Leaving the camp to follow slowly, I rode ahead in the afternoon, in search of the springs. In the meantime, the clouds, which had been gathering all the afternoon over the mountains, began to roll down their sides, and a storm so violent burst upon me that it appeared I had entered the store house of the thunder storms. I continued, however, to ride along up the river until about sunset, and was beginning to be doubtful of finding the springs before the next day, when I came suddenly upon a large, smooth rock about twenty feet in diameter, where the water from several springs was bubbling and boiling up in the midst of a white encrustation, with which it had covered a portion of the rock. As it did not correspond with the description given me by the hunters, I did not stop to taste the water, but dismounting, walked a little way up the river, and passing through a narrow thicket of shrubbery bordering the stream, stepped directly upon a huge, white rock at the foot of which the river, already becoming a torrent, foamed along, broken by a small fall.
A deer which had been drinking at the spring was startled by my approach, and springing across the river bounded off up the mountain. In the upper part of the rock, which had been formed by the deposition, was a beautiful, white basin overhung by currant bushes, in which the cold, clear water bubbled up, kept in constant motion by the escaping gas, and overflowing the rock which it had almost entirely covered with a smooth crust of glistening white.
I had all day refrained from drinking, reserving myself for the springs, and as I could not well be more wet than the rain had already made me, I lay down by the side of the basin and drank heartily of the delightful water.
As it was now beginning to grow dark, I rode quickly down the river on which I found the camp a few miles below. The morning of the 18th was beautiful and clear, and all of the people being anxious to drink of these famous waters, we encamped immediately at the springs and spent there a very pleasant day.
On the opposite side of the river is another locality of springs which are entirely of the same nature. The water has a very agreeable taste, which Mr. Preuss found very much to resemble that of the famous Selter spring in the Grand Duchy of Nassau, a country famous for wine and mineral waters.
Resuming our journey on the morning of the 19th, we descended the river, in order to reach the mouth of the eastern fork which I proposed to ascend. The left bank of the river is here very much broken. There is a handsome little bottom on the right, and both banks are exceedingly picturesque, a stratum of red rock in nearly perpendicular walls, crossing the valley from north to south.
Lieut. George F. Ruxton, an officer of the British Army, who was seeking the restoration of his health by roughing it in the Rocky Mountains, camped at the Manitou Springs for a number of months in the early part of 1847.
Writing of his trip from Pueblo up the Fontaine qui Bouille in the month of March of that year, and of his stay at the springs afterwards, he says:
The further I advanced up the creek and the nearer the mountains, the more advanced was the vegetation. As yet, however, the cottonwoods and the larger trees in the bottom showed no signs of life, and the currant and cherry bushes still looked dry and sapless. The thickets, however, were filled with birds and resounded with their songs, and the plains were alive with prairie dogs, busy in repairing their houses and barking lustily as I rode through their towns. Turkeys, too, were calling in the timber, and the boom of the prairie fowl at rise and set of sun was heard on every side. The snow had entirely disappeared from the plains, but Pike's Peak and the mountains were still clad in white.
On my way I met a band of hunters who had been driven in by a party of Arapahoes who were encamped on the eastern fork of the Fontaine qui Bouille [Monument Creek]. They strongly urged me to return, as, being alone, I could not fail to be robbed of my animals, if not killed myself. However, in pursuance of my fixed rule never to stop on account of Indians, I proceeded up the river and camped on the first fork for a day or two, hunting in the mountains. I then moved up the main fork on which I had been directed by the hunters to proceed, in order to visit the far famed springs, from which the creek takes its name. I followed a very good lodge-pole trail which struck the creek before entering the broken country, being that used by the Utes and Arapahoes on their way to the Bayou Salado. Here the valley narrowed considerably, and turning an angle with the creek, I was at once shut in by mountains and elevated ridges which rose on each side of the stream. This was now a rapid torrent tumbling over the rocks and stones and fringed with oak and a shrubbery of brush. A few miles on, the cañon opened into a little shelving glade and on the right bank of the stream, raised several feet above it, was a flat, white rock, in which was a round hole where one of the celebrated springs hissed and bubbled with its escaping gas. I had been cautioned against drinking this, being directed to follow the stream a few yards to another, which is the true soda spring.