Читать книгу Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water - Ethel Gwendoline Vincent - Страница 11

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It was ten o'clock on Monday, the 11th of August, when we arrived at the station of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was to take us to Chicago. We had great difficulty in threading our way amongst several hundreds of negresses bent on a religious excursion. At first the train followed the winding course of the Potomac, through a fertile country; but presently we were going through a mountain gorge, wooded and precipitous, through which the river rushed and foamed. We crossed an iron bridge over the broad river to Harper's Ferry, the culminating point of a very beautiful mountain scene. As the train drew up at the wooden station, the absolute stillness, broken only by the sound of rushing waters, enhanced the spell of the mountains, which seemed to close us in on all sides.

At Cumberland the country then changed to long, undulating hills; and soon after a halt was called, and dinner served at the station. When further on a second engine was attached, a pleasurable excitement prevailed throughout the cars, and there was an underhand scuffle for the right-hand side of the carriage. We were approaching the glorious range of the Alleghenies, and preparing to cross the mountains. It was a wild scene of the greatest beauty, the glorious solitude of the vast range, broken only by the hideous shriek of the engine, as we climbed the side suspended over a fathomless precipice. As we rose the view extended over many mountain-tops, a panoramic scene of great extent and beauty. We were going up a gradient of sixteen feet to the mile for eighteen miles, with curves so sharp that the middle of the train was doubled inwards or outwards, until we, in the last car, were almost parallel to the engine. We were hanging half way out of the windows, and in full enjoyment of the glorious view, when a sharp angle cruelly shut it all out, and the summit was reached. I was glad that the scene changed so completely at once. So often the full effect of some specially beautiful masterpiece is spoilt by a gradual preparation, Nature working herself up as she goes along; but here the transition is sudden, and the open, park-like spaces present a gentle contrast—golden as they were then in the setting sun.

It seemed as if the beautiful part of our journey was over, when we found ourselves on a yet steeper ascent; and if the other was lovely, far more so was this one. Grand and gloomy the mountains stood above us. A line of silver and a gentle rushing sound alone told us of the presence of the Cheat River, coursing many hundred feet below, through a chasm in the rocks. The pine forests around us whispered softly. Some of their blackened trunks, hideous and deformed, waving their ghostlike and withered arms close to the line, tell of the fury of the storms confined in these narrow mountain gorges.

In the growing dusk we rushed with maddening and increasing speed down into the valley, the glowing furnaces of a manufacturing village sending out a ruddy glow into the dark night.

We passed the night in the Pullman sleeping-car, and I slept soundly. Indeed, there is no reason why you should not do so in these "sleepers." The upper berth lets down from the roof; a sliding partition and an ample curtain forms a "section;" and there are mattresses, pillows, and blankets to form a very comfortable bed, whilst the black porter produces clean sheets and pillow-cases. Dressing and undressing in a sitting posture requires dexterity, which comes with practice. And nothing is more amusing than looking down the length of the car—to see the mysterious heaving and bulging of the curtains, and the protruding arms and legs. I think the general scramble for the "Ladies' toilette" in the chill of the early morning is perhaps the worst part of a night in the cars. How I got to hate the large fringes and crimped bandeaux of the American ladies, which required such an undue amount of care and time in curling!

At Chicago Junction we were hurried out of the "Pullman" into one of the ordinary cars. This meant a carriage, dirty as a London Metropolitan third-class, crowded with thirty people of all degrees. We had been dreading our long journey to the far West, of which this was the first stage; and our fears were being realized. Terribly hot and wearisome was the long day, stopping at every small station. Very dusty, tired, and hot were we, as we skirted the blue shores of Lake Michigan at 7 p.m., and neared the end of our journey, passing for the last four miles through Hyde Park, a suburb of Chicago. We thought ourselves in the greatest luxury when we arrived at length at the Grand Pacific Hotel.

Chicago, August 13th.—"Schicago," as the Americans softly pronounce it, is the great commercial capital of the West, receiving, as it does, the chief bulk of the enormous grain-producing country lying to the westward. Therefore do its streets present no fine buildings, except those of mercantile banks, business offices, and warehouses; and therefore are its streets blocked with drays and waggons, and present generally a bustling activity.

The streets are laid with blocks of stone, and perhaps it is the best kind of pavement after all, regarding health more than comfort. We found the wood pavement, not being properly kept, was far from pleasant in hot weather. The same might be said of the broad asphalte avenues of Washington, which under a blazing sun perfumed the air with a pungent smell of tar.

After the great fire of October, 1871, Chicago rose like a phœnix from its ashes. A curious calculation resulted in the discovery that in the period of six months one building, from four to six storeys high, was completed each hour in a day of eight working hours. It certainly presents an unprecedentedly rapid growth, and the population entirely keeps pace with it.

