robed TANKS and
shoulders, between us and that mar
vellous shape-ever heaping them
selves in huger maze behind us. But
still, over them all, shines the eternal
white peace of that supremest peak,
growing ever taller to look down
upon us,-to mock our feverlsh hur.
rying with the perpetual solemnity of
its snowy rest. And watching it,
there returns to me, with sudden,
new, strange pleasure, as of fancied
revelation in slumber, the words of
Tob:-''He maketh peace in His high
Places"
Bride and bridegroom a moment
turn their gaze from the heights to
look into each others eyes and
smile. SO one tiny human affection
answers the silent challenge of that
everlasting altitude: "Races have
been and vanished in the shadow of
| Al, lifted hIy