♪ February 3rd, 1875 Four years ago, we crossed the ocean, Will and I.

When we began a journal as so many people do, thinking that we would keep it up as long as we traveled.

We have been traveling nearly constantly since, and the journal so bravely begun came long ago to an untimely and abrupt end (laughs).

Being again in a foreign country no less interesting than England, in some aspects, I began again alone not so boldly and not with the least faith in my own perseverance.

A chronicle of the facts and fancies which occurred to me is me.

So, I do this partly for future pleasure as a reminder of pleasant or interesting times gone by, and partly to interpret more indelibly on my own mind as I go, the marvelous, beautiful, often glorious works which meet every day very often without looking for them.

There is no need, there they are, defying us in their acknowledged grace and beauty.

I have to tell the truth, no plan in this my beginning.

Perhaps I will close the book in disgust when I find how impossible it is for me to describe satisfactorily my impression.

Perhaps, instead of chronicling the facts in brief interpretations, I may find myself in spite of a fervent desire for the contrary, degenerating into the miserable well known miter of morbid and even if not morbid, egotistical sentimentality, with few facts and many feelings.

But after all, what matters it?

My pen will only take my first thoughts as they drift through my mind without weeding.

The writing is for myself.

Happily, I do not need to make any effort in it.

Sincerely... Queen Palmer.

♪ ♪ Only time can heal my woe... ♪ ♪ Oh my heart is sad and now I know ♪ ♪ Johnny has gone for a soldier... ♪♪ ♪ Oh, Johnny has gone for a soldier... ♪♪ ♪ Only time can heal my woe... ♪ To the east, one sees nothing but brown barren plain, away and away.

But on the west, the view is superb.

The prairie rolls up in great brown waves to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which bound the western horizon as far as the eye can see, north and south.

And first, I confess, I was disappointed as to their height, but I soon discover, to my consolation, that I had not seen the real mountains.

For just before sunset, the clouds cleared off and there, behind the foothills which lay in deep purple shadow, gleamed the white peaks of the snowy range illuminated by golden glory.

And down south, Pikes Peak rose clear in pink and white, 75 miles away.

Monday, November 1st, At 7:30 AM we were down at the depot of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and found a quantity of new acquaintances, friends of M going down with us, among others, Mr. N the chief engineer to the Fountain Colony, one of the very kindest of our many kind friends.

They were all, of course, full of talk about the railroad, the first division of which, as far as Colorado Springs, had only been open a week.

And I was soon imbued with the proper enthusiasm at its complete success.

It is the pioneer narrow-gauge, three feet wide, railroad of the states as well as the pioneer north and south road.

For some miles out of Denver, the route follows the course of the Platte till it turns to the mountains and is lost in sight in the dark abysses of the Platte Canyon.

Then after leaving the Platte, the line follows one of its tributaries, Plum Creek, for about 30 miles, bordered with willows and cottonwoods.

Here, I may as well explain that a creek in the West means any small river or stream.

The land on either side of Plum Creek is taken by settlers and fenced off into ranches for sheep and cattle and agriculture.

Every mile took us nearer to the mountains and at last the train began climbing up the divide or watershed of the Platte and Arkansas.

Here we first got among the pineries, a great source of wealth all along the Rocky Mountains.

And at Larkspur passed a large stream sawmill in full work.

Up the eight mile, a little creek which runs north for the top of the divide, where we passed an old man washing for gold, the grade was very steep, 75 feet to the mile.

And in a few moments, we stopped at the summit beside the lake.

It was the highest point of ground I'd ever been on, being 7,554 feet above the sea.

We got out of the car while some telegrams were dispatched and walked about a little to warm ourselves, for the place bore out its reputation of being the coldest spot in Colorado.

And then began the rundown to the Springs about 30 miles.

The road now was picturesque in the extreme, winding along the banks of the Monument Creek past fantastic sandstone rocks.

Water worn into pillars and arches and great castles with battlemented walls on the top of every hill.

