On this train was my old friend the Rev. James W. Ashton, Rector
of St. Stephen's Church, Olean, N.Y., whom I had not seen for years,
and from this hour he was my constant travelling companion for weeks
in the California tour, ready for every enterprise and adventure. At
Pueblo were some quaint Spanish-looking buildings, and farther on we
were among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Our train gradually
ascended the heights skirting the bank of the Arkansas River, which
was tawny and turbid for many a mile. But the Grand Canon of the
Arkansas, with its eight miles of granite walls and its Royal Gorge
towering nearly three thousand feet above us! It is rightly named.
I cannot undertake to describe it accurately. Here are grand cliffs
which seemingly reach the heavens, and in some places the rocky walls
come so near that they almost touch each other. As you look up, even
in midday, the stars twinkle for you in the azure vault. As the train
sped on, toiling up the pass through the riven hills and crossing a
bridge fastened in the walls of the gorge and spanning the foaming
waters, you felt as if you were shut up in the mysterious chambers of
these eternal mountains.
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