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Show JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE. 215 see few live ones, for it is too early for their great move northward, but myriads of the dead. Whole herds died here during the heavy snow in the winter of 1871-' 72. Far as the eye can reach, or as a good field- glass can sweep the horizon, they lie at intervals of eight or ten rods, and in every stage of decay. Some appear just as they fell, almost entirely preserved mummified, as it were, by the dry air. Others have shrunk to small compass with the hide still entire, and others by far the larger number are picked and licked to clean white skeletons by the wolves. The sight is sad and sickening. About the stations the skins are piled in great heaps to dry for market not so bad to the sight as the other, but worse to the smell. This region of dead buffaloes extends from first to last, some eighty miles, traversing which we saw many thousand of their carcasses. Soon we begin to rout out a few live bisons from their herding places in the hollows. The cry of " buffalo !" causes a general rush to the windows; next come antelope, then prairie dogs, and for hours our palace car company resembles a district school at a menagerie. Ere long we find the buffalo more numerous, but always at a distance, feeding in small groups. The whole appearance of the country has changed; the surface is dry and cracked, and the grass has a cured look. Dark overtakes us, still fifty miles east of the Colorado line. We wake at Denver, and hasten to the Broadwell House, where we sit down to a good breakfast and a copy of Byers' Rocky Mountain News. In its columns we learn that the Democrats have nominated Horace Greeley for President ! Thirteen years before he and the la-mented Richardson made a journey together by stage over the country we have just traversed ; his strong suit then was abuse of Democrats as the proslavery party. Time had brought even greater changes in our politics than in the wild region then vaguely known as the " Pike's Peak country." Three days we rested at Denver, a beautiful city with a happy location. But its merits must wait recital till my next visit ; I must cut short my stay, as the weather is fast getting hot-ter and dryer where I am going. 1 thought I knew something about high tariffs in the West, but when I go to inquire about the fare to Santa Fe the intelligence nearly takes my breath. The distance is four hundred and fifteen miles, ninety of which we go by rail, and the rest by stage. Fare by rail, ten cents per mile ; by stage, twenty cents ; total to Santa Fe, seventy- four dollars, with a dol-lar a meal on the road. Moral : Don't go to Santa Fe, unless you have important business. From what I hear, the rates are still higher |