Through the pine trees we now and then caught glimpses of the mountains, pink and purple, towering up ridge over ridge till about Husteds.

The whole panorama south of the divide lay stretched beneath us.

To the right, the foothills rose, crowned by the grand snow-covered head of Pikes Peak, 14,336 feet high.

To the south, the horizon was bounded by Cheyenne Mountain, standing right out into the plain.

And from it, to the eastward stretched the boundless prairie.

Chapter three, life in a new town.

Here I am, located at last.

And the best thing I could do is describe our arrival here and my first impressions which, to say the least, are novel.

We pulled up at a log cabin by the side of the track, and from the doorway, came a voice saying, "Dinner's on table."

Out we'd all got, and I thought, "Surely, we can't be going to dine in this place."

But M took me around to the back door and into the parlor where he told me to wait while he saw to the luggage.

In a few minutes, he returned and took me into the dining room, where I found, to my amazement, two large tables on one side and four small on the other, with clean linen, smart waiters, and a first-rate dinner, far better than any we had had on the Kansas Pacific.

I was in a state of complete bewilderment, but hunger soon got better of my surprise and we were doing ample justice to oyster soup and roast antelope.

You may imagine Colorado Springs as I did to be a sequestered valley with bubbling fountains, green grass, and shady trees, but not a bit of it.

Picture to yourself a level, elevated plateau of greenish brown without a single tree or plant larger than a Spanish bayonet or yucca two feet high sloping down about a quarter of a mile to the railroad track at Monument Creek and you have a pretty good idea of the town site as it appears in November 1871.

On the corner of Tejon and Huerfano Streets stands the office of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, a small wooden building of three rooms in which all of the colony work is done till the new office is finished.

It's used besides as post office, doctor shop, and general lounge for the whole town.

My house stands next to it, a wooden shanty, 16 feet by 12, with a door in front and a small window on each side.

They are of glass, though they do not open.

It is lined with brown paper so it is perfectly windproof and really quite comfortable, though it was ordered on Thursday and finished on Saturday.

M has now put his tent up over the front of the shanty with a rough board floor and it serves for a sitting room by day and his bedroom at night.

In one corner of the shanty we put my little camp bed, my trunks in the other.

In the tent we have put the stove, a couple of wooden kitchen chairs from the office and a deal table.

M's bed makes a comfortable sofa by day and over the door into the shanty hang two bright curtains Dr. B had brought me from Denver as a contribution to our housekeeping.

Monday night, after paying one or two visits, we went to the office and had a game of whist with Mr. N and Dr. G, who had been burned out of Chicago and come down here to settle.

One for me, and it's a diamond.

And no, and I get nothing.

Pair of twos.

Ohhh Almost Flush.

Wednesday, November 2nd, drove up to Glen Eyrie with Mrs. P and General P and M followed us up to tea.

Glen Eyrie lies about five miles northwest of town between the Garden of the Gods and Monument Park.

Into Glen Eyrie debouches one of the finest canyons in the neighborhood and has been explored for 10 miles into the mountains and goes on no one knows how much further.

At the very mouth of the canyon, close to a beautiful group of Douglassi pines and just above the little rushing mountain torrent, which used to be known to trappers as Camp Creek, the Ps are building a most charming large house, but till it is finished, they live in sort of a picnic way in rooms 10 by 10 partitioned off from the loft over the stable.

There was just room for us all four to sit at tea, and we had great fun.

There were four cups, but no saucers, and we had borrowed two forks from the restaurant so that we each had one.

♪ Hush a bye, don't you cry... ♪ ♪ Go to sleep you little baby... ♪ ♪ When you wake, they shall have... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪ ♪ The blacks and greys... ♪ ♪ The whites and bays... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪ ♪ Way down yonder, in the meadow... ♪ ♪ There's a poor little lambie... ♪ ♪ The bees and the butterflies... ♪ ♪ Peckin' out its eyes... ♪ ♪ Poor little lambie cries, Mammie... ♪ ♪ Hush a bye, don't you cry... ♪ ♪ Go to sleep you little baby... ♪ ♪ When you wake, they shall have... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪ ♪ Hush a bye, don't you cry... ♪ ♪ Go to sleep you little baby... ♪ ♪ When you wake, they shall have... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪ ♪ The blacks and greys... ♪ ♪ The whites and bays... ♪ ♪ All the pretty little horses... ♪♪ Thank you, thank you very much.

