With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

Forty years ago—a big slice off the long end of one’s life! A broad river with its low-lying south shore heavily timbered and rich in early summer verdure; a long bridge with a multitude of low stone piers and trestle-work at top; in midstream, two miles away, the black hull and tall masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond, the smooth bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing sloops under weather-beaten wings, moving lazily hither and yon; to the north, but invisible save a straggling outer edge of tumble-down houses—a possibility then—now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled sea-weed that came in with the last tide, the jagged and blackened piles stand brooding over the solemn stillness like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead ambition. The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air is fragrant with a brackish sweetness.