be, as a
compliment."

Night was settling down upon us as we turned eastward from Salt Lake
City, with faces homeward bound.

The picturesque desert, with its purple hills and terraced mountains,
was all concealed by the darkness. At the early morning hour we reached
Glenwood Springs, but decided not to stay there, and continued on
without delay to Colorado Springs, reaching there on the evening of a
day, never to be forgotten, of which we will tell in the next chapter.

XIX

Glenwood Springs.--The Pool.--The Vapor Baths.--Through the Canons.--
Leadville.--Colorado Products.--Canons in New York.

When we reached Glenwood Springs, it was in the early morning. The
place from the railroad station does not look inviting, and so it was
decided to push on to Denver.

This was a loss, for Glenwood Springs has many advantages, worth
seeing, and a hotel of real comfort and elegance. The hot springs there
are quite extensive, and the medicinal baths are delightful. The
bathing places are in the highest style of art, elegantly fitted up
with all that modern appliances, following ancient models, can
accomplish. There is also a huge, open-air swimming-pool, filled with
water, from the hot springs, giving most luxurious enjoyment.

It was my good fortune, on a former visit, to enjoy both it, and the
further pleasure of a natural vapor bath within the rock recesses of
one of the mountains. It was a weird experience. It was late one
evening, and I happened to be the only bather there. The negro
attendant, a most obliging fellow, took me in charge. Under his
directions, after disrobing, he gave me a shower bath of cold water,
and then, with a wet towel on my head, he ushered me into a rocky
cavern. Some boards extended over fissures in the ground, from whence
one could hear the gurgling of the boiling springs far beneath. The
rocks overhead leaned against one another, and their great crevices
were dark with shadows. There were a few plain wooden benches,
blackened with the sulphur fumes; but, as if to assure one that the
savage-looking place was really tame, after all, an electric light, in
full glare, hung down from above, making the strange surroundings
visible in all their mystery of heat beneath, and blackness below and
beyond. I watched the experiment of the vapor upon myself, and soon was
in a profuse perspiration. My faithful negro cautioned me not to be too
long in my first attempt, so I was soon out again to g