ens were new created. Surely "the Most High dwelleth
not in temples made with hands!" For a full hour those Plains
simulated the ocean, down to whose limitless expanse of purple, cliff,
rocks, and promontories swept down.

By seven we had finished breakfast, and passed into the ghastlier
solitudes above, I riding as far as what, rightly, or wrongly, are
called the "Lava Beds," an expanse of large and small boulders, with
snow in their crevices. It was very cold; some water which we crossed
was frozen hard enough to bear the horse. "Jim" had advised me against
taking any wraps, and my thin Hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the
tropics, was penetrated by the keen air The rarefied atmosphere soon
began to oppress our breathing, and I found that Evans's boots were so
large that I had no foothold. Fortunately, before the real difficulty
of the ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes,
probably left by the Hayden exploring expedition, which just lasted for
the day. As we were leaping from rock to rock, "Jim" said, "I was
thinking in the night about your traveling alone, and wondering where
you carried your Derringer, for I could see no signs of it." On my
telling him that I traveled unarmed, he could hardly believe it, and
adjured me to get a revolver at once.

On arriving at the "Notch" (a literal gate of rock), we found ourselves
absolutely on the knifelike ridge or backbone of Long's Peak, only a
few feet wide, covered with colossal boulders and fragments, and on the
other side shelving in one precipitous, snow-patched sweep of 3,000
feet to a picturesque hollow, containing a lake of pure green water.
Other lakes, hidden among dense pine woods, were farther off, while
close above us rose the Peak, which, for about 500 feet, is a smooth,
gaunt, inaccessible-looking pile of granite. Passing through the
"Notch," we looked along the nearly inaccessible side of the Peak,
composed of boulders and debris of all shapes and sizes, through which
appeared broad, smooth ribs of reddish-colored granite, looking as if
they upheld the towering rock mass above. I usually dislike bird's-eye
and panoramic views, but, though from a mountain, this was not one.
Serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one
beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision,
broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles
piercing the heavenly blue with their cold