Chicago is just settling down after the intense excitement of the Convention, held here only the other day, when Blaine was chosen as the Republican candidate, and Cleveland by the Democrats. Every four years the whole country is convulsed with these Presidential elections, a tenure of office far too short to allow of any settled policy to attain to maturity. The country is blazoned with portraits of the rival candidates; debased often to the use of advertisements, as when Mr. Blaine (who is dyspeptic) is seen standing by a bottle as big as himself of "Tippecande." The newspapers resound throughout the country with their mutual vituperations. "Blaine is corrupt!" cry the Democrats; "Cleveland is immoral!" retort the Republicans.

Party warfare descends even to the shape of the hat. In New York we had several times noticed the predominating number of tall white hats. It was explained they were Blaine's followers; whereas Cleveland's wore a wider brim in a brown felt. In America, where every adult male, be he householder or not, has a vote, politics have a wider range, and are discussed eagerly amongst all classes. We got at last to have quite a "national" interest, and should like to have been in America during the final struggle coming in November.

We went to see the Central Grain Elevator at a large warehouse, which raises, weighs, and stores several thousand bushels of grain daily. The working of the machinery is somewhat complicated, but one of the vats, into which four wooden troughs converge and pour their contents, holds seventy feet of grain, which is afterwards shot down by machinery into railway waggons waiting in a siding below.

It was five miles to the Stockyards, which really constitute the great sight of Chicago. The cable cars, running so swiftly and silently as if by magic, by means of invisible underground machinery, down State Street, conveyed us thither and back for the modest sum of 5d. The yards with their well-filled pens on either side, presented a wild appearance. Droves of cattle were being driven by men on horseback, galloping and cracking their long whips, with the curious wooden stirrups and peaked saddle of old Spanish Mexican make. We threaded our way through them to Armour and Co.'s, one of the largest establishments, where daily many thousands of pigs, sheep, and oxen are purchased, killed, cut up, cooked, salted, and packed in the shortest possible space of time. We were allowed to wander about the reeking, blood-stained floors, and thoroughly sickened, and fearful that every turn would reveal more bloody horrors, I stopped opposite a gory pile of horns being carted away, whilst C. went to see the oxen killed. He described how they are driven in single file through a narrow passage into separate pens, over the top of which runs a broad plank, on which the "gentleman who does the shooting" stands with a small rifle. The poor beast looks up a second after his admission to the pen, and the rifle bullet fells him instantly stone dead. The further door is opened, and the carcase dragged away by cords to the cutting-up room. There could be no more merciful mode of killing without any unnecessary brutality.

We were told that they stopped killing hogs at noon every day. These have their throats cut (some say they are guillotined by machinery); and it is possible that half an hour after the pig has been squealing in the pen, it will be neatly packed in one of those enormous stacks of tins which we passed on our way out.

We went for a stroll in the evening, and found the shop windows swarmed over by a species of brown moth, with long bodies and gauzy wings, called Canadian Soldiers. They come from the shores of the lake, and are quite harmless, buzzing around the electric lights to their own destruction. A clock, showing the various times of the different capitals in Europe, carried us back in thoughts to London, which at that moment would be sleeping like a city of the dead, dawn only beginning to break. There is about six hours' difference in time, and yesterday we lost an hour in going from the 30th meridian to the 46th.

August 14th.—A very sultry morning; and to refresh us before starting on our journey of two days and two nights in the cars, we had a charming drive in Lincoln Park, along the shores of the lake. Broad gravelled paths, bordered with trees, numberless flower-beds dotted about, and a sheet of water, formed one of the prettiest parks imaginable. South Park, leading from Michigan Avenue, is still finer; and altogether Chicago possesses six of these beautiful parks, dedicated to the use of the people. Returning home through the suburbs we passed the Waterworks. The door was standing open, free to all comers, perhaps ready to inspire some child's mind with a taste for machinery (how different to our ideas!), and through it we saw the magnificent cylinders, revolving to the roof of the building, and the tiny wheels and cogs all performing their appointed motions. The water is supplied from "the crib" through a tunnel running two miles under the bottom of the lake.

It was wonderful what a different impression we carried away of Chicago after this drive. We should have liked now to have stayed another day to have seen some "trotting races," and made an expedition to Pullman City, the Utopian village erected by Mr. Pullman for his large colony of workers, employed solely in the construction of his Palace Cars. The clean, well-paved streets; the model houses, with improved ventilation and sanitary methods; the fine gardens, and the complete absence of poverty, renders the little village quite celebrated. We had a letter of introduction to Mr. Pullman, through whose express permission alone the works are viewed.

