CHAPTER II.

[pg 14]CHAPTER II.Ocean to Ocean.—The Connecting Link.The Great Trans-Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The“Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a“Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The“Great Egg-shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away?Sufficient mention of New York has already been made in this work. The tourist or traveller bound round the world, viâ the great trans-continental railway and San Francisco, has at starting from the commercial metropolis of America, and as far as Omaha, a choice of routes, all the fares being identical for a“through ticket”to the Pacific. You may go among the Pennsylvanian mountains and valleys, and catch many a glimpse of the coal and coal“ile”fields; the country generally being thickly wooded. The Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, and Fort Wayne Railway passes through really grand scenery, and the construction of the road has been a work of great difficulty, involving extensive cuttings and embankments and long tunnels. The road takes a serpentine course among the mountains, and at one point, known as the“Horse-shoe Bend,”the line curves round so much that it almost meets itself again. A train following your own appears to be going in the opposite direction. The only city of any importance on this route, before Chicago is reached, is Pittsburg, the busy, coaly, sooty, and grimy—a place reminding one of Staffordshire, and abounding in iron and cutlery works. It is situated among really charming scenery, near where the Monongahela, Alleghany, and Ohio rivers meet, and is an ugly blot among the verdant and peaceful surroundings. After leaving Pittsburg the railroad passes through a charmingly fresh and fruitful country, watered by the Ohio.“Long stretches of green meadows, shut in by hill and dale, shady nooks, cosy farm-houses, and handsome villas, steamers, barges, boats, and timber-rafts—almost as large as those famous Rhine rafts—on the river, make up a varied and most attractive scene.”Next you reach Indiana, a country of fairly good soil, bad swamps, fearful fever and ague, and an indolent and shiftless people. In general terms it is a good country to leave.But the tourist’s popular route from New York to Chicago is that briefly known as“The Great Central.”At Niagara it passes over a bridge spanning the river below the great Falls, where a tolerable view is obtainable. Most tourists naturally stop a day or two at the Falls, where there are fine hotels. They have been so often described that every schoolboy knows all about them. They are especially worth seeing under their winter aspect, when miniature icebergs and floes are falling, crashing, and grinding with the water. Below the Falls these will bank up to a considerable height, and the river is in places completely frozen over. From the rocks huge stalactites of hundreds of tons of ice depend. The contrast of the dashing green waters with the crystal ice and virgin snow around is very beautiful.[pg 15]Some idea of the volume of water may be gathered from this fact: the Niagara River a mile and a half above the Falls is two and a half miles wide, and is there very deep. At the Falls all this water is narrowed to about 800 yards in breadth. A traveller already mentioned6thus describes her impressions:—“Nor do I think that the most powerful imagination can, with its greatest effort, attain even an approximate notion of the awful sublimity of this natural wonder. Like all other stupendous things which the mind has been unaccustomed to measure and to contemplate, Niagara requires time to grow upon one. The mind also demands time to struggle up to its dimensions, and time to gather up its harmonies into the mighty tones which finally fill the soul with their overwhelming cadences, and whose theme, ever-varying but still the same—as in the hands of a Handel or a Beethoven—thunders through the whole extent of one’s being—‘Almighty Power!’“The chief impression produced upon the mind by Niagara is the perpetuity of immeasurable force and grandeur. This it is which lends such a strange fascination to the Falls; however pressingly one is desirous of getting away, one is obliged to turn back again, and yet again, like the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. There is nothing in the way of natural scenery which has stamped itself so clearly, indelibly, and awfully on my mind as this gigantic magnificence; as this mighty body of waters, gliding stealthily but rapidly on its onward course above the Falls, springing forward more wildly, more exultingly, as it nears the brink, until it leaps over into the abyss to swell the mighty canticle, which, for thousands and thousands of years, by day and by night, through every season, has ascended in tones of subdued thunder to the Creator’s throne.”Passing over all intermediate points, the traveller at length reaches the Garden City, Chicago. This, which used to be counted a western city—it is 900 miles west of New York—is now considered almost an eastern one. And it must be remembered that this place of half a million souls is a port. Large sailing-vessels and steamers enter and leave it daily, and through Lake Michigan and the chain of other lakes can reach the ocean direct. There are miles on miles of wharfs, and it is generally considered one of the“livest”business places in America. Handsomely laid-out and built, the city now hardly bears a trace of the terrific conflagration which in 1871 laid three-fourths of the finest streets in ruins.From Chicago to Omaha the various routes have little to interest the ordinary traveller, and so, while speeding on together, let us dine in a Pullman hotel car. On entering you will be presented with a bewildering bill of fare, commencing with soups and finishing with ice-cream and black coffee. The dinner is served on little separate tables, while the purity of the cloths and table napkins, the brightness of the plate, and the crystal clearness of the glass-ware, leave nothing to desire. You can have a glass of iced water, for they have an ice-cellar; you can obtain anything, from a bottle of beer to one of Burgundy, port, or champagne; and cigars are also kept“en board;”while at the particular point indicated you will not pay more than seventy-five cents (about three shillings) for the dinner. It must be admitted that the liquid refreshments are generally very dear: a“quarter”[pg 16](i.e., twenty-five cents, the fourth of a dollar) for any small drink, fifty cents for a very small bottle of Bass, and wines expensive in proportion. Still you dine at your ease and leisure, instead of rushing out with a crowd at the“eating stations,”where the trains usually stop three times a day. We have the authority of Mr. W. F. Rae for stating that“no royal personage can be more comfortably housed than the occupant of a Pullman car, provided the car be an hotel one.”7A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.At Omaha, on the Missouri, the Pacific Railwaypropercommences, although the