Pour tea for my little friends.

I pour tea for you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Oh, you're welcome.

When are you going to pour yourself some tea?

Pour yourself some tea?

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday.

Are we gonna sing and have cheers?

Oh, yes.

Happy birthday.

Here, take her gift.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Happy birthday.

Thank you.

November 7th.

It's my birthday.

The Ps came back from Denver... bringing me a splendid silverback bear robe as a birthday present.

Oh, shall I put it on?

Oh, yes, yes, let us see.

(laughs) And M and I had great fun preparing for our housewarming.

He went out and got a white teapot and milk jug, six tin mugs, six forks, knives, teaspoons, and plates, a tin basin for washing the dishes- (laughs) a packet of tea and sugar, a bag of crackers.

We laid the table in English style and felt quite high toned, to use a Westernism, when our guests came in.

We had previously insisted on Dr. B going down to the restaurant and eating a large supper for fear of making too large an inroad on our tea, which is exactly like boiled hay.

Group: Happy Birthday.

and God Bless Kaya... More tea?

More tea?

Would you like more tea?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, surely.

Oh, yeah, there's some wish tea!

We thoroughly enjoyed being four Britishers together so far away from you.

And after our sumptuous tea, sat chatting and singing songs around the stove till late.

You should be talking, girls.

Oh, I'm sorry... Oh, well... Let me tell you what.

Does he read lips?

(laughs) The lady... was supposed to teach me the entire Italian opera never got back to me.

Oh!

that's too bad.

But, that's alright.

When our party dispersed as the haunting Demon of America, business, called for their services again and M got out his office books and I answered home letters.

♪ But, come ye back, when summer's in the meadow.... ♪ Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow ♪♪ November 13th A lovely morning, clear and hot with a wisp of cloud hovering around the highest peaks.

Last night, it was bitterly cold and I had to go to bed without a fire as no power which we could bring to bear would make the stove light.

♪ But if you come, and all the flowers are dying ♪♪ Field and Hill's rooms for the new office above their store were ready, so we decided to move over in the afternoon.

I can go now?

Go!

And I went out- and sitting on a log of firewood, did a sketch of our old shanty.

I am really sorry to leave it.

We had such fun there.

But it is getting too late in the year for tent life, and it'll be pleasant to get into a good plastered room.

Mrs. P has undertaken to begin a school for the colonist children and opened it this morning.

I went up before she arrived and found seven children all in great excitement about their teacher.

The school is some way up the town side, a pretty three-roomed house which Mrs. P has rented till a regular schoolhouse can be built.

My room is delightful.

The company has taken three rooms over Field and Hill's dry goods and grocery store with an outside staircase leading up to them.

The front room is the office.

The middle, M and Mr. N's share.

And the back one has been allotted to me.

I have a splendid stove in the middle which keeps me quite warm, and have two windows looking over the town east away to the plains, with the white bluffs at Jimmy's camp showing 20 miles away.

From the office windows, we look on the whole range with Pikes Peak as a central point, and have the amusement of seeing all that goes on at the depot and on the line a quarter of a mile below us.

The store is also the temporary stage office 'til the real one is built, and one of our daily excitements is the arrival and departure of the coach, coming up from the south to connect here with the up train and taking the new arrivals on to Pueblo, Maxwell's, or Santa Fe in New Mexico.

These pears are good.

I like them.

I like them too.

November 15th went over to Mrs. C's and did a quantity of washing.

It was hard work.

That was perfect.

And I have to iron the things tomorrow.