We left Chicago at noon, by the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy route, familiarly known as the "C. B. and Q." A dining car attached to the train provided luncheon, and we travelled in a Pullman, with inlaid and polished panels, plush curtains, velvet cushions, and looking-glasses. The heat was terrible, and we gasped and panted through the long hours of the afternoon, taking refuge at last on the platform outside the car, sitting on camp-stools, heedless of dust and grit, and the deafening roar, as the on-rushing cars thundered over the rails, willing to endure any discomfort for the chance of a breath of air. In the evening, at dusk, we crossed the mile-long bridge over the Missisippi, and looked into the rolling volume of turbid waters. "Blackie" gave us a little supper, neatly and cleanly served on a movable table, of blackberries, bread and butter, cold tongue and eggs, iced tea and lemonade—so much nicer than the hurried meal at the railway buffet. The car was turned upside down, and beds made up at 9 p.m.

We found ourselves the next morning on the muddy banks of the Missouri, the second of America's great rivers and unnavigable, owing to the large sandbanks which form between the swift currents. Soon we passed Council Bluffs, with Omaha, a large town on the broad plateau just opposite. Yesterday we were journeying through the State of Illinois, during the night through that of Iowa, and now, through Nebraska, Lincoln, the capital of which we had just passed.

I believe every one, from the days of early childhood, from books of voyages and travel, forms some vague idea of the prairies. We were nearing them now, and I was longing for my first sight of that vast deserted plain, "the blankness of desolation." The scene was growing wilder and wilder; dreary, uninhabited expanses were succeeded by wooden shanties, clustering round a small store with a few cultivated fields and low-lying marshes; horses and cows were hobbled in the vicinity of the village to prevent their straying away to the plains. The sunflower, a smaller kind than ours, flourished luxuriously in large patches; but that was the only evidence of nature, usually so prolific, here so grim and stingy. The day was cold and gloomy, with frequent scuds of rain.

At length we seemed to leave all human habitations behind; and in the majesty of loneliness we were crossing the desert, on a single track, in the midst of the lone prairie lands.

Those beautiful rolling plains—millions of acres, covered with the short, yellow buffalo grass—extend to the horizon in undulating lines, a wide, uninhabited, lifeless, uplifted solitude. The blue of the sky overhead and the dried-up grass are the only blending of colours. Monotonous as they are, there is the greatest fascination about the prairies. Involuntarily you cannot help looking for some sign of life, some tree or green plant. Sometimes too, far-distant specks resolve themselves into the cattle, roaming at will over the boundless plain.

Buffaloes there are to be seen now and again, but they are dying out fast. The indigenous prairie dog alone remains. These curious little animals are of a grayish-brown colour, always fat, with the long body and bushy tail of a dog, and the head of a ferret. They scamper away at the first sign of the train to their "villages," uttering a short, yelping bark. Their mounds are burrowed as much as two or three yards underground; and the rattlesnake and the burrowing owl are supposed always to share the home.

In the evening we had a grand sight, when a storm swept with terrific force over the prairie. A dense blackness enveloped the previously lurid sky, against which the forked lightning played in jagged edges, and the thunder pealed overhead, mingling with the rattling of the hailstones. The engine ploughed along,—we were swallowed up in darkness and gloom, till the sky lightened and gradually broke, and from a confused mass of purple clouds the rays of the setting sun converged into a pale gold mist on the distant hills.

When the storm cleared we found ourselves in the fertile little valley of the Platte River, the narrow stream winding and circling among green meadow-land, the banks fringed with waving grass and rushes; a scene of quiet beauty.

That night we longed to see a prairie fire, but I suppose such good fortune rarely happens to any traveller. It must be an awful but marvellously grand scene. The heavens and the horizon are first seen like a furnace, and then the long line of flame, banked up with dark smoke clouds, comes sweeping on its resistless course. The wonderful thing is how they are ever checked, but most of these prairie fires are said to burn themselves out. And when they approach within two or three miles' range of the settler's ranch a counter fire is started, which eats up all before it, and, joining with the greater fire, leaves it nothing to feed upon. The flames will often travel twenty miles an hour, and leap angrily into the air to a height of fifteen feet. Sometimes they are started by the careless dropping of a match, or some ashes shaken from a pipe, but more often from the spark of a locomotive. It touches the grass, dry as tinder, and the breeze fans into life the little flame destined so soon to burn millions of acres. There is a very curious feature in connection with these prairie fires. So long as they rage, nothing but tufted or prairie-grass will grow; but so soon as they cease, trees, shrubs, and bushes of all sorts spring up spontaneously—in fact it ceases to be prairie. "It is an ill-wind which blows nobody good," for the next year the grass comes darker and richer than ever, and strange as it seems, this burnt-up grass is the finest feeding pasture in the world for cattle and horses. With this unfulfilled wish we lay down to sleep peacefully.