various New York and other lines, as we have seen, connect with it. The river, irreverently known on the spot as“The Great Muddy,”from the colour of its water and its numerous sand and mud banks, is crossed at this point by a fine bridge.Aproposof the said banks, which are constantly shifting, a story is told of a countryman who, years ago, before the age of steam ferries, wanted to cross the Missouri near this point. He did not see his way till he observed a sand-bank“washing-up,”as they call it, to the surface of the water near the shore on which he stood. He jumped on it, and it shifted so rapidly that it took him clear across the river, and he was able to land on the opposite side! The story is an exaggerated version of fact. The shifting sand-banks make navigation perilous, and good river pilots command a high figure.The literature of the railway has hardly yet been attempted. It is true that scarcely a day passes without something of interest transpiring in connection therewith: now some grand improvement, now a terrible accident or narrow escape, and now again the opening of some important line. The humours of railroad travel—good and bad—often enliven the[pg 17]pages of our comic journals, while the strictly mechanical aspect of the subject is fully treated in technical papers. But the facts remain that all this is of a transient nature, and that the railway can hardly be said yet to have a literature of its own.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.The following episodes mainly refer to the grand railway under notice, which is by all odds the longest direct road on the surface of the globe. From New York to San Francisco the distance by this railway is 3,300 miles, and the ticket for the through journey is about two feet long! This would be more justly described as a series of tickets or coupons. The writer has crossed the American continent twice by this route, his first trip having been made on its completion in 1869, when, as correspondent of a daily journal, he had ample facilities for examining it in detail. In Chicago he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Pullman, who kindly furnished him with information which in those days, at all events, was new to the British public. He was even then trying to get his famous carriages introduced into England; as events proved, it took him several years to get them even tested. In this connection he is credited with abon mot. He was speaking of our land in the highest terms, but, like many Americans, did not think we adopted new ideas with sufficient readiness.“It is a grand country,”said he,“a grand country. But you have to be bornveryyoung there;”meaning that otherwise you might grow grey in the consummation of even a promising scheme.[pg 18]When the writer first crossed the continent the railway was very much in the rough. Rails laid at the rate of seven, and, on one occasion,tenmiles a day, can hardly be implicitly relied upon; much of the road was flimsily ballasted, and many of the bridges were temporary wooden structures of a shaky order. The train had sometimes to literally crawl along; passengers would often get off and walk some distance ahead, easily beating the locomotives, and be found seated on the boulders at the side of the road, having had time for a quarter of an hour’s smoke. Mr. James Mortimer Murphy, in his“Rambles in Northwestern America,”gives some similar experiences on a still rougher line on which he travelled from Wallula, on the Columbia River, to a point in Washington Territory. The railroad was only fifteen miles long, and had wooden rails. Having secured an interview with the president, secretary, conductor, and brakesman of the road—represented by one and the same individual—he was booked as a passenger, and placed on some rough iron in an open truck, with instructions to cling to the sides, and be most careful not to stand on the floor if he cared anything about his limbs. The miserable little engine gave a grunt or two, several wheezy puffs, a cat-like scream, and finally got the train under weigh, proceeding at the headlong speed of two miles an hour,“rocking,”says the narrator,“like a canoe in a cross sea. The gentleman who represented all the train officials did not get on the train, but told the engineer to go on, and he would overtake him in the course of an hour. Before I had proceeded half a mile I saw why I was not permitted to stand on the floor of the truck, for a piece of hoop-iron, which covered the wooden rails in some places, curled up into what is called a‘snake head,’and pushed through the wood with such force that it nearly stopped the train. After this was withdrawn the engine resumed its course, and at the end of seven hours hauled one weary passenger, with eyes made sore from the smoke, and coat and hat nearly burnt off by the sparks, into a station composed of a rude board shanty, through whose apertures the wind howled, having made the entire distance of fifteen miles in that time.”The drivers of the passing“prairie schooners,”as the waggons drawn by eight or more pairs of mules or oxen are called, occasionally challenged the president of the line to run a race with them in his old machine; but he scorned their offers, and kept quietly walking beside his train. This eccentric railway has since been superseded by one much more desirable, while in justice to the great line referred to, it must be said that it is now, and long has been, in admirable condition, and that it is crossed by numerous express, emigrant, and freight trains daily.The Indians have never given the trans-continental railway companies much trouble since the completion of the lines. Early in its history a story is told, however, of the Chien or Dog Indians, from whom the town of Cheyenne takes its name. They had a strong prejudice against the iron horse with the fiery eyes, and determined to vanquish him. Some thirty of them mounted their ponies, and urging them up the line, valiantly charged a coming train. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that fragments of defunct red men were found shortly afterwards strewed about the road, and that the tribe has not since repeated the experiment. Perhaps better is the true story of the Piute Indians of Nevada, who tried to catch a train, and found that they had“caught a Tartar”instead. Annoyed by the snorting monster, they laid in ambush, and as it approached dexterously threw a lasso, such as is used for catching cattle, over the“smoke stack,”[pg 19]or funnel of the locomotive, while a number of them held on to the other end of the rope. The engine went on its way unharmed; but it is said that the eccentric gymnastics performed by the Indians, as they were pulled at twenty-five miles an hour over the rocks and boulders at the side of the track, were more amusing to the passengers than to themselves.Most readers will have heard of the celebrated“Cape Horn,”high up among the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the Central Pacific Railway rounds the edge of a fearful cliff. The traveller