When I first arrived, I found that washing done very badly at $2.50 a dozen would not at all suit my ideas.

So my kind neighbor, Mrs. C, offered me the weekly use of her washtubs and irons, and after scorching a few collars, getting into a state of black despair with the starch, rubbing the skin off my knuckles with the rubber, and burning my hands with the irons, I have turned into- quite a good laundress.

The C's insisted on my stopping to dinner, and we had an excellent one of roast beef and tapioca pudding, which I helped Mrs. C to cook in the intervals of washing.

♪ But if it should fall unto my lot... ♪ ♪ That I should rise and you should not... ♪ ♪ I'll gently rise, and softly call... ♪ ♪ Good night and joy be with you all... ♪♪ M and I went for a walk down to see the boarding train, which the men at work on the line live, but it had gone up to the divide, and we came home past the graveyard.

It is right out in the open, so desolate with railings around each grave, sadly suggestive of wolves.

Since writing the above, the graveyard has been moved to the southern slope of Mount Washington, where a pretty cemetery has been laid out.

As the population is increasing every day, we and some of the colonists have been trying to devise some plan to get up a reading room where the young men may spend their evenings instead of lounging about the town or going up to drink in the saloons at Colorado City.

So we sent out to invite the colonists to meet together and discuss the subject this evening.

We carried chairs, lamps,and benches over to the railroad office and had a capital meeting of 13.

(singing) Mr. F made a very good speech, and when M and Mr. F were appointed to frame the constitution of bylaws, and someone raised the question of what would happen if they did not agree, Mr. F in the most gallant manner said of course M would do nothing without his sister's advice, so there could be no difficulty, a sentiment which caused much laughter.

$143 were subscribed on the spot, and I had the honor of naming the society the Fountain Society of Natural Science.

(singing) November 19th M and I drove up to Manitou after breakfast and took the De C's to the Garden of the Gods, one of the great sights here.

I gotta go.

Saturday November 26th Mrs. P asked me to drive up to Glen Eyrie with her and explore the Camp Creek Canyon above the house.

Anything more lovely, I never saw.

We started as the sun set and the moon rose to explore the upper end of Glen Eyrie.

We set off on a track that leads up the high ridge dividing Glen Eyrie from the upper garden.

After we had passed the Great Echo Rocks and made them sing two or three songs a couple of bars behind us... ♪ Oh my heart is sad and now I know... ♪♪ A narrow track led us to the top with a scramble.

And once there, the view was really superb.

To the right on the crest of the hill was a group of pines through which the moon shone so brightly it was like a white daylight.

Behind us lay the Glen, with its strange red rocks and the hills rising up to Old Pike, all covered with snow.

And in front of us, another deep valley shut in with another wall of rock, widening out into a park above and below, narrowing into a canyon which apparently had no exit.

December 2nd In the evening, we drew up a sketch of the constitution and bylaws for the Fountain Society of Natural Science.

We keep the list of members in the office, and the number is increasing every day as everyone who comes in is immediately attacked for a subscription, three dollars giving a yearly membership or $20, a life membership.

...the emancipation of the slaves.

- Good thing... - I agree.

Absolutely.

Should've happened thousands of years before then... On the 5th, the large party of railroad officials and visitors came down to the Springs, and we spent two days showing them the sights of the country: the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Manitou, et cetera.

The weather was perfect for sightseeing, and the evening so mild that we sat at Manitou with doors open to the porch and walked up and down outside without hats or jackets.

December 10th All the time I have been here I have never yet seen one of the strangest of the many strange sights in Colorado.

So this morning, the weather being fine with hot sun and no wind, M got a buggy and a good horse, and we started for Monument Park.

Through this, we drove on three or four miles 'til we came to the railroad crossing at Monument Creek, and there stopped at a very nice roadside boarding house called Teachouts where we put up the horse and went in for dinner.

It is kept by a charming old lady and her son.

She looks thoroughly English, though she is I believe an American.

