WE deserved no credit for early rising at Breckenridge. The room wherein we slept was also a family-room, dining-room, and parlor, and the ladies of the house could not properly set the breakfast-table in the presence of four gentlemen in shirts. So we issued forth early, to find a white frost on the meadows and a golden glitter of snow all around the brightest of morning skies. Among the Alps, such a morning is a rare godsend; here, it is almost a matter of course. Whatever effect the climate of the Rocky Mountain region may have upon the permanent settlers, there is no doubt that for travellers it is one of the most favorable in the world. It takes fat from the corpulent and gives it to the lean; it strengthens delicate lungs, and paints pallid faces with color; and in spite of " thin air and alkali water," it invigorates every function of the system. I doubt whether any of us, at home, could have ventured on wading in the snow, being ducked in ice-water, and camping on the damp earth with the same impunity.

We still followed up the Blue River, now so diminished that its clear, swift waters had no power to stop our progress. After passing through dilapidated forests of fir and pine for an hour, the trail entered a sloping mountain meadow, several miles long, with a vista of shining peaks at either end. New flowers — turquoise-blue, purple, and yellow — sprinkled the turf; the air was filled with resinous odors, and the sunshine had just sufficient power to take the icy edge off the air and make it fresh and inspiring. The trail, for the most part, was dry and firm, and our travel became something more of a luxury than it had been during the previous days.

Near the head of the valley, immediately under the snowy ridge, there was a great tract which the gold-washers had gone over with unsparing hand. It must have been a rich placer, for two or three inhabited cabins remain, and there were signs of recent labor. The snow-drifts lay thick all around, the grass was just beginning to shoot, and the three-months’ summer of the higher ranges, during which only gold-washing can be carried on, had barely made its appearance. The residents were absent (probably prospecting), and there was no living creature to be seen, except a forlorn donkey.

Beyond this spot we came unexpectedly upon the summit of the pass [Hoosier Pass]. Our ascent from Breckenridge had been very gradual, and we had not guessed the great elevation of the latter place above the sea-level. This route has been surveyed, and our guide, Mr. Matthews, pointed out the stakes from time to time with great satisfaction. The top of the pass is a little below the timber line, and the stake there is marked "11,000 feet." The average ascent on the south side is ninety feet to the mile, while the descent on the north only averages seventy feet. The building of a railroad would not be attended with the slightest difficulty. This pass, dividing the Middle from the South Park, is, as I have explained in a former letter, also the water-shed between the Atlantic and Pacific. The grand off-shoots of the main chain of the Rocky Mountains, so numerous and so lofty, are apt to lead the eye astray, and give an impression of difficulties, which disappear on a closer acquaintance with the region. The first entrance of the Pacific Railroad into the mountains will be found, I suspect, quite as difficult as the passage of the dividing ridge.

We halted on the summit, to enjoy the narrow but very striking views into the opposite Parks. Northward, we looked down the long green meadow, with its inclosing slopes of forest, to a line of snow-clad peaks in the middle distance, and then a higher and fainter line, rosily flushed, a hundred miles away — the northern wall of the Park. Southward, the valley of the Platte, a deep gray-green trough, curving out of sight among the lower ranges, bore a striking resemblance to the upper valley of the Saco, as you look upon it from Mount Willard. Beyond it, the increasing dimness of each line of mountains told of broad, invisible plains between; and the farther peaks, scarcely to be detached from the air, were the merest Alpine phantoms. Directly to the west of us, however, rose a knot of tremendous snowy steeps, crowned by a white, unbroken cone. This is Mount Lincoln, believed to be the highest point in Colorado. The estimates vary between fifteen and eighteen thousand feet; but the most trustworthy measurement — which also corresponds with its apparent elevation above the pass — is sixteen thousand six hundred feet. Later in the season, it can be ascended without much difficulty.

It is fortunate that this prominent summit is so appropriately named. It is the central point from which at least four snowy ranges radiate, is one thousand feet higher than any peak which has yet been measured, and the view from its snowy apex can hardly be drawn with a shorter radius than one hundred and fifty miles. Although not standing alone like the volcanic cones of Oregon, but in the midst of a sublime Alpine world, it yet asserts its supremacy, and its huge, wintry buttresses form a prominent feature in the landscapes of the South Park.

We now turned to the right, in order to visit Montgomery, which lies on the very head-waters of the South Platte, at the foot of Mount Lincoln, whose rocky sides are veined with the richest ores. In less than a mile after leaving the top of the pass, we saw the neat little town lying below us, and could detect the signs of mining all around and above it. I had a surfeit of mining plans and prospects in Central City, and will only say that the people of Montgomery are just as sanguine as those of the former place, and their ores, so far as I could judge from specimens, are just as rich and abundant. It would interest those who own stock in the North Star, the Pioneer, and other companies, if I should minutely describe their separate lodes; but most of my readers, I presume, will be satisfied with the general statement that the wealth of Colorado has not been, and cannot easily be, exaggerated.

