The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond. Ernest IngersollЧитать онлайн книгу.
village ought to do. The Fontaine-qui-Bouille, full of the sprightliness of its youth in Ute Pass, and its escapade at Rainbow Falls, comes dashing and splashing, and singing its happy song:
“I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.”
A GLIMPSE OF MANITOU AND PIKE’S PEAK.
Down close to this frolicsome, icy-cold stream, are built the larger hotels, the Beebee and Manitou, surrounded by groves of cottonwood, aspen, wild cherry and box elder. They are cheery, clean, homelike, and handsomely furnished. The broad piazzas afford the finest views of Pike’s Peak, Cameron’s Cone, and their confreres. Here gather the “beauty and chivalry” of many climes, and in the long, soft evenings, devoid of dew or moisture, the cozy nooks offer the seclusion for—we had nearly said, flirtation—or cool refuge from the heated dancing-hall. Rustic bridges cross the brook, leading into a labyrinth of shade and on up to the crags behind. At the rear of the hotels, Lover’s Lane, a most romantic ramble, starts out in a half-mile maze through arbors, and flowering shrubs, and over little precipices, for the springs. Beside the path, and in out of-the-way spots among the bushes, are alluring seats, only large enough for two, where you may sit, while at your feet the selfsame brooklet murmurs:
“I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.”
Further up stream, a little way, are the homes of the citizens, and more hotels and boarding places—the Cliff House, Barker’s, and a dozen others. Here, too, on the banks of the creek, boiling up in basins of their own secretion, and hidden under rustic kiosks of a later date, are the springs themselves. They are six in number, varying in temperature from 43° to 56° F., and are strongly charged with carbonic acid. “Coming up the valley,” writes an authority, “the first is the Shoshone, bubbling up under a wooden canopy, close beside the main road of the village, and often called the Sulphur Spring, from the yellow deposit left around it. A few yards further on, and in a ledge of rock overhanging the right bank of the Fontaine, is the Navajo (shown in the foreground of our picture), containing carbonates of soda, lime and magnesia, and still more strongly charged with carbonic acid, having a refreshing taste similar to seltzer water. From this rocky basin, pipes conduct the water to the bath-house, which is situated on the stream a little below. Crossing by a pretty rustic bridge, we come to the Manitou, close to an ornamental summer-house; its taste and properties nearly resemble the Navajo. Recrossing the stream and walking a quarter of a mile up the Ute Pass road, following the right bank of the Fontaine, we find, close to its brink, the Ute Soda. This resembles the Manitou and Navajo, but is chemically less powerful, though much enjoyed for a refreshing draught. Retracing one’s steps to within two hundred yards of the Manitou Spring, we cross a bridge leading over a stream which joins the Fontaine at almost a right angle from the southwest; following up the right bank of this mountain brook, which is called Ruxton’s Creek, we enter the most beautiful of the tributary valleys of Manitou. Traversing the winding road among rocks and trees for nearly half a mile, we reach a pavilion close to the right bank of the creek, in which we find the Iron Ute, the water being highly effervescent, of the temperature of 44° 3´ F., and very agreeable in spite of its marked chalybeate taste. Continuing up the left bank of the stream for a few hundred yards, we reach the last of the springs that have been analyzed—the Little Chief; this is less agreeable in taste, being less effervescent and more strongly impregnated with sulphate of soda than any of the other springs, and containing nearly as much iron as the Iron Ute.
“These springs have from time immemorial enjoyed a reputation as healing waters among the Indians, who, when driven from the glen by the inroads of civilization, left behind them wigwams to which they used to bring their sick; believing, as they did, that the Good Spirit breathed into the waters the breath of life, they bathed and drank of them, thinking thereby to find a cure for every ill; yet it has been found that they thought most highly of their virtues when their bones and joints were racked with pain, their skins covered with unsightly blotches, or their warriors weakened by wounds or mountain sickness. During the seasons that the use of these waters has been under observation, it has been noticed that rheumatism, certain skin diseases, and cases of debility have been much benefited, so far confirming the experience of the past. The Manitou and Navajo have also been highly praised for their relief of old kidney and liver troubles, and the Iron Ute for chronic alcoholism and uterine derangements. Many of the phthisical patients who come to this dry, bracing air in increasing numbers are also said to have drunk of the waters with evident advantage.
“Professor Loew (chemist to the Wheeler expedition), speaking of the Manitou Springs as a group, says, very justly, they resemble those of Ems, and excel those of Spa—two of the most celebrated in Europe.
“On looking at the analyses of the Manitou group it will be seen that they all contain carbonic acid and carbonate of soda, yet they vary in some of their other constituents. We will, therefore, divide them into three groups of carbonated soda waters: 1. The carbonated soda waters proper, comprising the Navajo, Manitou and Ute Soda, in which the soda and carbonic acid have the chief action. 2. The purging carbonated soda waters, comprising the Little Chief and Shoshone, where the action of the soda and carbonic acid is markedly modified by the sulphates of soda and potash. 3. The ferruginous carbonated soda waters where the action of the carbonic acid and soda is modified by the carbonate of iron, comprising the Iron Ute and the Little Chief, which latter belongs to this group as well as to the preceding one.”
Such are the medicinal fountains that not only have proved themselves blessings to thousands of invalids, sick of pharmacy, but cause the summer days here to be haunted by pleasure seekers, who make the health of some afflicted friend, or weariness from overwork in them selves, excuse for coming; or boldly assert themselves here purely for pleasure. Time was when this entrance to a score of glens was a rendezvous for game and primitively wild. Even a dozen years ago it would answer to this description, and now one need not go far in winter to find successful shooting. “In summer time,” to quote the Earl of Dunraven, “beautiful but dangerous creatures roam the park. The tracks of tiny little shoes are more frequent than the less interesting, but harmless footprints of mountain sheep. You are more likely to catch a glimpse of the hem of a white petticoat in the distance than of the glancing form of a deer. The marks of carriage wheels are more plentiful than elk signs, and you are not now so liable to be scared by the human-like track of a gigantic bear as by the appalling impress of a number eleven boot.”
THE MINERAL SPRINGS.
Do not imagine, however, that all the boot-tracks mark “the appalling impress of a number eleven.” The Madame tells me they dress as well at Manitou as at Saratoga; to me this seems a doubtful kind of compliment, but she intended it to cover the perfection of summer toilets. At Manitou, indeed, you do all you think it proper to do in the Green Mountains, or at White Sulphur, or any other upland resort, but in far more delightfully unconventional ways, and the enjoyment is proportionately increased.
No Eastern watering-place affords opportunity for so many desirable excursions, each distinct from the other in interest, each superb and of itself a sufficient inducement to come to Colorado. Just overhead towers the glorious old crest of Pike’s Peak, the beacon of ’59, and ever since the type of American mountains. He who does not ascend the Peak (if he is in fair health) can never get a good character from Manitou. Of course all of the present party went. Moreover we went fancy-free and note-book forgotten—a happiness as great as Patti’s when she saw there was no piano on the ocean steamer in which she was to take passage. “How was this?” do you ask? Lillian Scidmore had been there before us, and reaped with her keen sickle every spear of wheat in the whole field. To show our gleanings would amount to nothing; so here is