is there between six and seven thousand feet above the sea level; and at the particular point of which mention is now made there is a precipice descending almost perpendicularly to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. Above, again, rise the walls of the same rocky projection to a still greater height. The sublimity of the spot is undoubted, but as regards the passengers, the ridiculous too often appears upon the scene. Most ladies and many timid men audibly shudder at this juncture, and after taking a hasty glance downwards at the turbulent Truckee River dashing round the base of the precipice, retire to the other side of the carriage, where there is nothing but the prospect of a rough-hewn rocky wall a foot or so off the carriages. Is it with the idea of ballasting the train? Perhaps like the ostrich, they think themselves out of danger, when danger is hidden!Not very far from the above spot, on the western side of the mountains, where the grades are particularly steep, an accident occurred a few years ago which had more of the comic element than the serious. A train, proceeding at a rapid rate, broke in two, the locomotive and several carriages dashing on, while the second half of the train followed at slower speed. At length the foremost car of this part of the train left the rails, and breaking off from the couplings, turned bottom upwards on the embankment, just coming to an anchor at the edge of a ravine, into which, had it fallen, no one could have been saved. A husband of Falstaffian proportions was in one of the foremost carriages which had proceeded with the locomotive, and as soon as they stopped he scrambled off, running back to the scene of the accident, hurrying and stumbling and shinning himself on and over the rough roadway and obtrusive sleepers, for his wife was in one of the hindmost cars, and he feared the worst. At last he approached the wreck, where his wife was seen standing, calmly waving a handkerchief, she having climbed out through one of the windows, almost unhurt. She had just been tending the one damaged person of the whole number. That individual, in his anxiety to grasp something as the carriage overturned, had seized on the hot stove, and was badly, though not seriously, burned.Not altogether a nuisance is an institution inseparably connected with American trains—the peripatetic boy who offers you one minute a newspaper, the next a novel, and then anything from a cigar or a box of sweetmeats to a“prize package.”These latter are of all values, from a twenty-five cent package of stationery to a bound book at a dollar and a half, about one in a hundred of which may possibly contain a money prize. The writer had been a good customer as regards paper-covered novels, and his plan was to sell the books back at half-price, then purchasing a new story, and this, of course, suited the boys well enough. In consequence of these and other purchases, he was one day allowed to win a five-dollar“greenback”in a prize package. He was somewhat annoyed afterwards to find that he had been used really as the“decoy duck.”The news of his winnings flew through the carriage, and even through the train, and the enterprising youngster soon[pg 20]sold a dozen or so of the same packages, and, it may be added, the same number of purchasers. There were no more prizes that day!ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.A newspaper is published regularly on the overland trains of the Pacific Railway. There are telegraph stations everywhere on the route, and the latest news is handed“aboard”to the editor, leader-writer, compositor, and pressman—represented by, or condensed into, one and the same individual—as soon as the train arrives, and is immediately“set up”and printed. Thus“specials,”“extra specials,”and“special extra specials”follow one another in rapid succession, and keep the train alive with excitement.A term which has come into vogue here originated on the Pacific Railway during the writer’s stay in California. A terrible accident occurred near Oakland, in which one[pg 21]train of the long cars usual in the United States met and literally“telescoped”another. The expression was used in a rather curious way in San Francisco for some time afterwards. If a business man in a hurry ran into another person—say, for example, coming round a corner—the latter would ejaculate,“Hi! are you trying totelescopea fellow?”The writer will not soon forget his ride from Laramie to Sherman, a station on one of the ridges of the Rocky Mountains, which the Pacific Railway crosses at an altitude of over 8,000 feet. Armed with a pass from the company, the courteous station-master at the former place made no objection to his accompanying a locomotive with a snow-plough attached in front, then starting ahead of the regular train. The plough was a rough specimen of its kind, in form not greatly unlike the ram of an ironclad, and was constructed of sheet-iron, covering a strong wooden frame. But it did its work efficiently, scattering the soft snow on either side in waves and spray, reminding one of the passage of some great ocean steamship through the billows. The snow had drifted in places till it was five or six feet deep on the road, but this proved child’s play to the plough, and the services of the navvies, who, seated on the coal, were swinging their legs over the side of the tender, were not required. The greatest danger on the line, now so amply protected by great snow sheds—literally wooden tunnels—and snow fences, arises from snow which has thawed, frozen, re-thawed, and re-frozen until it is literally packed ice. The wheels of a locomotive, arrived at such a point, either revolve helplessly, without progressing, or run clean off the metals.The mention of the effect of ice on the rails recalls a story told by Colonel Bulkley, when the latter was chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. The colonel during the civil war in the States was at the head of a constructing party, who built temporary lines of telegraph to follow the advancing northern army. The driver of a train which passed through the district in which they were engaged had been ordered to stop nightly and pick the party up, but one night neglected to do so, and the weary constructors had to tramp a dozen miles in the dark to the nearest village. The men naturally determined that this should not occur again, and so next morning armed themselves with several boxes of bar soap. What for? To soap the rails! Colonel Bulkley tells gleefully how they rubbed it on for about a quarter of a mile, how the train arrived at the place, and after gliding on a certain distance, from the momentum it had acquired, came nearly to a standstill, and how the men jumped on and told the joke to everybody. The engineer next day did not forget to remember them.“Some writers strongly advise the traveller to make a halt at Sherman station,”says Mr. Rae.