December 27th Dear, as Christmas comes but once a year, and it is many a long day since we spent it together, we determined to give ourselves a treat.

So on the 20th of December, M shut up his books and papers.

I wound up my affairs by taking my collection of snowbirds, now numbering eight, to a neighbor, locking up my valuables, and putting on a clean dress.

And at 12:30 we were in the cars en route for a week in Denver.

The day before we came home, the most terrific windstorm began at the Springs and people were sitting up all night expecting their houses to be blown down.

The only harm, however, that it did was to blow down or unroof a few shanties.

And when we got down, it was quite calm again and no snow to be seen.

It was very pleasant getting home again and having such a warm welcome from everyone, and I had graphic accounts of their Christmas gaieties, which had consisted of a ball in Foote's Hall.

January 1st The new year has come in with a bright sun, no wind, and cloudless blue sky.

It is a marked day in the life of our little colony, for after two months of delays the Colorado Springs Hotel was opened at 2:00 PM and we went to our first meal there and ate with English knives and forks off English china.

A first-rate dinner.

I was singing out here earlier.

The canyon walls are pretty awesome.

What were you singing?

I had about a eight year old song pop in my head randomly out of nowhere that I hadn't heard in a long time.

What was it?

Uh, uh, I Uh..." I Sat By the Ocean", by-uh... January 10th Dr. B started for California to see General R, and arrange about the Mexican expedition.

And as soon as he comes back, we shall all start west and south.

Temporary Inn, Manitou.

January 19th I came up here a week ago to pay a visit to General and Mrs. P, who are living here 'til Glen Eyrie is finished.

And we are very busy preparing for a concert.

♪ And now I know ♪ ♪ Johnny has gone for a soldier ♪ ♪ Tu-ru-ru-o-o-la-lu ♪ ♪ Only time can heal my woes ♪ ♪ Oh my heart is sad and weary today ♪ ♪ Johnny has gone for a soldier ♪ ♪ Johnny has gone for a soldier ♪♪ The reading room is in want of funds, so we have determined to give a concert for its benefit and have enlisted all the musical talent in the neighborhood to help us.

♪ Red is the rose ♪ ♪ that yonder garden grows ♪ ♪ And fair is the lily of the valley ♪ ♪ Oh clear is the water, that runs down the Boyne ♪ ♪ Oh my love ♪♪ Too low.

♪ Oh my love is fairer than any January 28th, Manitou.

Our concert is over, and has been a great success in spite of the cold.

After a month of perfect weather, we have had a cold snap.

I went down three days before the concert to stay at Colorado Springs with the F's to be on the spot and ready to practice at any time of day.

On Thursday, the day of the concert, the weather was a little less severe.

Practices of one kind or other were going on from early morning, and we had a full rehearsal in the afternoon as soon as the southern stage came in.

The tenor from Colorado City came to tea at the F's, and so did M, and we had some really pleasant musical talk in the intervals of writing out programs for the evening.

Everything went well.

The bass violinist, who I found had only tried his instrument a fortnight before scraped away and tuned his strings, which insisted on getting out of tune every six bars.

Our prima donna Mrs. P and M got rapturous applause.

Mrs. P sang a scena of Verdi's and two or three popular ballads and M began with The Fox Went Out on a Moonlit Night, which was so successful that he had to sing two other songs as encores.

We wound up with the Man of Harlick, after which loud cries of M began, and he was obliged to sing again.

All went home delighted with their evening.

The result to the reading room was most satisfactory, as after all expenses were paid we netted $60, £12, a credible amount for a town only five months old.

We colonists hitherto have not been able to indulge much in evening dress, though doubtless that will come soon with our rapidly growing civilization.

And a thick, tweed gown has served me for morning and evening, Sunday and weekday alike, ever since I came here three months ago.

♪ Tu--o-o-o-o-la-ru Only time can heal my woes ♪♪ We should a guest love while he loves to stay.

And when he likes not, give him loving way.

