WITH WESTERN STARS AND SUNSETS

The good American of the Twentieth century by no means defers going to Paris until he dies, but anticipates the joys of Paradise by making a familiarity with the French capital one of the consolations that tend to the alleviation of his enforced terrestrial sojourn. All Europe, indeed, has become the pleasure-ground of American tourists, a large proportion of whom fail to realize that in our own country there are enchanted regions in which the traveller feels that he has been caught up in the starry immensities and heard the words not lawful for man to utter. Within the limits of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California there are four centres of sublime and unparalleled scenic sublimity which stand alone and unrivalled in the world. Neither the Alps nor the Himalayas can offer any parallel to the phenomena of the mountain and desert systems of the Southwest as wrought by the march of ages, presenting unique and incomparable problems of scientific interest that defy solution, and which are inviting the constant study and increasing research of many among the most eminent specialists of the day in geology and metallurgy. The Pike's Peak region offers to the traveller not only the ascent of the stupendous Peak, but also the "Short Line" trip between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek, which affords forty-five miles of marvellous mountain and caÑon effects. The engineering problem of the ascent of St. Peter's Dome,—a huge mass of granite towering eleven thousand feet into the air, around which the steel track winds in terraces, glory after glory of view repeating itself from the ascending vistas as the train climbs the dizzy height,—the engineering problem that is here at once presented and solved, has attracted scientific attention all over the world as the most extraordinary achievement in mountain transportation. The Grand CaÑon of the Colorado in Arizona, two days' journey from the Pike's Peak region, the Petrified Forests that lie also in Arizona, seventy-five miles beyond the border of New Mexico, and that Buried Star near CaÑon Diablo, make up a group that travellers and scientists are beginning ardently to appreciate. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California offer, all in all, a landscape panorama that for grandeur, charm of climate, and rich and varied resources is unrivalled. Imagination falters before the resources of this region and the inducements it offers as a locality in which to live surrounded by perpetual beauty. The air is all exhilaration; the deep blue skies are a miracle of color by day, and a miracle of shining firmament by night; the land offers its richly varied returns in agriculture, fruit, mining, or grazing, according to the specific locality; the inhabitants represent the best quality of American life; the opportunities and advantages already offered and constantly increasing are greater than would at first be considered possible. This entire Southwest can only be accurately defined as the Land of Enchantment.

exclaims Tennyson's Ulysses, and the wanderer under Western stars that hang, like blazing clusters of radiant light, midway in the air, cannot but feel that all these new experiences open to him vistas of untold significance and undreamed-of inspiration.

"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,"

is the haunting refrain of his thoughts when, through the luminous air, he gazes into the golden glory of sunsets whose splendor is forever impressed on his memory. Every hour of the journey through the Southwest is an hour of enchantment in the intense interest of the scenes. One must not miss the outlook when descending the steep grade down Raton Mountain; nor must he fail to be on the alert in passing through the strange old pueblos of Isleta and Acoma; he must not miss CaÑon Diablo when crossing that wonderful chasm on the wonderful bridge, nor the gleam of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff on its pine-clad hill-slope, nor fail to gaze on the purple Franciscan peaks on which the lingering sunset rays recall to him the poet's line,—

"Day in splendid purple dying."

Like a modern Telemachus he sees "the baths of all the western stars."

Between La Junta in Colorado and Los Angeles in California there lies a journey which, in connection with its side trips, is unequalled, because there is only one Grand CaÑon, one Pike's Peak with its adjacent wonderland, and because, as a rule, elsewhere in the United States—or in the world, for that matter,—forests do not turn into stone nor stars hurl themselves into the earth with a force that buries them too deep for resurrection. Through the East and the Middle West the mountains do not, on general principles, attempt any competition with the clouds, but content themselves with the gentle altitude of a mile or so; the stars stay decorously in the firmament and are not shooting madly about, trying fantastic Jules Verne experiments to determine whether or not they can shine better from the centre of the earth than from their natural place in the upper air; the stars of the Eastern skies "stand pat," so to speak, and are not flying in the face of the universe; so that, altogether, in these regions it would seem quite evident that

These exceptional variations to the established order, however,—these wonderful peaks and caÑons and forests and gardens of gods,—all these enchanted things lie, naturally, within the Land of Enchantment, within this vast territorial expanse replete with many other attractions. From La Junta let the traveller journey into Colorado with its splendor of resources, and in gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the Snowy Range he cannot but feel that Nature has predestined Colorado for the theatre of noble life and realize the influence as all-pervading. Infinite possibilities open before one as an alluring vista, and he hears the refrain,—

With the excursions offered,—grand panoramas of mountain views where the tourist from his lofty perch in the observation-car looks down on clouds and on peaks and pinnacles far below the heights to which his train climbs,—with the cogwheel road ascending Pike's Peak, the fascinating drives through Cheyenne CaÑon, the Garden of the Gods, Ute Pass, and around Glen Eyrie, and with the luxurious ease of life at "The Antlers," the traveller finds fairly a new world, rich in suggestion and wide outlook. This attractive region is, however, only one of the central points of interest in Colorado. Denver, the brilliant and fascinating capital; Pueblo, the metropolis of Southern Colorado; Glenwood Springs, the romantic and fashionable watering place and summer resort high up in the mountains on the beautiful "scenic route" of the Denver and Rio Grande; Boulder, the picturesque mountain town, with its State University so ably conducted; Greeley, the town of the "Union Colony," whose romantic and tragic story is a part of the great history of the Centennial State, and where an admirable normal school draws students from all over the country, even including New England,—these and a wealth of other features offer interest that is coming to engage the attention of the civilized world.