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 grass was still to be seen on all sides, and the fat, brown prairie dogs kept popping in and out of their holes, and, for the first time, too, we noticed the cacti that grow in such wild profusion on the prairie. We were imperceptibly mounting the Great Divide, and as we reached the small lake at the summit, the country grew fresher and greener, and the broad grass expanse, with groups of trees, gave to it the appearance of a vast park. The remainder of the way lay through cultivated fields, the great barrier of mountains on one side always leaving to the imagination the pleasure of the great unknown beyond. We were soon at Colorado Springs.

Here there was no sign of a village; we could only see the large hotel, "The Antlers," through the over-arching trees of a long avenue. In the afternoon we took a buggy and drove over to Manitou. The clear, dry climate of this high altitude, draws many invalids to Manitou, and there are several large hotels clustering in the neighbourhood of the springs of soda, iron, and sulphur; also numerous boarding-houses, where we observed many little white tents pitched in their neighbourhood, to allow for an over-flow of boarders. One was very aptly called, "The Rocky Rest," and was "to Rent."

Manitou lies under the shadow of the great Range. The rocks seem ready to fall and crush the little village, and the pine forests cast their gloom into the valley. From the many surrounding peaks, Pike's Peak raises its giant head towering above the others, and the little black speck just distinguishable on the summit if the clouds are not down, is the signal station, whence three times daily weather reports are telegraphed to all parts of the States, and the storms forwarded across the Atlantic to us. The picturesque ascent of ten miles on mules is soon to be no more, for a syndicate of four speculators are making a railway, taking a circuitous route of thirty miles to the top, and already the dark line of earth and the rows of telegraph poles tell of its progress.

We drove on, up the Ute Pass to the Rainbow Falls, but there were, unfortunately, no iridescent beams from the sun that afternoon. If we could have gone on climbing that beautiful cañon (pronounced canyon) for 120 miles, we should have come suddenly upon one of those vast open spaces or "parks" that form Colorado's greatest beauty. They are comparatively unknown at present, owing to the want of railway communication.

We had tea with Dr. and Mrs. Bell, who have built themselves a charming house in Manitou; they live there all the year round, and say the winters are comparatively mild.

We stayed so long that it was late before we drove on to the "Garden of the Gods," but I was glad, for nothing could have been more beautiful than the evening shadows creeping up the mountains, the blue gloom of the pines, and before us a park with stunted oaks and masses of light red sandstone. They are curled, twisted, writhing masses, strewn in wild confusion on the ground, forming the most incongruous series of objects. There was the old Scotchman in his Highland bonnet, two sheep kissing each other, their idiotic noses distinctly seen in the act of touching, the Newfoundland dog, the old man's cellar, the semicircle of mushrooms, very perfect in form, and the magnificent outline of the lion cut out on the face of the rock. You irresistibly give play to the imagination—people this little kingdom with fairy fancies entering at the Gate Beautiful.

A storm has swept down from the mountains, bringing a dark mist peopled by the demons, dwelling in its hidden caverns. Whilst the storm rages and the thunder crashes through the echoing mountains, and the lightning flashes on the rugged peaks, the works of darkness are done, the destruction wrought—the Garden of the Gods is so no longer. The name is ironical. Some such dim idea floated through our minds, I suppose, as the three glorious piles of the brightest red sandstone, rose before us 300 feet in height, forming the entrance called the Gate Beautiful; and the cathedral is near by with delicate spires pointed heavenwards. Monuments, they stand to last throughout eternity; and as we passed through the portals and left the land of enchantment, what a dull, cold feeling gathered round us! The warmth of the red glow inside was superseded by gloom added to by that formation of cold white rock outside. Though it was growing dark, we ventured up the weird gorge to Glen Eyrie, with General Palmer's residence guarded by the three pillars, the one called major domo being in the centre. We spied an eagle's nest built into a split in the rock.

Then home we galloped across the plains, the horses hardly touching the ground, darkness creeping over the prairie, clouds on Pike's Peak, and Manitou in gloom.

After dinner we went out to see the stars, which are so beautiful in this clear atmosphere, with the Milky Way, a trailing cloud across the sky.

Tuesday, August 16th. In the train going to Salt Lake City.—We have been spending the day in the Rocky Mountains, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, awed and struck by the grandeur of the scenes we have passed through.