♪ Oh my heart is sad and now I know ♪ ♪ Johnny has gone for a soldier ♪♪ The puppies are gonna be like, what stinks?

Oh it's us.

♪ Tu--o-o-o-o-la-ru Only time can heal my woes ♪ ♪ My heart is sad and now I know ♪♪ Glen Eyrie, Valentine's Day, 187 Dear dad, here is indeed the erster Fruhlingstag.

Oh, for a poet or a musician to put it into word, or sound.

I am sitting writing in the canyon under a grove of cottonwood, Douglasi fir, and silver spruce.

My chair is a lump of red granite with a wall of the same rising behind me, reflecting the hot sun so that I began to feel like your idea of perfect bliss, a lizard on a hot wall.

The creek frozen solid gleams white at my feet, and opposite rises the south wall of the canyon.

800 to 1,000 feet high, red, pink, and salmon rocks show through the pine and pinions which cover them.

And all is in black shade save for the streaks of snow, which lies here and there still unmelted.

There is not a sound except the sighing of a breeze in the pines, or the scream of a bluejay as he flashes past in the sunlight - and scolds and finds me introducing on his solitude.

Or when a solitary, half-tame sheep that haunts this valley comes rustling down from the scrub oak off the mountains to drink at the creek.

Blow out the candle.

The air is full of the scent from the cottonwood which is beginning to bud, and a fly settles on my paper to rest after his first flight in the spring sunshine.

How strange to think I'm in the Rocky Mountains all alone with my books, writing and drawing.

Out of all of the sound of human voices, and yet as much as home as if I were in England.

♪ I'll be there in sunshine (laughs) ♪ or in shadow ♪ Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so ♪♪ But I must have done with sentimentalities and tell you I've been spending the last fortnight.

For the last week at Manitou before we moved over here, we were nearly frozen and I spent most of my time indoors trying to keep warm and talking French and German with Miss Charming while we worked at cotton gowns for the Mexican trip, which looked excessively out of place in such weather.

Wait, what are you waiting for?

Hey, don't drag my coat.

I have been very busy since we came, helping my kind hostess to settle in, no easy matter in this servantless land.

When one has to do most things for one's self, the want of servants in the west is a very serious difficulty.

You can't see my bird.

And one, it seems almost impossible to overcome.

They are simply not to be had, whatever you pay them.

Nice.

One of our neighbors has been trying the whole of this winter to get a servant, sending to Denver, Georgetown, Central, everywhere in fact.

Hey dresser, I need you.

Come here.

Go on, help me.

I gotta pull this up so it fits better.

Okay.

Pull.

Pull.

You have to have enough to tuck it in so it looks like it fits.

After doing all her own housework and cooking for her own family and several boarders for two months, she got a girl at last from a ranch in the mountains who thought she'd like a change.

Is it working?

Okay, now I need my scarf.

To this creature who could not cook or make herself useful in any way except in actual scrubbing, she paid $25 a month board, lodging, and all found.

And before the month was up, a young lady found Colorado Springs was too dull for her and went off to Denver, leaving my friend servantless again.

Don't mess my hair.

Thank you.

Can you open it?

I remember finding this advertisement in the New York Times one day.

"A respectable young lady as cook, willing to assist at washing and ironing."

Here open it like this.

Hold it for me like this.

Call for one day.

Now put it around my shoulders like Nim's.

Like Nim's!

Imagine the condescending way in which the respectable young lady would cook one's dinner if it suited her to do so, and then how she would dress herself up.

Okay, like, more like a shawl.

- Okay.

- Sorry.

- I'm trying.

- Okay.

- Just like... - And walk out in French gown and bonnet after the cooking was over.

I don't want it bunched down here.

Bring the-- bring me the bottom.

Thank you.

Now the bottom on this one isn't bunched.

Does it look good?

Okay.

Dresser, I think I will dismiss you now.

This gives some idea of the servant difficulty here in Oh, I do need my lipgloss.

(sigh).

In the case of having good servants out And Caleb has to get off the bed.

