"I guess it's pretty wal," he replied. “When we built a schoolhouse we made a cemetery, but we had to shoot a man to start it."

The streets here are broader even than in Denver, and on the south and west the view down the long avenues is bounded by the same stupendous hills.

Railway travelling in the United States just now is hampered by a special difficulty. On the 1st of October it occasionally becomes clear that the summer is over and gone, and that the time for the lighting of stoves is come. They are lit accordingly, without strict regard to the temperature outside, and as there seems to be no borderland between having the pipes cold or nearly red-hot, the sensation on entering one of the cars from the fresh air is akin to what might be experienced on walking into an oven. But the Americans like it, especially the women, and attempts made by foreigners to avert asphyxia by opening the ventilators are undisguisedly frowned upon.

The Denver and Rio Grande Railway between Denver and Leadville goes through some of the finest scenery in the world. The public to-day have been educated to the belief that with the railway engineer nothing is impossible. Standing on the prairie at the

eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains, this faith is shaken, for it seems incredible that any train could either tunnel or scale these heights. As far as Salida, where a branch line goes off for Leadville, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway has found itself singularly favoured by fortune. Just beyond Cañon City the mighty mountains have by some slow process of nature been rent in twain. Through this aperture the river Arkansas flows, and where the river goes it was determined that the railway should run. The rocky walls of the riven mountains rise up to a sheer height of three thousand feet, and look down in silent amazement at the busy, smoky train passing through a solitude which for countless years was broken only by the voice of the turbulent river. For several miles there is just room enough for these two, the river and the railway, and at one point the way is so narrow that the railway is obliged to run over the river for a few yards.

At Cañon City an open car, provided with benches, is attached, and here those who can brave the hideous smoke sit and look upward at the wall of rock, which in some places seems toppling to a fall that would bury the railway train and dam up the river. It is a curious sensation to sit in this open car and watch

the train ahead making its snake-like progress. The curves are innumerable and perilously sharp. From time to time, whilst a portion of the middle of the train is hidden behind a curve, you can see the engine dashing ahead, apparently by itself. The line runs so near the jagged rock, that by reaching out you could tear your hand against it, and often it seems that this time the carriage really is about to take a header straight into the rock. But it is only turning another sharp corner, and does it with the assured safety which marks the whole of the journey along this wonderful line, leaving the average of accidents a trifle under that of other lines of similar extent.

Out of this chasm, justly known as the Grand Cañon, the train emerges upon a peaceful valley, where the sunlight breaks through on patches of vegetation, and where are railway stations comprised of two or three wooden huts which minister to the convenience of mysterious populations located in lateral valley or mining in the heart of the hills themselves. Then comes the steep ascent to Leadville, the latest and lustiest of American mining camps, where men live and labour all through the year in a town pitched two thousand feet above the range of everlasting snow.

CHAPTER VI.

A MINING CAMP IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

CONSIDERING its great height, being three thousand feet above the Alpine snow-line, Leadville has a wonderful climate. In the first week in October it was quite hot in the sun, though occasionally in passing corners one was reminded that there are snow-drifts on the encircling belt of hills. In summer it is sometimes even sultry, though the nights are always cool. The town, though it looks dingy and worn-out, is not more than five years old. It is partly built on California Gulch, a famous mining camp of twenty years ago. In 1859 California Gulch was first prospected, and one year the yield of gold was over £600,000 sterling. But it gradually fell away, till in 1866 the diggings did not pay the cost of working, and were abandoned. It was pretty bleak in California Gulch in winter time, and the gold-diggers, finding at hand

a thick consistent kind of mud, used to caulk their cabins with it. After the gold-diggers had gone, a pair of sharp eyes, looking upon this mud, recognized it as carbonate, worth £80 a ton. The tide of miners, which had ebbed with the failure of the gold, set in again with a great rush when this fresh find was made. The discovery of silver was followed by the certain prospect of rich yields of lead.

The miners in their spare time decided to found a town. A meeting was called, at which twenty men put in an appearance, and out of their number they selected a mayor. A lawyer who happened to be around was named recorder, and Leadville was formally added to the list of cities within the United States. To-day the city has a population varying from eighteen thousand to twenty-two thousand - more in winter and fewer in summer, when the miners go forth to prospect. In addition to mayor and recorder, there is now a city council, three daily papers (which give surprisingly little for twopence halfpenny), three banks, two theatres, seven schools, and, as far as I was able to observe, one church. In respect of this last institution I was left very much to personal observation. Some of the citizens from whom I made inquiry doubted the existence of a church.