“The inducements held out to him are mountain scenery, invigorating air, fishing and hunting. A sojourn among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains has the attraction of novelty to recommend it. Life there must be, in every sense of the word, a new sensation. But some sensations are undesirable, notwithstanding their undoubted freshness. That splendid trout swarm in the streams near Sherman admits of no dispute. Yet the disciple of Isaak Walton should not be tempted to indulge rashly in his harmless and charming sport. It is delightful to hook large fish; but it is less agreeable to be pierced through by arrows. Now, the latter contingency is among the probabilities which must be taken into consideration. A few weeks prior to my journey, one of the conductors of the train by which I travelled, learned, by practical experience, that fishing among the[pg 22]Rocky Mountains has palpable and painful drawbacks. Having taken a few days’ holiday, he went forth, fishing-rod in hand, to amuse himself. While whipping the stream in the innocence of his heart, he was startled to find himself made the target for arrows shot by wild Indians. He sought safety in flight, and recovered from his wounds, to the surprise as much as to the gratification of his friends. His story did not render me desirous of sharing his fate.”The Great Plains, over which the“prairie schooners”8toil, and the trains now fly, have a dreary interest of their own. In summer they are hot and dusty, and the contemplation of nearly unlimited sage-brush, and the occasional prairie dog or hen, is not enlivening; while the constant recurrence of skeletons bleaching in the sun—skeletons of overworked mules, horses, and oxen, and sometimes of the human animal—is apt to make one melancholy. But on a winter moonlight evening, when covered with snow, which has thawed in the day, and becomeglacéat night, they resemble one vast glittering lake, with the brush-covered hillocks standing for islands. The buffaloes, once so common, are rarely or never seen near the railway. In that more fertile portion of the plains nearer the Missouri, in Nebraska and adjoining states, it is also possible that the oft-times grand sight of the prairie on fire may be witnessed from the train. The writer was, one evening in May, 1868, in company with others, in a Pullman car, when huge massive clouds of smoke hanging over the horizon appeared in view. Soon it became evident, as the train approached the spot, that the prairie was on fire for miles, although fortunately at some distance from the line. The flames rose fiercely to the peaceful, starlit sky; the homesteads of settlers, trees, and hillocks stood out black against the line of destroying fire; while over all a canopy of smoke hung heavily, affording a scene not soon to be forgotten.Westward from the high point where Sherman stands, the railway line makes a rapid descent to the Laramie Plains, the trains going down, not merely by their own weight, but with brakes tightly screwed down. At Dale Creek, on this section of the line, a wonderful bridge is crossed. It is 650 feet long, and in the centre of the deep ravine it bridges is 126 feet high. It is built entirely of wood, was erected in thirty days, and is a perfect puzzle of trestle-work.“More than one passenger,”says Mr. Rae,“who would rather lose a fine sight than risk a broken neck, breathes more freely, and gives audible expression to his satisfaction, when once the cars have passed in safety over this remarkable wooden structure.”Now the train is again proceeding rapidly; in twenty miles, the descent of 1,000 feet is accomplished. Next, Laramie City is reached, round which is a good grazing country. This is succeeded by the plains known as“The Great American Desert,”another barren sage-brush-covered stretch of country. And yet—in addition to the fact that even sage-brush is good for something, a decoction of it being recommended in cases of ague—the desert has been proved to contain its treasures. At Carbon, and other stations on the line, fine deposits of coal have been found, and are worked to advantage. It was at first feared that all the coal for the railway would have to be transported from far distant points.[pg 23]Among the wonders of the plains are the huge rocks and bluffs known as the“Buttes,”which often rise from comparatively level ground, and in detached spots. Seen in the gloaming, their often grotesque forms appear weird and unearthly, and the effect is increased by the fact that all around is silent and desolate, and their mocking echoes to the snorting iron horse are the only sounds that are heard. Some of these rock-masses are columnar, and others pyramidal, in form; some assume the shape of heads, human or otherwise. Now they rise in huge walls, with as wonderful colouring as have the cliffs at Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight; they are often several hundred feet in height. One, particularly noted by the writer, had almost the exact form of an enormous dog seated on its haunches.As the train approaches the confines of Mormondom some specially grand scenery is met and passed. The stern and rugged ravine known as Echo Cañon9is shut in by abrupt and almost perpendicular sandstone and conglomerate cliffs, with many a crag standing sentinel-like, and rising high towards heaven, over the impetuous, brawling Weber river. Close to the Mormon town of Echo there is a cliff 1,000 feet high, whichoverhangs its basefifty feet. There is also a rock known as“The Sphinx of the Valley,”from a resemblance to the original. Weber Cañon succeeds the first-named, and in this is to be noted a remarkable and nearly perpendicular cleft in the cliff—well known as“The Devil’s Slide.”Further on, and the train arrives at“The Devil’s Gate,”where the stern rock-walls narrow, and the dark hills approach each other closely. Here the river becomes a boiling and furious rapid, white with foam, hurrying onward with terrible impetuosity, and rollingtonsof boulders before its resistless course. Some of the early railway bridges were quite washed away by it, and many difficulties were met in the construction of the line, heavy tunneling almost obviously having been necessary in some places. But all obstacles were successfully overcome. Emerging from the gloomy, rugged cañon, the more or less fertile and cultivated Weber valley is, by contrast, a perfect glimpse of Paradise.Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his“City of the Saints.”The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the“junction”for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining-rooms, book-stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked −16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing-point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the“city”in a“mud-waggon,”a kind of packing-case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be[pg 24]one-third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill-side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans-continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by theNew York Heraldthat“railway communications corrupt good Mormons,”to which President Young is stated to have replied that“he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.”And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.This is not the place for any discussion of the Mormon mystery. It is easy to laugh at it, and say with Artemus Ward that,“While Brigham’s religion was singular, his wives were plural.”The fact remains that, in hundreds of cases, Mormons had and have but one wife; although, theoretically, they approve of polygamy. The further point[pg 25]remains that no Mormon was allowed to have more than one helpmeet unless he could prove that his means were amply sufficient for her support. Industry was the keystone of Brigham Young’s teachings, however otherwise mixed with fanaticism and superstition, and the result has been that thousands of people, mostly poor, who settled in an unpromising-looking country, have now homes and farms of their own, and that by sheer hard work the desert has been made literally“to blossom as the rose.”A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.Salt Lake City has been laid out with care, and the streets are wide and well kept; while, excepting those of a small business centre, every house has a very large garden attached. The days of the“avenging angels,”or Danites, is over, and every man’s life and property are nowadays safe there, although at one time many suspected or obnoxious persons were, as our American cousins say,“found missing.”On one terrible occasion—the Mountain Meadow massacre—a whole train of emigrants who, on their way to California, had encamped near the city, were murdered by Indians, whom, there is no doubt, the Mormons had incited to the deed. A dignitary of the Mormon Church, Bishop Lee, suffered the death-penalty at the hands of the United States authorities for his share in the transaction. The emigrants, then passing with their families by the hundred, had, there is no doubt, much aggravated the Mormons by jeering and mockery, and sometimes by purloining their cattle and goods. There has been for many years a garrison of United States troops kept at Camp Douglas, a short distance from Salt Lake City, for the protection of Gentiles,10and the regulation of affairs generally.[pg 26]One of the best features of this strange community is the marked absence of drunkenness and profligacy. Most Mormons are teetotallers, and drink little more than tea or coffee, or the crystal water which runs in deep brooks through every street, and has its birth in the heights of the beautiful snow-clad Wahsatch Mountains, which are a great feature in the scenery of Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City has a remarkable building, known by the faithful as“The Tabernacle,”and by the irreverent as the“Big Egg-shell,”from the oval form of its roof. It holds 8,000 persons, or, under pressure, even more. It has an organ in point of size the second in America. The writer attended a service there, given in honour of some missionary Mormons who were about to part for Europe. The Salt Lake theatre is another feature of the place, and has a good company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses. We once saw there some twenty-five of Brigham Young’s family in the front rows of the pit. Formerly, it is said, payment at the doors was taken“in kind,”and a Mormon would deposit at the box-office a ham, a plump sucking-pig—not alive—a bag of dried peaches, or a dozen mop-handles, maybe, for his seats!Taking a last glimpse of the great Salt Lake, passing Corinne, where, when it was only six weeks old, a bank and a newspaper office, both in tents, had been established, the train proceeds through a more or less barren district on its way to Nevada, the Silver State, a country where, for the most part, life is only endurable when one is making money rapidly. Those who would see some of the silver mines with comparative ease“get off”the train at Reno, thence proceeding by branch rail to Virginia City and Gold Hill, places where that form of mining life may be studied to perfection. So great has been the yield of the Nevada and other silver mines of adjoining territories, that, as most of us know, the value of silver has actually depreciated. Some of the millionaires of San Francisco gained their wealth in Nevada.In the United States the distances between leading places is so great that the fares charged, albeit generally moderate, cannot suit slender purses, while empty pockets are nowhere. In consequence many attempt to smuggle themselves through. The writer remembers, in about the part of the route under notice, a“dead-head”who had for several stations managed to elude the notice of the guard, but who was at last detected, and put off at a point a dozen or more miles from the nearest settlement. The“dead-head,”like the stowaway on board ship, of whom as many as fourteen have been concealed on a single vessel, and not one of them discovered by the proper authorities till far out at sea, is an unrecognised institution on the railways of the United States. Perhaps because our ticket system is more rigidly enforced, few attempt to take a free passage on English railways, although it is stated that a sailor was found, some little time since, asleepundera carriage, his arms and legs coiled round the brake-rods, having succeeded in nearly making the trip from London to Liverpool undiscovered. But, then, sailors are hardened to jars and shocks and noises, by being accustomed to the warring of the elements and so forth. The reader may remember that when, some few years ago, a Great Western train intersected and completely cut in two another which crossed its path, a sailor was found asleep on the seat of ahalfthird-class carriage, and that he was quite angry[pg 27]when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digression, so let us return to our subject—“dead heads.”Examples of this tribe have boasted that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good-natured guards—always“conductors”in America—will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been known to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open trestle-work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to“get!”He has often worked his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left in the snow half-way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, andvice versâ, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the vagabond deserve something for his enterprise? Perhaps in that land, now far more of corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become a better and more prosperous man.Few tourists or travellers of leisure will fail to pay a flying visit to the grand and beautiful lakes and tarns lying among the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which separate the Silver from the Golden State, and are crossed by the Pacific Railway at an elevation of 7,042 feet above the sea level. From the Summit and Truckee stations there are all necessary facilities for reaching Donner, Tahoe, and other lakes, and for a stay among some of