The whole mountain is one barren mass of rock as we see it from the town, for the eastern face is open to us almost down to the foothills; deep perpendicular gorges and terrible ravines reveal themselves by narrow white rifts, snow overlappings mark the cañons and the course of streams. A dense black moss, as it appears to the naked eye, covering some of the slopes and delicately fringing summits and sharp ridges, is in reality a heavy growth of timber, the sturdy pine, the tree beloved of Shakspeare. They cling mostly to the southern slopes, leaping the northern ones to climb the south slope of the next fold, sometimes leaving behind in their hurry a few stragglers whose scrawny branches seem pitifully beckoning their companions to wait."
Of the population and death-rate Dr. Solly writes:—
"The town extends over four square miles, upon which the houses of the 6000 inhabitants are widely scattered. The residence lots are mostly 50 × 190 feet; and the streets and avenues vary from 80 to 125 feet in width. There are therefore none of the objections of a city in respect to overcrowding, and no manufactories or smelters to pollute the air. The death-rate, exclusive of death from consumption, is only 5·6 per 1000; from zymotic diseases, 1·6 per 1000."
There is a very extraordinary and I think an objectionable feature in the town. No alcoholic liquors are allowed to be retailed. Thus if you want even a glass of beer you can't get it. But you can have what you will at home, or, if I remember right, in the principal hotels if you are living there. Temperance in all indulgences is a grand thing, and drunkenness is a beastly habit, but the parental legislation described below by Mrs. Dunbar, scarcely recognizes the liberty of the subject, and is a very strange fact in what is supposed to be the freest country on earth.
"There are no saloons and bars in the city, for this is a temperance town. The colony, after receiving the United States title to the town plat, incorporated the following strong provision into the deed of every lot and piece of ground thereafter sold:—
"'That intoxicating liquors shall never be manufactured, sold, or otherwise disposed of, as a beverage, in any place of public resort, in or upon the premises hereby granted.'
"Provision was also made in all deeds that if these conditions were violated, the land and buildings thereon should revert to the original owners. There have been violations of this clause, and the courts of this state, and the Supreme Courts of the United States, having decided in favour of the provision, valuable property has been lost to the owner."
Colorado Springs is a misnomer, inasmuch as the medical springs are not there but at Manitou, five miles off, in the heart of the mountains, and in superb scenery. Mrs. Dunbar thus describes it:—
"Five miles west of Colorado Springs, in the midst of the hills, lies Manitou, at the foot of Pike's Peak, in the beautiful valley of the Fountain, out of whose banks bubble the mineral springs that have made this place the most fashionable summer resort of the West. It is a small and quiet town in itself, of about five hundred inhabitants, with churches, and schools, and pleasant residences, and four large, first-class hotels. During the summer months it swarms with life; its hotels overflow, and private houses take in the strangers; summer cottages and tents are perched like birds' nests on the hillsides, among the rocks and in the cañons, and in every available place.
Soda and Iron Springs.