At three in the morning, we were awoke with a dreadful shock, under which the car shivered and upheaved. We heard the crash of falling china, and seemed to feel the furious application of the air brakes, which brought us to a dead stop.
In the awful stillness that succeeded, the conductor rushed through the cars and begged us to "keep still." Every head was protruded from between the curtains, and there were frightened exclamations to be heard from all sides. The suspense that ensued was terrible.
Too soon the truth came. There was our engine smashed to pieces off the line, the tender high in the air, telescoping the luggage van. Ten feet off was another engine of another passenger train. It was eastward-bound, and therefore on the main track, waiting for us, the westward train, to pass on to the siding. The signal, a covered head-light, had gone out; the fireman moving to replace it, accidentally waved a lighted lantern, which the driver of our train took as a signal that the east-bound train had gone into the siding instead, and, at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, we continued running into the stationary passenger-train! The drivers and firemen of both engines saved themselves by jumping off, and we all had a providential escape from what might have proved a terrible accident. We were forty miles from a village, and eighty from a town and any surgical aid. A messenger was sent to walk to the nearest telegraph station, six miles away, and nothing remained to us but to wait. We looked out on the silent prairie, the stars solemnly keeping watch in the deep blue vault of heaven, thinking of the strange situation, till dawn broke and the sun rose. Then we could penetrate to the scene of the disaster. There was much débris scattered about the track, and the broken engines lay on the ground facing each other. The corpses of some murdered fowls were inside the luggage van, and, suspended in mid-air, I saw at once my new saratoga, a last American acquisition. The remainder of the baggage was more or less injured, and two trunks were completely wrecked, and their contents strewn on the ground. We were resigned, and prepared to spend the day on the prairie, when, sooner than we thought possible by the earliest calculation, two relief engines arrived, and drew off each train. The eastward-bound was first sent on its way rejoicing, and we followed. The black porter had been very much to the fore about seven o'clock, providing breakfast for all, as those bringing provisions had calculated on arriving at Denver in the early morning. "Guess I'se best man on the car this morning," he said, with a grin, showing his white teeth. For the remainder of the journey we suffered dreadfully from the heat, and the sand penetrated into every crevice and corner. How we strained our aching eyes over that burnt, parched plain, in search of the vestige of a shadow, or any green thing to give relief! At last we did see something, a mirage it almost seemed for the first moment, of dark blue mountains, with dazzling crowns of snow. They were the glorious range of "the Rockies" bounding the horizon, and Denver lay at their feet.
As we got out on the platform it seemed almost as if the atmosphere inside the car were preferable to that outside, so sultry and oppressive as it was; the heated pavement burnt the soles of our feet, and the trees near the station were drooping and white with dust. However, we took a more cheerful view after we had changed our dusty garments and been refreshed with a bath—thought it, in fact, almost worth while having felt so hot and weary, to be now so bright and fresh, and ready for a drive in the cool of the evening. As we passed through those quiet, orderly streets, it was very difficult to realize that Denver sprang into existence with the discovery of the gold diggings, and twenty years ago was peopled entirely by the lawless roughs brought thither by the gold fever. They are being gradually superseded by a quiet, industrious population, centring here from the country districts. Though often even now you look into the face of many a man following some menial occupation, who shows traces of not being "to the manner born," but who, in the search for sudden wealth at the diggings, has left the little he had below ground, and thankfully turned to any kind of work to earn a bare livelihood.
We passed a fine house, with the proprietor sitting in the garden, our driver pointed to him, "That 'ere man this time last year was a beggar, to-day he is one of the richest men in Denver." In five weeks he had made one million and a half of dollars at the diggings. The man spoke bitterly, and we more than suspected he too had had his turn of ill luck at them; and the like story might be told of most of its inhabitants. There are a few streets, and the remainder of the town consists of pretty little villas and cottages, each standing in a garden, kept fresh and green by the unlimited use of water. They have an ingenious contrivance for watering, consisting of a pipe attached to the hose, with a top perforated with holes, that turning with the action of the water scatters forth a shower of spray, and is left always playing upon the grass. Life is carried on to a great extent out of doors, people working, meeting and receiving guests in the verandahs. The houses are kept dark and cool by shutters, and the fine wire doors are an absolutely necessary precaution against the plague of flies.
Denver has not yet reached that stage in its development when it can have any public buildings of interest, but they are moving in that direction, as is shown by the fine City Hall they are just finishing erecting on the hill.
We had the disagreeable business to be gone through of going down to the station late in the evening, to receive the wreck of our luggage brought on from the scene of the morning's accident by the next passenger train. My Saratoga was levered down with some difficulty, and, with great care exercised in the removal, happily lasted till it reached the hotel. C.'s hat-box and its contents were reduced to an unrecognizable mass, and the remainder of the baggage was more or less torn, and with locks broken. I must say we thought the company behaved exceedingly well, as without demur they gave us damages to the amount of 35 dollars; but we afterwards learnt the reason, which was that if further injuries were discovered no further compensation could be claimed.
Sunday, August 17th, Denver, Colorado.—We went to the morning service at the cathedral. It is a plain, brick building, at present cold and bare inside, but it is intended to decorate it richly when the necessary funds are forthcoming. The stained glass windows in the chancel are really beautiful, copied from Vandyke's "Crucifixion" at Antwerp; the organ is fine, and the singing of the well-trained choir of men and women (the latter sitting behind a screen), quite worthy of it. We had a very eloquent and sarcastic sermon from Dean Hart, an Englishman; he chose as his text, "Balaam, the son of Beor."
Under the very shadow of "the Rockies," in the far West, how strange it was to be listening to a full cathedral service; and the prayers of the Church of England binding together both American and English!
The air was very sultry, with frequent storms in the afternoon. We went by the circular railway to Jewell Park and enjoyed the beautiful sight of the Rocky Mountains, swept with dark storms or momentarily emerging under a brightly shining sun.
Monday, August 18th.—We left Denver at 8 a.m., and our way lay for many miles along the foot of the Rockies. Though twenty miles away, the rarefied atmosphere of 5000 feet above the level of the sea brought them apparently to within two or three miles of us. And now we could understand their name of "Rockies," for boulders of rock and loose stones, with the long scars where they have given way under the influence of the snow, form their prominent characteristics. There were some little patches of snow yet unmelted and nestling in the deep crevasses.
Buffalo