We began in the early freshness of the morning with a drive up the Cheyenne Pass, a wild gorge, penetrating for some miles into the heart of the mountains. We passed first through prairie fields, where pink anemones, wild larkspur, bluebells, sunflowers, large white poppies, cornflowers, and a delicate pink flower, called here a primrose, grew in wild luxuriance, over a very roughly-laid road, where only a carriage of such light build as ours was could have been driven. The bridges over the many freshets were made of the stems of pine-trees loosely laid together, and as often as the horses stepped on one end the other rose up.

It was a scene of the wildest beauty as we penetrated ever deeper into the contracting gorge. One of the great charms of this range is the rich colour of their red sandstone masses, blackened and weather-stained in parts by the action of centuries. We were surrounded, hemmed in, overhung by those stupendous fragments, and masses of rocks leaning towards each other, and leaving only a narrow streak of sky as a relief to the surrounding gloom, which was heightened by the dark pines that clung and found a footing on every narrow ledge. When we reached the end of the cañon which by this time was so deep and dark as to form only a chasm amongst the rocks, we were fairly spell-bound, breathless almost from the astounding magnificence of the scene before us. Seven waterfalls falling down the face of the black cliff, seven clouds of spray falling one under each other, each into its dark pool below. We climbed up a frail, wooden staircase, hung out from ledges in the rocks, looking into every little hollow, following the fall of the water over each, till we traced it to its source, where it first comes gliding over from the quiet, green pool lying hid in a rocky basin above. This pool takes the reflection of the dark pines on its calm depths.

We lingered, and tried to go—turned back, and at last left it, with a gnawing pang of regret. We shall not soon forget that quiet spot away from the haunts of man. We passed into the darkness of the chasm below, retraced our steps, and were soon out in the open, under the bright sunshine once more; and, before an hour was over, were speeding many miles away in the train.

We found the train leaving Colorado Springs very crowded, adding to the discomfort of the narrow gauge, with a proportionally narrowed car.

We kept the backbone of "the Rockies" in sight for a long way, now and then drawing near to one of the outlying spurs. We dined at Pueblo, a town standing on a bluff of bare rock destitute of vegetation; and its Spanish origin is still evidenced by the fine breed of mules, brought from their colonies in Mexico. We saw here the arrival of the "Pony Express," with the leather mail-bags slung across the peak of the saddle, to be carried on by the train; but its arrival now is very different to that described by Mark Twain in his reminiscences in "Roughing It:"—

"In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the 'pony rider'—the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters 1900 miles in eight days. He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business letters in it, mostly. The little flat mail-pockets, strapped under the rider's thighs, would each hold about the bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf. There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattered precession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty towards the west, and among them making 400 gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood.

"'Here he comes!'

"Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling—sweeping towards us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined, nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear. Another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!

"So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for a flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after the vision had passed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and man at all."

At 3 p.m. we were entering the great cañon of the Arkansas. The Royal Gorge must have been formed by some great convulsion in nature, rending the mountains from the top to the bottom, and leaving this deep chasm. The muddy mountain torrent has burrowed a channel through for itself, where it lashes and foams into fury against the obstructing rocks. It was an ingenious idea, making the line on ground literally blasted out of the rock or bridged over the torrent, while the precipices overhanging it meet above. No green thing grows on their polished sides; but there was a beautiful blending of colours in the red and blue and green veins of the rocks. We were in the deepest shadow, from the depth of the gorge. The train crept along only too quickly, and we were trying to enjoy to our utmost the stupendous grandeur of the scene by hanging out of the windows of the car, when we gradually became aware that it was fading. And though for some time longer we were going through a succession of mountain passes, which opened out before us, were passed, and looked back upon, they paled by comparison with the Royal Gorge.

Late in the afternoon we were crossing an open plain, and, separated by countless nearer summits, we saw the irregular snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Christo, I am not sure that I did not think this irregular, indefinite view of green, far-stretching plains and blue haze on distant mountains more beautiful than the solemn grandeur of the Royal Gorge.

The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas.

Page 58.

At the small station of Salida three engines were waiting for us, and the train was broken into two, the baggage cars and one engine preceding us. We watched with the greatest interest for the beginning of the ascent of fourteen miles up the Marshall Pass, for the crossing of the Rockies, the "Great Divide," as they are called, separating as they do the Atlantic and Pacific continents. There was a grade of 217 feet to the mile, and the engines puffed and panted, emitting alternately their black columns of smoke, taking it in turns to pull us up the steep inclines—-so steep they were that everything in the cars slipped downwards, and the conductor passing through appeared to be walking up-hill. Looking upwards, the dark line of earth winding round the mountains showed us our onward track, and we looked, almost incredulous of ever reaching there, till sweeping round another curve, the length of the train often doubling itself, we were brought on a level with it. But the most dangerous thing appeared to us the crossing of the wide gullies in passing from one mountain to another, the train describing one of its deep curves on a frail wooden trestle-bridge, before continuing in the upward track.

