SILVER LADEN MT. STEPHEN.
But see that line of timbering hugging the face of Mt. Stephen. A prospector from across the mighty gorge saw with his glass a quartz vein on Stephen. By perilous climbing along ledges he visited it, to find a rich ledge of silver ore. Yonder long gallery carved out of the rock's face is for miners to go to the vein to bore into the mountain's heart or wherever the vein leads them. They would tunnel through the fiery walls of Hades if pure free silver were floating on the top of the Devil's soup boiler.
I wonder if those fellows up in yonder gallery ever pause to take in the grandeur of the scenery thrown about them. The mighty Giver of Good heaped up those piles of grandeur and beauty. The preachers intimate that the imp of darkness tempts us poor mortals with gold and silver. Believing as they do in the existence of a personal devil outside of man's nature, they should bow down and beg him to be good natured until their race be safe. They are powerless to hurt him. Luther's bible hit empty air; to abuse the devil only makes one's throat sore, and some people really grow savage in their denunciation of Old Nick. I once met a really good, pious woman who hated bad words, but did not disdain to utter real cuss words when denouncing his Satanic Majesty. The Arab tribe call Satan the nameless one. Some preachers should follow suit. Abusing the devil has been done for countless ages, and to all appearances the old knave has as much power as when he poured sweet poison into Mother Eve's too willing ears. Poor thing! She was not used to apples, and a golden pippin was tempting. In these latter days it takes apples of real gold to win a woman, at least among the "four hundred." But my eye! a shower of such fruit can twine her plump arms about the devil's neck even when blue blazes are pouring from his benzine distilling lungs. But, pshaw! What a disposition a pious man has to preach. I must quit it.
It is hard to determine which affords the grandest scenery, the Selkirks or the Rockies. On a first run on this road probably nine out of ten would say the former, but the second or the third trip would put the latter fully up. They are of as different types as if separated by a continent. Both are broken, notched and peaked, yet they affect the beholder differently. The Selkirks are grand and terrible, the Rockies majestic and gloomy.
The Illiclliwact (Indian for rapid water) and the Kicking Horse, the two rivers which rush from the two ranges westward—the former into the Columbia at Revelstoke, the other into the same river a hundred and odd miles above at Golden—are somewhat different types of torrent rivers. The Kicking Horse on the summit at Hector, springs from a deep, dark, but calm lake a mile above the sea. A mile or so eastward, and a half a dozen feet higher at the actual summit, is a shallow little lake, or rather a system of short, deep morasses. A mild wind from the west would take their waters into the Bow River, which flows into the Saskatchewan, then through Lake Winnipeg and on to Hudson Bay, while a breeze from the East carries a part of their currents into the grand Columbia and then into the mighty Pacific.
How like the fate of men! A shower or a cloud of dust sent a mighty one to pine on a bleak isle in a far-off sea, and made another moderate man the idol of a nation and its chosen Nestor. An invisible line with a name separated the birthplaces of two men, and this simple separation made one of them the leader of a lost cause but the idol of millions, and the other the victorious hero whom history may call the savior of a nation. In our every-day life in modest places, we see the most trivial circumstances, mere straws, turning the fortunes of nearly all whom we have known intimately. It would probably amaze most people to find how small the thing was which sent them to high fortune, or led their feet into paths of mediocrity or on the road to adversity.
A run from nine to ten hours from Glacier, always through grand and majestic scenery and often among terrible and gloomy heights and gorges, brought us to Banff, near the western slope of the Rockies. Shortly after leaving Vancouver, we had mounted the observation car, and continued on one of them except at night, until well into the great plains east of the mountains. This system adds greatly to the pleasure of passing through fine scenery.
PANORAMIC BEAUTIES OF BANFF.
Banff is by many considered the gem of this great road, because of its beautiful location and also because of its warm and hot mineral springs. The Canadian Pacific company has erected here the most elegant and best appointed hotel which can be found in a wild mountainous region probably in the world. Indeed it will compare favorably with the best hostelries in the neighborhood of large cities.
Here in a wild basin of the mighty backbone of the continent, 2,300 miles from Montreal, nearly 1,000 from Winnipeg, and 600 from Vancouver, with no populous or productive lands contiguous, but surrounded by nature's boldest and roughest works, in which are the haunts of wild beasts—here one finds all the elegances and comforts of a city's suburbs; all of the delicacies and luxuries of a city hotel, coupled with the hygiene of a sanitarium, the ozone and bracing atmosphere of a lofty altitude, and the glorious scenery of a mountain fastness. The house is architecturally very fine and all its appointments are first class. It has a French Chef presiding over the kitchen, who sends to the table dishes to satisfy an epicure. The house and grounds are lighted by electricity which adds greatly to the beauty of the place at night. In the drawing rooms, surrounded by costly furniture, one can listen to music from a superb piano, and in the dining saloon can satisfy the most voracious or the most epicurean taste.