From the east or from England, their passage money, some $80 to $100, is of course to be paid in advance, and though it could easily be funded to I thought you did it already.

No!

To their mistresses out of their first year's wages, the chances are so strongly in favor of their marrying or wishing to change their place before the year is out, that it makes the risk too serious for their plan to succeed often.

We are hoping every day for Dr. B's return.

He has been nearly a month on his journey from San Francisco, which usually takes four days, and the line is now so badly blocked on this side of the Salt Lake, that large provision trains on sleighs are being sent to snowed up passengers who are actually suffering for want of food, at least so say the papers.

It is a bad lookout for our journey west.

Nevertheless, we are getting very impatient to be off, for now that I find you approve of my going to Mexico, I am so afraid lest anything should prevent our trip.

We are working away at Spanish and reading up all we can find about the country, which seems really a land of enchantment.

(laughs) Deerie friends, you are my friends, all of you.

1 Deerie, 2 deerie, 3 deerie, 4 deerie, 5 deerie, 6 deerie, 7 deerie, 8 deerie, 9 deeries!

Hi to you!

Deerie butts!

You guys sure are cute!

Love you guys!

Bye!

Oh my goodness gracious, you are just so cute!

Yes you, nobody else but you!

Everybody else left, look it, are you gonna follow them?!

Look they're running, Look, there they go!!

You gonna go now?

You gonna go?

They're saying bye!

You gonna follow 'em?

Bye!

Dr. B at last arrived from San Francisco, having spent 24 days on the road, thanks to the snow.

He however has not suffered from starvation, and we have received most encouraging reports as to the probability of the line being open in a fortnight, which is the time actually fixed for our start westward.

I know you're so very excited.

I thought it was great.

The other day, M drove up from the Springs, bringing a Hollander to see General P. That one doesn't like frosted flakes.

He's gonna come back.

- He keeps coming back.

- Mm-hmm.

He wants something else.

(laughs) Whoever made these hash browns was in a hurry.

After a late breakfast, we wandered out, and as had much to talk over, we laid in the grass in a sunny place and then climbed up the great red rocks to the top of a hill where we sketched the most beautiful view I have ever seen yet.

The great rocks for foreground, then the Garden of the Gods a mile and a half away, and the mesas and mountains and purple plains behind them.

But every day, I find some fresh puzzle or curiosity that I have not seen before, and long for you to see it too, and explain it to me.

For instance, I found a hill of gypsum, 500 feet high, within a quarter mile of this house the other day.

And borrowing a pickax from one of the workmen, toiled up to the top of it and spent an hour in clumsily picking out specimens, some white, some satin spar, some a faint pink, of which I have since made you a paperweight.

We had no notion that there was any gypsum in the glen before this week, but it is a land of surprises, and then there is always the delightful possibility if one goes out for a walk of making some new discovery in geology or botany, or finding some fresh view or way over the mountains, which no one has ever thought of.

One of the great charms of a new country is the feeling that one is looking on places which probably have never been seen before, so you must have patience with me if I grow prosey over our wonderful mountains and rocks.

It's the last one, and today is today.

It's 150 years ago today.

Okay, Good.

March 4th, 1872 Cool, man!

Will you say March 4th, 1872?

And it ends on the next page.... March 4th Tomorrow we start.

All our preparations are made.

M and the five others have their engineering party, leave by the Overlin stage, and the Ps and I go north on our way to San Francisco.

Before we meet in the city of Mexico, the Overlin party will have no easy trip southwards.

It is sad to leave so many dear and kind friends whom I seem to have known for years instead of months, not knowing whether most of us may ever meet again.

Almost ready to go to the land of enchantment, Mexico.

It's too bad you can't come.

(laughs) If anything had been needed to make me believe in the kindness, generosity, and warm-hearted friendship of Americans, the four months I have spent here would have proved to me what I knew already, that in no country on Earth, can one feel better and find truer friends than the United States.

Sincerely... ♪