Descending a long and toilsome declivity to the town, we drew up at the post-office. Friendly hands took charge of our animals, and a dinner was promised in commemoration of our return to the Atlantic side of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Valiton, I am glad to say, has become a thorough American in everything but his knowledge of cookery; and the repast he furnished us, although commencing with oyster soup and ending with peaches, bore no resemblance to the dreary fare served up in most of our hotels. When it was over, and we were enjoying the pipe of peace in the sun, the intelligent company of Mr. Rey, formerly Consul of France at Montevideo, and several American gentlemen, gave an air of refinement and ancient culture to the place. It required an effort to recall the fact that I was in the wildest nook, the very heart, of the Rocky Mountains.

Montgomery, like Breckenridge, is a deserted town. It once had a population of three thousand, and now numbers three or four hundred. But as the cabins of those who left speedily became the firewood of those who remained, there are no apparent signs of decay. On the contrary, the place seems to be growing a little, and as soon as the "new process" is satisfactorily ascertained, it will shoot up into permanent importance. We had only time to make our nooning there, my place of destination being Buckskin Joe, eight miles further.

We rode five miles down the South Platte, [Alma] then climbed over one of the many insteps of Mount Lincoln, into a narrower valley, running westward along the base. Near its head, ten thousand feet above the sea, lies the town of the lovely name — a somewhat larger and more active place than Montgomery. The people, for the space of two or three years, made a desperate attempt to change the name to "Laurette," which is slightly better; but they failed  completely, and it will probably be Buckskin Joe to the end of time, At least, it is not a "City "— which, in Colorado, is quite an honorable distinction. There are worse names in California than this, and worse places. If I failed to find a blacksmith, and my barefooted pony must go unshod, we had a carpeted room at the Pacific House, an audience of near a hundred collected in the evening, and everything was done to make my visit comfortable. These remote, outlying mining communities have made a most agreeable impression upon every member of our party. The horde of more or less ignorant adventurers having drifted away to Montana and Idaho, those who remain are for the most part men of education and natural refinement, and their hospitality is a favor in a double sense.

In the evening there was a dismal fall of mingled snow and rain, and I found a fire necessary for comfort. The bare slopes around the village were white for an hour after sunrise. We were here joined by Mr. Thomas, of Chicago, who came from Denver with a mule-team, and brought us late news from the world and letters from home. This morning we took leave of White, who started for Empire with our faithful pack-mules. The latter were a plague at times, with all their service, and we are not sorry to be rid of them; but I miss White’s honest blue eyes.

There are two roads from Buckskin Joe to this place, one practicable only in midsummer for horses, directly over a lofty spur of the snowy range; the other a rough wagon-trail, which goes down the Platte twelve or fifteen miles before crossing to the Arkansas Valley. Mr. Beard, exulting at his escape from the saddle, took the mule wagon with Mr. Sumner; the rest of us determined to try the shorter and more difficult pass. Mr. Willet, of Buckskin Joe, offered his services as guide, promising to pilot us safely over, although no horses had yet crossed this season. So, wearing the scarlet "Matthews tie," as a memento of that gentleman’s kindness, we bade good-by to Buckskin Joe, without visiting the abundant "pay-streaks" in its neighborhood.

One evidence of the richness of the locality met us, however, at the outset. We rode along the borders of a narrow gulch — now all stones and gravel — out of which five hundred thousand dollars were washed in 1860. Thence, two miles over a rough, timbered mountain brought us to Mosquito, another mining village of a hundred inhabitants, at the mouth of a narrow, winding gorge, issuing out of snow-streaked heights to the southward. Into this gorge led the trail, difficult in places, but not to be compared to the swamps and rocky ladders of the Middle Park. Mr. Willet walked briskly in advance, entertaining us with stories of his winter journeys on foot over the pass, carrying the weekly mail. He did not appear to be troubled by the rarity of the atmosphere, of which I was very conscious, even in the saddle.

The ascent was quite gradual, yet we soon passed the timber line, and the fields of snow crept down the steeps of grass and rock, ever nearer, feeding the torrent which rushed through the gorge. On the left towered an apparently inaccessible mass of dark-red rock, to the height of two thousand feet; a field of snow in front, shining against the sky, was equally impassable, and the steep on our left must be scaled. We dismounted, and commenced the heartbreaking task. Climbing a dozen steps at a time, and then halting to recover breath, we slowly toiled upward, around a great slant of melting snow, which had lodged under the cornice of the mountain. I could take no note of the wonderful scenery which opened and widened under us, for every pulse throbbed as if ready to burst, my eyes were dim and my head giddy in the endeavor to fill my collapsed lungs. The pony climbed faithfully at my side, and more than once I should have fallen but for his supporting neck.

