Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/210

 fuss with her, and call her "Pet." She gallops up and down hill, and never stumbles even on the roughest ground, or requires even a touch with a whip.

The weather is again perfect, with a cloudless sky and a hot sun, and the snow is all off the plains and lower valleys. After lunch, the s in a buggy, and I on Birdie, left Colorado Springs, crossing the Mesa, a high hill with a table top, with a view of extraordinary laminated rocks, leaves of rock a bright vermilion colour, against a background of snowy mountains, surmounted by Pike's Peak. Then we plunged into cavernous Glen Eyrie, with its fantastic needles of coloured, rock, and were entertained at General Palmer's "baronial mansion," a perfect eyrie, the fine hall filled with buffalo, elk, and deer heads, skins of wild animals, stuffed birds, bear robes, and numerous Indian and other weapons and trophies. Then, through a gate of huge red rocks, we passed into the valley, called fantastically, Garden of the Gods, in which, were I a divinity, I certainly would not choose to dwell. Many places in this neighbourhood are also vulgarised by grotesque names. From this we passed into a ravine, down which the Fountain river rushed, and there I left my friends with regret, and rode into this chill and solemn gorge, from which the mountains, reddening in the sunset, are only seen afar off. I put Birdie up at a stable, and as there was no place to put myself up but this huge