We were climbing higher and higher, already above a lower range of mountains, and soon touching the snow-line. One minute we were in the dark tunnel of the numerous snow sheds, and the next in full view of what is perhaps the most glorious, the most awe-inspiring scene, in its gaunt loneliness and majesty, that we shall ever see in all our lives. A sea of peaks around, and before, and behind, as far as the eye can reach; the cold grey of the wan gloom, tinged with a rosy light, lingering yet long after the sun had gone down; a scene of the greatest desolation, for fire had swept the pine forests not long ago, destroying all vegetation, and the blackened and charred stumps marked but too surely its devastating path. We shivered involuntarily as we stopped for a short time at the very summit, partly from the chilly dampness of the atmosphere, but as much from a feeling of sheer loneliness and dread. We should have liked to have been alone in the car,—left to ourselves for a few minutes, to "realize" that majestic scene, and imprint it indelibly on the memory.

The engine shrieked, and we were carried away into gloom, losing all the beauty of the descent in the gathering darkness,—to supper at a wayside shanty by the uncertain light of guttering oil-lamps.

It seemed wonderful, as we lay down in our berths in the car that night, to think that we had gone up the Rockies and come down on the other side in an ordinary passenger train. Very different it must have been in the old coaching days, when they toiled along the road, which we had traced in a dim, white line in the far distance.

It was most annoying going through the Black Cañon of the Gunnison at night; but I was fortunate enough to wake up at midnight, just as we were passing through it, and, looking out, I could see the ghostly shadows cast by the head-light of the engine in the deep chasm, and could trace the outline of its chief beauty, the straight and slender needle point of the Currecanti.

Wednesday, August 20th. At Grand Junction Station.—We awoke at seven in the morning, to find the car at a standstill, and also to hear that it had been so since 3 a.m. There had been a "wash out" at Green River, some 150 miles up the line. We soon found out what this expressive term signifies; it means an indefinite waiting for an indefinite number of hours—indefinite, I say, because it entirely depends on the subsidence of the freshet and the reparation of a bridge. We learnt afterwards that the Denver and Rio Grande line is particularly subject to these little mishaps, and we noticed that the officials thought nothing at all of the occurrence. The same thing had happened to some ladies now in the train when going over the line two months previously. Adding insult to injury, we were turned out of our Pullman, where we might have spent the day comfortably enough, and the train returned eastwards, leaving the passengers and their luggage a forlorn group on the platform of the Grand Junction.

We found breakfast at a wooden shanty near the station, and fared better than those who tried the hotel. The scene that lay before us was this. On one side there was a collection of wooden huts forming the village, with the grandiloquent name of Grand Junction, bought two years ago from the Indians by the Government. It stands in a sandy desert, with a plentiful sprinkling of alkali, bounded by a low chain of granite rocks; on the other was a marshy ground leading to the river. C. bought some tackle in the village, with a wild idea of fishing, but we found the hot sun on the swampy banks was so unhealthy that we beat a hasty retreat. In writing up my journal and reading, the morning passed, and we again repaired to the shanty for luncheon. In the course of the afternoon we strolled into the town, and laid in a store of biscuits against further accidents, and ran back to the shelter of the station before a coming storm. The heavens opened, and a water-spout came down in the distance, like a pillar of cloud, seeming to draw the earth up to it, and gusts of wind blew up the dust into clouds, sweeping over the little village like a real simoon of the desert.

There was no one in authority to give us any information, and the most intelligent individual about the station seemed to be the telegraph clerk, who had only arrived the previous day from Chicago. He had just made out from a telegram, as he thought, that we were to wait till seven o'clock for a train, when we saw one coming into sight. I don't think any one inquired where it was going, or whether it was the right one, but we all jumped in, and sped joyfully across the dreary plain. We saw a beautiful double rainbow, the most vivid and perfect arcs I have ever seen, just meeting each other where they touched the earth.

We had not been expected at Green River, and there was not much supper forthcoming; but we did not care, as we had, in fear and trembling, previously passed in safety over the bridge.

The conductor, putting his head between the curtains at seven the next morning with the announcement of "breakfast in ten minutes," awoke us, and we looked out upon the beautiful valley of Utah, girdled with the mountains, and abounding in rich farms and orchards, watered by several pure streams of water. Nature seems to have smiled upon this sunny spot; and here the "Mormons," wanderers on the face of the earth for so long, chose a resting-place, and built their City by the Salt Lake. The great range of the Wahsatch Mountains opens out here, and forms a convenient site for a city at their feet; and as we approached we saw that distinctive feature, the dome of the Tabernacle.