New Mexico has been more or less considered as one of the impossible and uncivilized localities, or has failed to establish any claim to being considered at all; yet here is a territory whose climate is simply delightful by virtue of its altitude,—cool in summer and mild and sunny in winter,—whose mines of amethysts and other precious stones suggest developments yet undreamed-of; whose ethnological interest, in the marvellous remains of Cliff-dwellers and of a people far antedating any authentic records, enchains the scientist; a territory whose future promises almost infinitely varied riches in many directions of its development.

Arizona is simply a treasure land. If it offered only that enthralling feature, the Grand CaÑon, it would be a central point of pilgrimage for the entire civilized world; but even aside from this,—the sublimest vision ever offered to human eye,—even aside from the Grand CaÑon, which dominates the world as the most sublime spectacle,—Arizona offers the fascinations of the Painted Desert, the Tonto Basin, the uncanny buttes that loom up in grotesque shapes on the horizon, the dreamy lines of mountain ranges, the strange pueblos, the productive localities where grains and where fruits and flowers grow with tropical luxuriance, the Petrified Forests, and the exquisite coloring of sky and atmosphere.

Southern California, with its brilliantly fascinating metropolis, Los Angeles; the neighboring city of Pasadena, the "Crown of the Valley"; with an extensive electric trolley-car connection with towns within a radius of fifty miles, and other distinctive and delightful features, almost each one of which might well furnish a separate chapter of description; with mountain trips made easy and enjoyable by the swift electric lines,—all this region fascinates the imagination and indicates new and wonderful vistas of life in the immediate future. The vast and varied resources of the great Southwest will also, as they are developed, increasingly affect the economic aspects of the country.

To the traveller one fact stands out in especial prominence, and that is that the traditional primitive conditions in this region hardly continue to exist. The picturesque aspects of nature form the stage setting to very-much-up-to-date life. The opportunities and advantages already offered and constantly increasing are greater than would at first be considered possible. In isolated homes on the desert the children of the family will be found studying the higher mathematics, taking music lessons, or receiving lessons in languages (classic, or the romance languages) from some one in the neighborhood who is able to give such instruction. If any traveller expects to encounter the traditional "cow-boy" aspects of life, he will be very much disappointed. There is no refinement of life in the East that is not mirrored and duplicated in the West. There are no aspirations, no ideals, no fine culture in the East that have not their corresponding aspects in the great West. In fact, in many ways the West begins where the East leaves off. For instance, the new towns of the West that have sprung up within the past twenty years have never known what it was to have gas or horse-cars. They begin with electric lights and electric transit. Their schoolhouses are built with up-to-date methods, and the houses, however modest, are constructed with a taste and a beauty unknown in the rural regions of the East. The square white house with green blinds and a straight stone-paved pathway to the front gate, so common in New England, is not seen in the West. Instead, the most modest little structure has its piazza, its projecting bay window thrown out, its balcony—something, at all events, tasteful and beautiful to the eye.

The journey from La Junta (in Colorado) to Los Angeles offers a series of enthralling pictorial effects that are invested with all the refinements of civilized life delightfully devoid of its commonplaceness. These long transcontinental trains with two engines, one at the front and one at the rear, with their different grades of the Pullman, the tourist, and the emigrant car service, are as distinctive a feature of the twentieth century as the "prairie schooners" were of the early half of the nineteenth century. The real journey begins, of course, at Chicago, and as these trains leave in the evening the traveller fares forth in the seclusion of his berth in the Pullman. The nights on a sleeping-car may be a very trance of ecstasy to one who loves to watch the panorama of the skies. Raise the curtain, pile up the pillows to the angle that one can gaze without lifting the head, and what ethereal visions one is wafted through! One has a sense of flying in the air among the starry spaces, especially if he chances to have the happy fortune of a couch on the side where the moon is shining down,—a midsummer moon, with stars, and filmy, flitting clouds,—when the panorama of the air becomes the enchantment of a dream.

It is, literally, "such stuff as dreams are made of," and when one drops off into slumber, he utilizes it for his fancies of the night. Miss Harriet Hosmer, the famous sculptor, once related a story of a night journey she took with a party of congenial spirits on horseback between Rome and Florence. By way of "a lark" they rested by day and rode by night, and the beauty of the effects of light and shade sank into her mind so that she drew on them thirty years or more later for the wonderful designs in her great "Gates," which even rival those of Ghiberti. "The night hath counsel" and suggestion of artistic beauty as well, and the effects that one may get from a flying train are impossible to obtain under any other condition. After all, is it not a part of the fine art of living to take the enjoyment of the moment as it comes, in whatever guise, without lamenting that it is not something else?

These splendidly equipped trains of the Santa FÉ service admit very little dust; the swift motion keeps up a constant breeze, and some necromancy of perpetual vigilance surrounds the traveller with exceptional cleanliness and personal comfort. One experiences a certain sense of detachment from ordinary day and daylight duties that is exhilarating.Kansas City, the gateway to the great Southwest, might well claim attention as an important manufacturing and distributing centre; Kansas itself, once the bed of an inland sea, is not without scientific interest for the deposits of gypsum and salt that have left the soil so fertile, as well as for strange fossils revealing gigantic animals, both land and aquatic, that have lived there,—the mastodon, rhinoceros, elephant, the crocodile and shark,—many of whose skeletons are preserved in the National Museum in Washington. The prosperous inland cities with their schools and colleges, their beautiful homes and constant traffic,—all these features of Kansas, the state of heroic history, are deeply impressive. But it is Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, with which these pages are chiefly concerned, and the especially picturesque aspects of the journey begin with La Junta.