The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond. Ernest IngersollЧитать онлайн книгу.
as ante-room and entrance to the cave.
The history of this cave is entertaining, for it was the discovery, in June, 1880, of two boys of Colorado Springs, who were members of an “exploring society,” organized by the pastor of the Congregational Church there to provide the boys of his Sunday-school with some safe and healthful outlet for their adventurous spirits.
The cave, as we saw it, is a labyrinth of narrow passages, occasionally opening out into chambers of irregular size (and never with very high ceilings), into which protrude great ledges and points of rock from the stratified walls, still further limiting the space. These passages are often very narrow, and in many cases you must stoop in crowding through, or, if you insist upon going to the end, squirm along, Brahmin-like, on your stomach. The avenues and apartments are not all upon the same level, but run over and under each other, and constantly show slender fox holes branching off, which the guide tells you lead to some stygian retreat you have visited or are about to see. In remote portions of the cave there are very large rooms, like Alabaster Hall, some of which are encumbered with fallen masses and with pillars of drip stone.
The cave is not remarkable for large stalactites and stalagmites, but excels in its profusion of small ornaments, produced by the solution of the rock and its re-deposition in odd and pretty forms. From many of the ledges hang rows of small stalactites like icicles from wintry eaves, and often these have fine musical tones, so that by selecting a suitable number, varied in their pitch, simple tunes can easily and very melodiously be played by tapping. In some parts of the cave, the stalactites are soldered together into a ribbed mass, like a cascade falling over the ledges. Elsewhere the “ribbon” or “drapery” form of flattened stalactites recalls to you the Luray Caves, though here it is carried out on a smaller scale; while in this particular, as in many others, reminding one of the magnificent Virginia caverns only by small suggestions, in one respect this cave far surpasses in beauty its Eastern prototype. The floors of many rooms are laid, several inches deep, with incrustations of lime-work, which is embroidered in raised ridges of exquisite carving. Again, where water has been caught in depressions, these basins have been lined with a continuous, crowding plush of minute lime crystals—like small tufted cushions of yellow and white moss. Such depressed patches occur frequently; moreover, the rapid evaporation of these pools, in confined spaces, has so surcharged the air with carbonated moisture, that particles of lime have been deposited on the walls of the pocket in a thousand dainty and delicate forms—tiny stalactites and bunches of stone twigs—until you fancy the most airy of milleporic corals transferred to these recesses. Here often the air seems foggy as your lamp-rays strike it, and the growing filigree-work gleams alabaster-white under the spray that is producing its weird and exquisite growth. In this form of minute and frost-like ornamentation, the cave excels anything I know of anywhere, and is strangely beautiful.
RAINBOW FALLS.
This cavern, however, is sadly deficient in a proper amount of legendary interest. No human bones have been found, and no lover’s leap has been designated. This misfortune must be remedied; and I have selected a dangerous kind of a place at which, hereafter, the following touching tradition will cause the tourist to drop a tear: Many, many years ago an Indian maiden discovered this cave while eagerly pursuing a woodchuck to its long home; the home proving longer than she thought, she crept quite through into the unsuspected enlargement of a cave-chamber, and a startled congregation of pensive bats. She told no one of her discovery, because she had not, after all, caught the woodchuck, and went without meat for supper. A noble warrior, who had done marvelous deeds of valor, loved the maiden. He wooed and she would but the swarthy papa wouldn’t. Sadness, anger, surreptitious trysting where the fleecy cottonwood waves melodiously above the crystal streamlet, etc., etc. The irate old warrior brings an aged brave, who has spent his whole life in doing nothing of more account than cronifying with the heart-sick girl’s father. This man she must marry, and the young suitor must go. Refusals by the maiden, loud talk by the youth, sneers from the old cronies, flight of the lovers to the woodchuck’s hole, vermicular but affectionate concealment, like another Æneas and Dido. The woodchuck, stealing forth, sees a wolf outside, trying to make him pay his poll-tax; so he sits quietly just inside his safe doorway, obscuring the light. Endeavoring to find their way about in the consequent darkness, the imprisoned lovers pitch headlong over the precipice I have referred to. Guide-books please copy.
Our train bore a pensive party down the valley of the Fontaine, as it headed for Pueblo. The Musician drew a plaintive air from his violin, and as the friendly mountain range receded and dipped away in the West, we fell to wondering when, if ever, we should tread those vales again.
IV
PUEBLO AND ITS FURNACES
In Steyermark—old Steyermark,
The mountain summits are white and stark;
The rough winds furrow their trackless snow,
But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below;
The stormy Danube clasps the wave
That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save,
And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark,
Freighted with ores of Steyermark.
In Steyermark—rough Steyermark,
The anvils ring from dawn till dark;
The molten streams of the furnace glare,
Blurring with crimson the midnight air;
The lusty voices of forgemen chord,
Chanting the ballad of Siegfried’s Sword,
While the hammers swung by their arms so stark
Strike to the music of Steyermark!
—Bayard Taylor.
It is a fortunate introduction the traveler, fresh from the Eastern States and weary with his long plains journey, gets at Pueblo to the lively, progressive, booming spirit of Colorado. Here are the oldest and the newest in the Centennial State—the fragments of tradition that go back to the thrilling, adventurous days of fur-trapping and Indian wars; the concentrated essence of later improvements; and the most practical present, mingled in a single tableau, for a telephone line crosses the ruins of the old adobe fort or Spanish “pueblo,” which gave to the locality its name when it was an outpost for the traders from New Mexico.
In its modern shape the town is one of the longest settled in the State, and a great flurry began and ended there years ago. Then, neglected by men of money, Pueblo languished and was spoken chidingly of by its sister cities in embryo. Now all this has changed, and, perhaps aroused by the prosperity of Leadville, Pueblo began about three years ago to assert herself, and to-day stands next to Denver in rank both as a populous and as a money-making center. No business man or statistician could find a more deeply entertaining study than the investigation of how this rejuvenation has arisen and been made to produce so striking results. Such an inquirer would find several large industries claiming to have furnished the turning point; but it is evident that the few who faithfully stood by the comatose town, and steadily struggled toward its commercial revival, were prompt to seize upon the altered flood and take advantage of the tide which led to fortune. The impression once advertised that Pueblo was shaking off her lethargy and about to become a second Pittsburgh, a thousand men of business were quick to catch the idea and make the “boom” a fact. Thus from 5,000 inhabitants in 1875 she has come to over 15,000 in 1883.
It is undoubtedly true that the Denver and Rio Grande railway has done more to aid this advancement than any other one