the grandest scenery in the world. The space occupied by this chapter would not describe in the barest details the grand mountain peaks, in one case rising to an altitude of 14,500 feet; the forests of magnificent trees; the quieter valleys“in verdure clad;”the waterfalls and cataracts and torrents of this Alpine region, which is within half a day’s journey of San Francisco, and but three or four hours from districts which for eight months of the year have the temperature of Southern Italy. Sufficiently good coaches convey you to leading points, where there are comfortable inns, or, in the summer months, travellers can do a little tent-life and open-air camping with advantage, the climate among the mountains being pure, bracing, and yet warm. On the leading lakes there are boats to be had, and on one or two there are small steamers plying regularly. Fishing and hunting can be indulged in to the heart’s content. The Sierra mountain trout is unsurpassed anywhere; while the sportsman can bag anything from a Californian quail to a grizzly bear—the latter, more especially,if he can. At most of the ordinary places of resort he will get the morning papers of San Francisco the same day, while Truckee boasts of a journal of its own, published, be it observed, 7,000 feet up the mountains!11One of the writer’s recollections of the Sierra region is not so pleasant, but then it was under its winter aspect. He had been warned on leaving San Francisco that the railway might be“snowed up,”as it was in 1871-2, when for several weeks there was a blockade, and he was recommended to go to New YorkviâPanama. That voyage he had once made, and, besides, had a desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey[pg 28]from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to New York is made through 3,000 miles of snow. So he started, and for twelve hours or so all went well; but at the very“summit”of the railway line,i.e., its highest point among the Sierra Nevada, and near the station of the same name, the train came suddenly to a standstill in the gloom of a long“snow-shed”tunnel. Worse, as it seemed to some, the engine deserted it, and ran away, while the conductor was also absent for a long time. The carriages were not too well lighted, although quite warm enough, thanks to the glowing stoves, while memories of former blockades and half-starved passengers did not aid in reassuring the frozen-in travellers. Few slept that night, and, indeed, in one carriage, where there were several squalling babies and scolding females, it would have been difficult. Some of the older travellers, who had something of Mark Tapleyism about them, did their best to cheer the rest, and passed their wicker-covered demijohns—flasks are hardly enough for a seven days’ journey, which might be indefinitely extended—to those who had not provided themselves; one individual did his best to relieve the monotony with a song; but it fell rather flat, and melancholy reigned supreme.12But not for long. About seven next morning there was a commotion; a whistle in the distance; another nearer, which, hoarse as it was, sounded like heavenly music; and in a few minutes the good locomotive arrived, coupled with the train, and took it to the nearest station, where breakfast was ready for all who would partake. And that breakfast! Trout, chicken, venison, hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and molasses, and all the usual, and some other of the unusual, adjuncts of a regular American meal. The traveller must not expect all these luxuries at places nearer the centre of the continent, where, in some cases, all that you will get are beans and bacon, hot bread, tea or coffee, and perhaps stewed (dried) apples or peaches. At such places the excuse is sufficient, for everything is brought from a considerable distance, while the stations themselves have only been erected for the railway, and sometimes do not boast a single dwelling other than those immediately connected with it.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.And so we descend, first to the foot-hills, and then to the plains of sunny California. Evidences of mining, past and present, are to be often seen: flumes and ditches through which the water is rushing rapidly, old shafts, and works, and mills, and boarding-houses. But the glory is departed, or rather changed for the more permanent vineyard and grain-field and orchard. Some of the finest wines and fruits are raised among these said foot-hills. And now we cross the American river, and are in Sacramento, the legislative capital of the State, a city surrounded by pleasant suburbs, handsome villas, and splendid mansions. Thence to San Francisco there is the choice of a ride on the Sacramento River to the Bay, or one of two railways—once so near the Bay City, few care to delay, and so press on. The railway bears you through a highly-cultivated country to Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco, and place of residence for many of its merchant princes. Here all the year round flowers are in full bloom. When leaving California in winter we noted roses, daisies, verbenas, pansies, violets,[pg 29]hollyhocks, calla lillies, and camellias, all growing in the open-air. This is not particularly surprising, for in our own country, in Devonshire and Cornwall, particularly at Penzance, a modified statement of the same nature might be made. At Oakland the railway runs out on a wooden pier or bridge, one mile and a quarter long, to the bay.Of San Francisco and its glorious bay these pages have already furnished some account. It is the grand depôt for all that concerns commerce and travel between every part of America and much of Europe and the Pacific generally. The successful miner, trader, or farmer, from Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and all outlying territories, spends his money there; as the metropolis of the coast-trade of all kindcentresthere. Hence its success and cosmopolitan character.In speaking of the cosmopolitan characteristics of the Golden City, a traveller (Mr. Carlisle), says that one of the good points, coming, as did he, from the remoteness of Japan, is the proximity of the city to Europe as regards the receipt of news.