The streets of Salt Lake City are wide, too wide for the traffic, for on either side they are overgrown thickly with weeds, forming in some streets into grass borders. The houses are low and pretty, covered with creepers, and the gardens luxuriate with bright flowers, that thrive naturally in these sheltered spots. Swiftly-running water in the gutters answers the double purpose of irrigation and drainage.

We naturally first wended our way to the Tabernacle. It is the dreariest of whitewashed buildings inside. The rounded dome of the roof is unsupported by any pillars, and faded evergreen wreaths and tawdry flags are suspended from the centre, erected for Commemoration Day, some fifteen years ago, and never since taken down. The organ ranks as the third largest in the States. In the little wooden boxes, ranged in tiers on the platform in a gradually descending scale, sit the President, the Elders, and the Bishops. From here they call upon Brother So-and-So to address the congregation. There is a most wonderful echo in the Tabernacle; we distinctly heard a pin dropped at the further end to where we were standing. The marble Temple, which is being built to replace the old place of worship, has already cost 750,000l., but judging from the few workmen in the sheds, we thought the funds had perhaps come to an end. We went next to Zion's Co-operative Store; it is a fine stone building, with the text "Holiness to the Lord" blazoned on a sign over the door, and inside you might fancy yourself in the Army and Navy Co-operative Stores—the same division of departments, including the lift to each floor. An "elder" showed us through; and all those employed in the buildings are Mormons. True believers are exhorted to deal solely at the store.

There is a theatre, and the Walker Opera House; for they maintain, and quite rightly, that, "As all people have a fondness for dramatic representations, it is well to so regulate and govern such exhibitions, that they may be instructive and purifying in their tendencies. If the best people absent themselves, the worst will dictate the character of the exercises."

Behind a high stone wall are the two houses that belonged to Brigham Young, called the Bee and the Lion Houses, from the carved designs over the doors; in the latter Brigham Young died. Exactly opposite is the large stone house—the finest in the territory (Utah is not a state but a territory)—which he built for his last and seventeenth wife and which is now occupied by his successor, President Taylor. Asking to be shown Brigham Young's grave, we were taken to a plot of grass, roughly walled in, and in the centre was the grave, of loosely piled stones, marked with a wooden cross. He was buried here, and not in the cemetery, as a distinguishing mark of respect; but if so, his resting-place might, we thought, have been better cared for. Many of the Mormon residences may be recognized by their green gates and several entrances, for the separate use of the different wives and families. At present the population of Salt Lake City is 14,000, of which about 10,000 are Mormons, but the mines in the Wahsatch range are bringing a great influx of Gentiles. The Government have made many ineffectual attempts to convict the Mormons of polygamy, but the prosecutions always languish for want of evidence, as they are faithful to the tenets of their religion. Not even the unhappy wives superseded, and often tormented by the last favourite, can be brought to give evidence.

Many are followers of the religion of the "Latter Day Saints" without necessarily becoming polygamists. We invested in some Mormon literature; a pamphlet "On the Bible and Polygamy; a Discussion between Elder Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Rev. Dr. Newman, Chaplain of the United States' Senate," in which it must be confessed, the former seemed to have rather the best of the argument; also a Mormon Bible, which is divided into the four books of Nephi, and ten others. The Bible seems to have been taken as the foundation for many chapters, and worked into the tenets of the Mormon faith, forms a curious medley. In the Catechism, which we also got, we found that the question and answer was generally authenticated by a text, quoted from the Scriptures and the Mormon Bible, and placed side by side. This catechism consists of eighteen chapters, and seems more to be a full exposition of faith than for the instruction of children. I give a few extracts from the last chapter, which I think may be interesting:—

"1. Q. Has God given any particular revelation in these last days for the preservation of their lives and health to His people?

"A. Yes. He gave a revelation to Joseph Smith on this subject.

"2. Q. What is this revelation called?

"A. A Word of Wisdom.

"7. Q. What does the first paragraph or verse of this Word of Wisdom teach us?

"A. That it is not good to drink wine or strong drinks, excepting in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and then it should be home-made grape wine; that it is not good to drink hot drinks, or chew or smoke tobacco; that strong drinks are for the washing of the body, and that tobacco is an herb for bruises and sick cattle.

"8. Q. What does the second paragraph teach us?

"A. That herbs and fruits are for the food of man; that grain is for the food of man, and beasts, and fowls; and that flesh is not to be eaten by man, excepting in times of winter, cold, and famine.

