Three wonderlands of the American West; being the notes of a traveler, concerning the Yellowstone park, the Yosemite national park, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, with a chapter on other wonders of the great American West . ive town which, with assured statehood,would seem to have an exceptional future. TheSalt River Valley is a level plain, verdant withalfalfa fields, studded with palms and giant cot-tonwoods, and girt by distant mountains so blueand ethereal as to seem almost a part of cloud-land itself. Rain seldom falls and all the yearlong the sun shines in its full glory on
Three wonderlands of the American West; being the notes of a traveler, concerning the Yellowstone park, the Yosemite national park, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, with a chapter on other wonders of the great American West . ive town which, with assured statehood,would seem to have an exceptional future. TheSalt River Valley is a level plain, verdant withalfalfa fields, studded with palms and giant cot-tonwoods, and girt by distant mountains so blueand ethereal as to seem almost a part of cloud-land itself. Rain seldom falls and all the yearlong the sun shines in its full glory on this pleas-ant vale in the desert. The summers are hot, itis true, but the monotony of continual sunshineis neutralized by the verdure and bloom that onesees always and everywhere. In New Mexico there is also much to en-gage the attention of the observant traveler—far too much to admit even of mention in such ahurried outline as I am sketching. But one maynot entirely pass over the old town of Santa Fe,which, strange to say, contests with St. Augus-tine for the honor of the oldest settlement ofwhite man within the present limits of theUnited States. It was in 1605—barely morethan a century after the discovery by Columbus 170. OTHER WONDERS —that the gold-seeking cavaliers of Spain pene-trated into the mountain fastness, far inland,and founded with great ceremony the pretentious*La Ciudad Real de la Santa Fe de San Fran-cisco,—the true city of the holy faith of In its unbroken history of more thanthree hundred years, seventy-six Spanish rulersand twenty American governors have succes-sively occupied the old palace—a long, one-storybuilding with a square-pillared colonnade front-ing on the plaza. It is indeed a historic struct-ure, crowded with many priceless treasures—relics of its former occupants. There arefaded pictures of saints painted upon pumaskins; figures laboriously wrought in wood toshadow forth the Nazarene; votive offerings ofsilver brought t
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