“The city of San Francisco is eight hours behind London in the matter of time,[pg 30]and one turns this to good advantage. When her corn-merchants go down to their offices in the morning they find on their desks a report of the Liverpool market of that morning; each morning paper has two or three columns filled with telegrams of the preceding evening from all parts of Europe, and not unfrequently there appears among these telegrams a notice of the following kind:—‘TheTimesof to-day has an article in which it says,’&c., &c., giving the substance of that morning’s leader.”The present writer can illustrate this point by an actual occurrence in his own experience. Every reader will remember the terrible explosion in the Regent’s Park, which did so much damage, and which happened about half-past three in the morning. He was then occupying the post of“telegraphic editor,”&c., on the staff of theAlta California, the oldest journal published on that coast. The news of the explosion reached him by telegram at 11.30 theevening before, that is,apparently, before it happened! TheAltatherefore was able to give the sad intelligence to all its readers—some few of them as early as four o’clock—the next morning, while the London newspapers of the early editions could naturally have nothing about it, as they were printed before its occurrence.Mr. W. F. Rae, a writer before quoted in regard to the character which the city unfortunately acquired in early days, says of it:—“From being a bye-word for its lawlessness and licentiousness, the city of San Francisco has become in little more than ten years as moral as Philadelphia, and far more orderly than New York.”The fact is that one must obtain a“permit”to carry a revolver at all, and that permission cannot properly be obtained by anyone of dissipated or dangerous character. A heavy fine is inflicted on any one wearing a pistol without having secured the necessary authority. The same writer says:—“That the Golden State is of extraordinary richness is well known to every traveller. To some, as to me, it may have been a matter of rejoicing to discover that California is also a land teeming with unexpected natural beauties and rare natural delights.”He quotes approvingly Lieutenant-Governor Holden’s speech at a festive meeting held in Sacramento, California, on the completion of the Pacific Railway.“Why, sir,”said the Lieutenant-Governor, a gentleman who had himself done much towards the successful consummation of that grand enterprise,“we have the bravest men, the handsomest women, and the fattest babies of any place under the canopy of heaven!”Baron Hübner, in his published work,13says of the climate,“It is a perpetual spring;”and then, alluding to the decreased yield of gold, remarks truly,“Its real riches lie in the fertility of the soil.”And once more, Margharita Weppner, the German lady-traveller before mentioned, says, speaking of a fruit-show she visited:—“What I saw there could only be found in California, for I have never seen anything to equal it, even in the tropics.”She adds, enthusiastically:—“This beautiful city of the golden land I prefer to any other in America. My preference is due to the agreeable kind of life which its people lead, and to the extraordinary salubrity of the climate.”The present writer has preferred to collate from these independent sources rather than from his own long experience; but he can testify to the truth of every one of the above statements. One of the grandest features in San Francisco’s present[pg 31]and assured future success is the fact that the steamship companies of the whole Pacific make it their leading port.From San Francisco the traveller bent on seeing the world can proceed to New Zealand and Australia, calling at Honolulu in the Hawaïan Islands, and Fiji, on the way;orhe can make his way to China, calling at Japan, in steamships having perhaps the most roomy accommodation in the world;orhe can reach Panama and South American ports, calling at Mexican portsen route, by steamships which pass over the most pacific part of the Pacific Ocean;or, again, he can make delightful trips northwards to Californian and Oregonian and British Columbian ports;or, once again, southwards to ports of Southern California. These lines are running constantly, and the above list is far from complete. Whither away?

[pg 14]CHAPTER II.Ocean to Ocean.—The Connecting Link.The Great Trans-Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The“Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a“Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The“Great Egg-shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away?Sufficient mention of New York has already been made in this work. The tourist or traveller bound round the world, viâ the great trans-continental railway and San Francisco, has at starting from the commercial metropolis of America, and as far as Omaha, a choice of routes, all the fares being identical for a“through ticket”to the Pacific. You may go among the Pennsylvanian mountains and valleys, and catch many a glimpse of the coal and coal“ile”fields; the country generally being thickly wooded. The Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, and Fort Wayne Railway passes through really grand scenery, and the construction of the road has been a work of great difficulty, involving extensive cuttings and embankments and long tunnels. The road takes a serpentine course among the mountains, and at one point, known as the“Horse-shoe Bend,”the line curves round so much that it almost meets itself again. A train following your own appears to be going in the opposite direction. The only city of any importance on this route, before Chicago is reached, is Pittsburg, the busy, coaly, sooty, and grimy—a place reminding one of Staffordshire, and abounding in iron and cutlery works. It is situated among really charming scenery, near where the Monongahela, Alleghany, and Ohio rivers meet, and is an ugly blot among the verdant and peaceful surroundings. After leaving Pittsburg the railroad passes through a charmingly fresh and fruitful country, watered by the Ohio.“Long stretches of green meadows, shut in by hill and dale, shady nooks, cosy farm-houses, and handsome villas, steamers, barges, boats, and timber-rafts—almost as large as those famous Rhine rafts—on the river, make up a varied and most attractive scene.”Next you reach Indiana, a country of fairly good soil, bad swamps, fearful fever and ague, and an indolent and shiftless people. In general terms it is a good country to leave.But the tourist’s popular route from New York to Chicago is that briefly known as“The Great Central.”At Niagara it passes over a bridge spanning the river below the great Falls, where a tolerable view is obtainable. Most tourists naturally stop a day or two at the Falls, where there are fine hotels. They have been so often described that every schoolboy knows all about them. They are especially worth seeing under their winter aspect, when miniature icebergs and floes are falling, crashing, and grinding with the water. Below the Falls these will bank up to a considerable height, and the river is in places completely frozen over. From the rocks huge stalactites of hundreds of tons of ice depend. The contrast of the dashing green waters with the crystal ice and virgin snow around is very beautiful.[pg 15]Some idea of the volume of water may be gathered from this fact: the Niagara River a mile and a half above the Falls is two and a half miles wide, and is there very deep. At the Falls all this water is narrowed to about 800 yards in breadth. A traveller already mentioned6thus describes her impressions:—“Nor do I think that the most powerful imagination can, with its greatest effort, attain even an approximate notion of the awful sublimity of this natural wonder. Like all other stupendous things which the mind has been unaccustomed to measure and to contemplate, Niagara requires time to grow upon one. The mind also demands time to struggle up to its dimensions, and time to gather up its harmonies into the mighty tones which finally fill the soul with their overwhelming cadences, and whose theme, ever-varying but still the same—as in the hands of a Handel or a Beethoven—thunders through the whole extent of one’s being—‘Almighty Power!’