"11. Q. Why is it not good to drink wine or strong drinks?

"A. Because they excite men unnaturally, inflame their stomachs, vitiate their appetites, and disorder their whole systems.

"13. Q. Why is it not good to smoke or chew tobacco?

"A. Because those habits are very filthy, and tobacco is of a poisonous nature, and the use of it debases men.

"14. Q. Why should flesh be eaten by man in winter, and in times of famine, and not at other times?

"A. Flesh is heating to the human system, therefore it is not good to eat flesh in summer; but God allows His people to eat it in winter, and in times of famine, because all animals suffer death naturally, if they do not by the hand of man."

We left Salt Lake City in the afternoon, and skirted along the shores in the train of the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America. Two feet of pure salt lie encrusted round its shores; the water contains 20 per cent. of it, and the evaporation of four barrels of water leaves one of salt. The atmosphere is always bluish and hazy from the effects of this active evaporation. No fish or fowl can live in the lake, and it is impossible to drown, so great is the buoyancy of the water, though death can easily be caused by strangulation.

We arrived at Ogden at three o'clock, the junction where a connection with the Central Pacific Railway is made. And here there ensued a very weary waiting of four hours for another Denver and Rio Grande train. When it did arrive we made up a train of twelve cars, with the arrears of passengers and baggage from the late "wash out."

In the year 1844 when Fremont made his first exploration across the vast prairies, there was not a single line of railway west of the Alleghanies. The discovery of gold in California drew attention to the enormous wealth lying to the Far West, and Congress made a grant for an exploration, which resulted in the commencement of the Central Pacific line, this great junction between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. On the 10th of May, 1869, the lines from the east and west met in the middle of the prairie, and the last tie, a silver one, was laid in commemoration of the event.

All through that night we were passing through the great American Desert of 600 square miles, once the bed of a vast saline lake. The next morning there was still nothing to be seen but mud-dried plains with here and there a little sage brush, the ground being cracked and parched under the burning sun. In some parts there were fields of white alkali, making the lips salt and the eyes smart painfully.

I verily believe nothing could surpass the terrific, fiery heat of that day in the cars; we could not read or talk, but sat with parched lips, panting, the sand floating into the car in a white cloud that soon made us and all around invisible. One poor old woman in the next car nearly died; they fanned her all day, whilst she wailed piteously for one breath of air.

At some of the stations we passed there were groups of the Piute Indians, clothed in striped blankets with bead necklaces, and one mother brought her "papoose" (baby), slung on to her back in a long basket, that had the characteristic features of the race—the pear-shaped eyes and the drawn-down corners of the mouth—ridiculously strongly marked in its wee, brown face. The mother begged for "two bits for the wee papoose."

We had luncheon in the middle of the day at Humboldt, a few green trees about the station forming a very oasis in the desert; the exertion of getting out made us, if possible, a little hotter. We thought then of the awful sufferings endured by the early emigrants, as they toiled day after day over these alkali plains. Along earlier stages of the line the "Old Emigrant Trail" can frequently be seen, with here and there a rude wooden cross marking the lonely grave of some emigrant or freighter, who, overcome by sickness and weariness, lay down and died.

We lived through the long hours of that day as best we could, and about seven o'clock we thought it was perhaps just a little cooler, and the glare of the sun not quite so angry. We tried to ventilate the cars by opening all the windows, and standing outside on the platforms before turning in for the night. It was wonderful how mutual sufferings had brought the passengers together, and how friendly we had all become. One charming American lady, the wife of a clergyman, brought us each a most refreshing cup of "real English tea."

After such a trying day it was particularly aggravating to be entering the magnificent scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, and to be crossing them, during the night.

We were in the beautiful valley of the Sacramento the next morning, among its corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards, catching already glimpses of the blue waters of the Bay of San Francisco, running far inland. We crossed the Carthagena Straits on one of those wonderful steam ferries that are capable of carrying four loaded trains. The train was slowed, run on, and before we knew anything had happened, we were halfway across, and able to get down from the car, and going to the side of the ferry, look down into the muddy waters. The platforms at either end are hydraulically raised or lowered, according to the state of the tide, to the level of the ferry. For many miles we continued skirting the bay, partly crossing it on trestle bridges till we reached Oakland, so called from its beautiful groves of oaks; and which, though separated from San Francisco by the bay, is one of its suburbs. We crossed over from Oakland Ferry, and were at San Francisco, our journey to the Far West—across the continent of America, 4000 miles from ocean to ocean, traversing the ten states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, the territory of Utah Nevada, into California—safely accomplished.