James W. Buel

“ LOS PINOS VALLEY, LOOKING WEST.—This beautiful photograph gives us a splendid view of cañon, table-land and mountain scenery. It is rugged and picturesque, with a fringe of distant snow-covered mountains as a central background. From the high table-lands to the right, a view of surpassing grandeur and beauty bursts upon the enraptured vision, repaying the tourist for all his pains in climbing to the exalted heights. Here the atmosphere is always cool and invigorating, and the weariness and lassitude of a warmer and more humid climate are not experienced. ”

“ As we pass the Toltec Gorge, Phantom Curve is approached, and from the grandeur and awesomeness with which the great abyss impressed us, our interest is quickened and spell-bound by objects that at once excite wonder and curious amazement. We are suddenly introduced to forms more strange than monstrous, more remarkable for their incongruity than significant for their grandeur. The chisels of nature’s sculptors, frost, water, storms, ice and decay have wrought many astounding things in stone, which rival in grotesque eccentricity the queer figures that render famous the Garden of the Gods. ”

“ The banks are low and flat, but bordered with a wealth of foliage to be seen nowhere else upon this continent. One passes for hundreds of miles through a grand forest of cypresses robed in moss and mistletoe; of palms towering gracefully far above the surrounding trees; of palmettos whose rich trunks gleam in the sun; of swamp, white and black ash, of magnolia, water-oak, poplar and plane trees; and where the hummocks rise a few feet above the water level, the sweet-bay, the olive, cotton-tree, juniper, red-cedar, sweet-gum, and live-oak shoot up their splendid stems ”

“ BELEAGUERED CASTLE, CAMP DOUGLAS, WISCONSIN.—The scenery about Camp Douglas is weird, sublime and curious. There are formations of odd and fantastic shapes, like the conjurings of a disordered brain, while others lift their rugged sides and castellated peaks into the air with all the grandeur and picturesqueness of “castles on the Rhine.” To this latter class belongs “Beleaguered Castle,” so boldly photographed on this page. Its resemblance to the ruins of some ancient fortification is so striking as to arouse the wonder and admiration of all beholders. ”

“ All the very large bergs rise from the bottom with a still grander commotion, rearing aloft in the air nearly to the top of the wall, with tons of water pouring down their sides, heaving and plunging again and again ere they settle and sail away as blue crystal islands; free at last after being held rigid as part of the slow-crawling glacier for centuries. And strange it seems that ice formed from snow on the mountains two and three hundred years ago, should after all its toil and travel in grinding down and fashioning the face of the landscape still remain so lovely in color and so pure. ”

“ RAINBOW FALLS IN WINTER, ADIRONDACKS.
But when the sun is above the mountains and setting the landscape aglow with cheerful beams, these same fastnesses are a realm of romantic delight, for every peak is reflected in some lovely lake, while waterfalls appear to be pouring out of the sky and go chasing down the verdant slopes playing high-spy among the coverts and making the woods musical with their laughter. Near Ausable Ponds, guarded by Mount Marcy, are the beautiful Rainbow Falls, a very flood of opals, so iridescent does it appear when its waters catch the sunbeams. ”

“ INTERIOR OF SNOW SHED, SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.
Beyond Chico, northward, the scenery becomes rapidly more rugged, until we plunge into the Siskiyou range, and apparently become tangled up, so tortuous is the way. Time and again the road overlaps itself in winding up the steeps, leaps across yawning chasms on lofty steel bridges, and dashes into tunnels that for a while appear to lead directly to the center of the under-world. But on every side, where daylight reveals the turbulent landscape, there is much to excite wonder and to lend surprise. ”

“ Range behind range of great mountains lie below, like a Titanic ocean stilled by some mighty hand. From this supreme elevation it is possible to study the structural character of the region, and to count all the great chains that cross the country, while no words can express the varying and exquisite color that, like a glamour of heavenly enchantment, lies over the wide expanse. The whole earth, “and the beauty thereof,” seems to be spread out at one’s feet, and the airs that come to this high mountain crest are full of freshness and balm. ”

“ The way led around the base of Pike’s Peak, passed Cascade Cañon, and along Bear Creek, the road doubling upon itself and twisting around in the most tortuous course imaginable in order to get through the mountain defiles. Every foot of the route is grand, for there is no point that does not offer a view of scenic splendors beautiful, awesome and sublime. So rugged, tumultuous and wonderfully aberrant is the way, that the road plunges through no less than eight tunnels in traversing as many miles, and thus the traveler is whirled through the heart and arms of the mountains. ”

