TEMPLE OF ISIS, WILLIAM’S CAÑON.
After two hours of pushing and climbing the train ceases its deep respirations and stands seemingly exhausted before the stone observatory that crowns the peak. Ah, now what a view, when the clouds pass away and the sun bathes with golden splendor the panorama that lies in the greater charm of indistinctness many leagues below! Towards the west and south and north is a mighty army of mountains, in companies and battalions, bold, rugged, majestic; always standing in review before the Captain and Creator of worlds who seems to have halted His regiment for inspection before an impending battle; while away towards the east spreads the fading prairies, losing themselves in the horizon; and down below, in a long stretch of landscape, is Colorado Springs, with its intersecting streets looking like a corn-field, and its smoke-stacks like scare-crows.
At other times a terrible snow-storm may be raging on the peak, while summer sunshine bathes the plains below; or, standing under the arch of a clear sky, the summit visitor may see the rolling clouds gathering into scrolls of darkness, and the livid lightning running through the storm that is breaking in torrential rain away down the mountain side. So that winter and summer, storm and sunshine, have their eternal meeting place on the age-swept breast of this giant peak, and at this trysting place of the extreme seasons is one of the most beautiful lakes that ever nestled in the bosom of a mountain.
THE JAWS OF CLEAR CREEK CAÑON.
WILLIAMS CAÑON, NEAR THE CAVE OF THE WINDS.