has. He
offered to be my guide to the Plains when I go away. Lyman asked me if
I should not be afraid of being murdered, but one could not be safer
than with him I have often been told.

The cold was truly awful. I had caught a chill in the morning from
putting on my clothes before they were dry, and the warmth of the smoky
den was most agreeable; but we had a fearful ride back in the dusk, a
gale nearly blowing us off our horses, drifting snow nearly blinding
us, and the mercury below zero. I felt as if I were going to be laid
up with a severe cold, but the men suggested a trapper's remedy--a
tumbler of hot water, with a pinch of cayenne pepper in it--which
proved a very rapid cure. They kindly say that if the snow detains me
here they also will remain. They tell me that they were horrified when
I arrived, as they thought that they could not make me comfortable, and
that I had never been used to do anything for myself, and then we
complimented each other all round. To-morrow, weather permitting, I
set off for a ride of 100 miles, and my next letter will be my last
from the Rocky Mountains.

I. L. B.

Letter XVI

A harmonious home--Intense cold--A purple sun--A grim jest--A perilous
ride--Frozen eyelids--Longmount--The pathless prairie--Hardships of
emigrant life--A trapper's advice--The Little Thompson--Evans and "Jim."

DR. HUGHES'S, LOWER CANYON, COLORADO, December 4.

Once again here, in refined and cultured society, with harmonious
voices about me, and dear, sweet, loving children whose winning ways
make this cabin a true English home. "England, with all thy faults, I
love thee still!" I can truly say,

Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see.
My heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee.

If it swerved a little in the Sandwich Islands, it is true to the Pole
now! Surely one advantage of traveling is that, while it removes much
prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold
one's appreciation of the good at home, and, above all, of the
quietness and purity of English domestic life. These reflections are
forced upon me by the sweet child-voices about me, and by the exquisite
consideration and tenderness which are the atmosphere (some would call
it the hothouse atmosphere) of this house. But with the bare, hard
life, and the bare, bleak mountains around, who could find fault with
even a hothouse atmosphere, if it can nourish