“ Descending Alder Hill on the east, by way of a tortuous route, we at last reach Merced Valley, beautiful as a poet’s inspiration, and crossing this low-lying strip of meadow land, climb another hill, where wonder compels us to pause upon its crest. Away yonder in the misty west, where the horizon drops down like a curtain on the world to hide the mysteries behind, are the dim outlines of the Coast Range, nearly 200 miles distant. But more bewildering sights are near at hand, for there to the left a little way are noisy cascades playing leap-frog over giant stones ”

“ As our artist had made the ascent of Pike’s Peak by car, he concluded to take in the larger experience of gaining the summit of Mount Washington by stage, that he might be better able to report the contrast. Though the distance by rail is only three miles, by wagon-road it is ten, so winding is the way, and to add to the distress of the latter journey, the first four miles is toilsome without revealing any scenery worth the effort of a glance. But above the four-mile point the dreary, tame and desolate aspect is succeeded by a landscape that cannot be excelled for magnificence. ”

“ Further on lies Quartz Valley, like a pearl nestling in depths far below the angry waves of giant mountains. Now we cross Quartz Creek, where nature laughs with blossoms and fruitage, through Uncompaghre, around Hair-Pin Curve, with the Fossil range to our right, by Juniata Hot Springs, and at length arrive at Gunnison. We are now in the midst of the most magnificent mountain scenery, and in the heart of a great mining country, where there is bustle above ground and activity and visions of amazing wealth underneath. ”

“ This great park, that covers an area equal to the State of Connecticut, was, in the early years of the world’s life, a vast inland sea, though its elevation is now more than 7,000 feet. The earth has absorbed nearly all its waters, though San Luis Lake still lies near its center, shining like a sheet of silver, and is fed by thirty mountain streams. All around this lake, whose length is sixty miles, is a waving savanna of luxuriant grasses, which form the frame of as pretty a picture as the eye of man ever wandered over. ”

“ Stairs lead to the brink, under overarching trees that provide a delightful nook, but a more entrancing view is obtainable from the bottom of the charming dell into which the waters fall. There is neither grandeur nor sublimity in the sight afforded, but a soft witchery, a gentle soul-rapture that is kin to inspiration in the monody of the stream as it pours over the ledge in a rhythm that is as musical as April rain upon a cottager’s roof, and shimmers in its fall like a lace curtain stirred by the wind. Eagle Falls is plainly a misnomer, for the name suggests a thing of prey. ”

“ Ouray lies at peace with the world, in a basin whose sides are like a giant’s punch-bowl, only that the confinement is by a succession of mountain ranges piling up behind each other until the highest attain an altitude of 14,235 feet, and hold perpetual carnival with the snow-storm. That little basin seems to be the paint-pot of the Titans, and the mountains their mixing-boards. Letting our sight travel slowly up the soaring slopes, every step of the way is one of beauty. ”

“ CASTLE GATE IN PRICE’S CAÑON, UTAH.—We observe in this photograph not only a castle gate but the castle itself, with its battlements and buttresses, as natural and picturesque as any of the ruins that lend their attractions to mediæval Europe. The scene is a grand one as we observe it from the railroad tracks, and to this grandeur there is added a vision of indescribable loveliness when the surrounding country is viewed from the dizzy heights of the castle walls. Such a view is one that never can be forgotten; it impresses itself upon the mind as a permanent and lasting memory. ”

“ A HOME IN THE SHADES OF SOUTHERN PINES.—If Ponce de Leon and his doughty Spaniards had remained in Florida and built them homes like this, under the shades of the health-giving pines, instead of wading through swamps and morasses in quest of the fountain of youth, they might, and probably would, have lived to be hale and hearty old men. Abodes like this, in the balmy air of the Sunny South, are fountains of life within themselves, where, free from worry and the necessity of making a living, one has but little to do aside from living and growing and being happy. ”

“ The trip from Flagstaff is made in twelve hours, and, by comfortable stages, the traveler is taken to one of the most imposing points in the cañon (Marble Cañon) , where the descent is sheer 6,000 feet, and a panorama is afforded of frightful chasm, curiously chaotic walls, strange formations, and mountains breaking one behind the other, like waves on the ocean, until sight fades into the perspective of distance. Here terror and sublimity, in a marvel of natural extremes, have formed perpetual alliance to excite amazement in the mind of every visitor. ”