We circumscaled the snow at last, and came over the sharp crest upon an upland a mile or two long, bounded by the highest summits. It was a bleak, Arctic landscape; where the snow had melted there were patches of brick-colored rock and brown grass, or pools of dull, chilly water. The great cliffs across the gorge cut off the distant mountains and valleys from view; we were alone in an upper world as bleak as that on the Norwegian fjelds. The summit-ridge we were to cross lay to the southward, but we could detect no way to reach it without crossing broad and apparently dangerous drifts. Mr. Willet, however, who had frequently made the journey in storm and mist, marched on with a confident air, leading us across the table-land, up a stony angle of the mountain, with snow-filled ravines on either side, until we reached a point where it was necessary to dismount for the last climb.

This was the toughest work of all. The trail became a rocky staircase, crossed by drifts thirty or forty feet in depth, where, after walking firmly on the surface for a few yards, man and horse would sink down unexpectedly and flounder in the melting snow. In those lofty regions there is no such thing as getting a "second wind" — every step is like a blow which knocks the breath out of one’s body. I was conscious of a dry, disagreeable, tingling sensation in the lungs, which the most rapid, open-mouthed inhalation of air could not allay. At every tenth step we were forced to pause, overcome by what I may call respiratory fatigue. The air, nevertheless, was deliciously pure and bracing, and none of us experienced any nausea, bleeding at the nose, or dimness of vision, such as great altitudes frequently produce. ‘When we stood still, the physical discomfort soon passed away. The ledges of naked red rocks increased as we climbed; the dark-blue sky sank lower behind the crest; and at one o’clock in the afternoon we stood upon the summit of the pass. [Mosquito Pass]

Our elevation above the sea-level could not have been much less than thirteen thousand feet. The timber line was far below us; near at hand we were surrounded by a desolation of snow and naked rock. Mount Lincoln, on the north, gathered together the white folds of the separating mountain ranges, and set his supreme pyramid over them; while far to the southeast, where the sage-plains of the South Park stretch for a hundred miles, all features were lost in a hot purple mist. Before us, however, lay the crowning grandeur. The ridge upon which we stood slid down, like the roof of a house, to the valley of the Upper Arkansas, which we could trace to the very fountain-head of the river, its pine groves and long meandering lines of cotton-wood drawn upon a field of pearly gray-green. Starting from Mount Lincoln, the eye followed the central chain — the backbone of the continent — in a wide semicircle around the head of the valley until it faced us on the opposite side, and then kept on its course southward, on and ever on, slowly fading into air — a hundred miles of eternal snow! Beyond the Arkansas Valley (where there is a pass considerably below the timber line) glimmered, as if out of blue air, the rosy snow of other and farther ranges. Westward, seventy miles distant, stood the lonely Sopris Peak, higher than Mont Blanc.

New landscapes are often best described by comparison with others that are known; but I know not where to turn for any mountain view at all resembling this in wondrous breadth and extent — in the singular combination of subdued coloring with great variety of form. It is at once simple, sublime, and boundless. With a very clear atmosphere, the effect might be different; as we saw it, the farthest peaks and ranges melted insensibly out of the line of vision, suggesting almost incredible distances. There were no glaciers, thrusting down their wedges between the forests; no great upper plateaus of impacted snow, pouring their cataracts from rocky walls, as in the Alps. The snow-line, though broken by ravines, was quite uniform; but the snows were flushed with such exquisite color, and cut the sky with such endless variety of outline, that they substituted a beauty of another and rarer kind. This, and the view of the Blue River Valley, in the Middle Park, are representative landscapes; and they alone are worth a journey across the Plains.

We celebrated the day with none but the most loyal and patriotic sentiments. Our toasts were few, for there was little of the material out of which they grow; our speeches short, for breath was a scarce commodity; but we duly remembered the American Eagle, and magnified the shadow of his wings. There has been no loftier celebration this day in the United States, I am sure.

It was impossible to mount our horses until a certain point, nearly two thousand feet below us, had been reached. There was no snow on the southern slope; but a zigzag, headlong path over bare stones (among which Mr. Byers saw constant indications of gold) for two miles or more, and we reached the bottom with trembling knees and dripping faces. After this the path gradually fell into one of the lateral glens which debouch into the Arkansas Valley, and we pushed merrily on through pine groves and over green meadows, stung by the gadfly of hunger. Mr. Willet insisted on taking us out of the direct path to see the evidences of gold-washing in California Gulch. We objected, preferring to see a dinner; but he was our guide, and he had his way. The obdurate man made us ride along a mile of hideous gravel-pits and piles of dirt, smacking his lips over the hundreds of thousands of dollars which had been dug out of them, while every one of us was suffering indescribable pangs. What was it to us that men are even now washing out one hundred dollars a day?

Log-cabins made their appearance at last, then miners, then more log-cabins, then a street with several saloons, eating-houses, and corrals, — and that was Oro City. The place did not promise much, I must confess; but one must never judge from the outside in Colorado. What we found I will relate in my next.  NEXT