“The chief impression produced upon the mind by Niagara is the perpetuity of immeasurable force and grandeur. This it is which lends such a strange fascination to the Falls; however pressingly one is desirous of getting away, one is obliged to turn back again, and yet again, like the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. There is nothing in the way of natural scenery which has stamped itself so clearly, indelibly, and awfully on my mind as this gigantic magnificence; as this mighty body of waters, gliding stealthily but rapidly on its onward course above the Falls, springing forward more wildly, more exultingly, as it nears the brink, until it leaps over into the abyss to swell the mighty canticle, which, for thousands and thousands of years, by day and by night, through every season, has ascended in tones of subdued thunder to the Creator’s throne.”Passing over all intermediate points, the traveller at length reaches the Garden City, Chicago. This, which used to be counted a western city—it is 900 miles west of New York—is now considered almost an eastern one. And it must be remembered that this place of half a million souls is a port. Large sailing-vessels and steamers enter and leave it daily, and through Lake Michigan and the chain of other lakes can reach the ocean direct. There are miles on miles of wharfs, and it is generally considered one of the“livest”business places in America. Handsomely laid-out and built, the city now hardly bears a trace of the terrific conflagration which in 1871 laid three-fourths of the finest streets in ruins.From Chicago to Omaha the various routes have little to interest the ordinary traveller, and so, while speeding on together, let us dine in a Pullman hotel car. On entering you will be presented with a bewildering bill of fare, commencing with soups and finishing with ice-cream and black coffee. The dinner is served on little separate tables, while the purity of the cloths and table napkins, the brightness of the plate, and the crystal clearness of the glass-ware, leave nothing to desire. You can have a glass of iced water, for they have an ice-cellar; you can obtain anything, from a bottle of beer to one of Burgundy, port, or champagne; and cigars are also kept“en board;”while at the particular point indicated you will not pay more than seventy-five cents (about three shillings) for the dinner. It must be admitted that the liquid refreshments are generally very dear: a“quarter”[pg 16](i.e., twenty-five cents, the fourth of a dollar) for any small drink, fifty cents for a very small bottle of Bass, and wines expensive in proportion. Still you dine at your ease and leisure, instead of rushing out with a crowd at the“eating stations,”where the trains usually stop three times a day. We have the authority of Mr. W. F. Rae for stating that“no royal personage can be more comfortably housed than the occupant of a Pullman car, provided the car be an hotel one.”7A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.At Omaha, on the Missouri, the Pacific Railwaypropercommences, although the various New York and other lines, as we have seen, connect with it. The river, irreverently known on the spot as“The Great Muddy,”from the colour of its water and its numerous sand and mud banks, is crossed at this point by a fine bridge.Aproposof the said banks, which are constantly shifting, a story is told of a countryman who, years ago, before the age of steam ferries, wanted to cross the Missouri near this point. He did not see his way till he observed a sand-bank“washing-up,”as they call it, to the surface of the water near the shore on which he stood. He jumped on it, and it shifted so rapidly that it took him clear across the river, and he was able to land on the opposite side! The story is an exaggerated version of fact. The shifting sand-banks make navigation perilous, and good river pilots command a high figure.The literature of the railway has hardly yet been attempted. It is true that scarcely a day passes without something of interest transpiring in connection therewith: now some grand improvement, now a terrible accident or narrow escape, and now again the opening of some important line. The humours of railroad travel—good and bad—often enliven the[pg 17]pages of our comic journals, while the strictly mechanical aspect of the subject is fully treated in technical papers. But the facts remain that all this is of a transient nature, and that the railway can hardly be said yet to have a literature of its own.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.The following episodes mainly refer to the grand railway under notice, which is by all odds the longest direct road on the surface of the globe. From New York to San Francisco the distance by this railway is 3,300 miles, and the ticket for the through journey is about two feet long! This would be more justly described as a series of tickets or coupons. The writer has crossed the American continent twice by this route, his first trip having been made on its completion in 1869, when, as correspondent of a daily journal, he had ample facilities for examining it in detail. In Chicago he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Pullman, who kindly furnished him with information which in those days, at all events, was new to the British public. He was even then trying to get his famous carriages introduced into England; as events proved, it took him several years to get them even tested. In this connection he is credited with abon mot. He was speaking of our land in the highest terms, but, like many Americans, did not think we adopted new ideas with sufficient readiness.“It is a grand country,”said he,“a grand country. But you have to be bornveryyoung there;”meaning that otherwise you might grow grey in the consummation of even a promising scheme.[pg 18]When the writer first crossed the continent the railway was very much in the rough. Rails laid at the rate of seven, and, on one occasion,tenmiles a day, can hardly be implicitly relied upon; much of the road was flimsily ballasted, and many of the bridges were temporary wooden structures of a shaky order. The train had sometimes to literally crawl along; passengers would often get off and walk some distance ahead, easily beating the locomotives, and be found seated on the boulders at the side of the road, having had time for a quarter of an hour’s smoke. Mr. James Mortimer Murphy, in his“Rambles in Northwestern America,”gives some similar experiences on a still rougher line on which he travelled from Wallula, on the Columbia River, to a point in Washington Territory. The railroad was only fifteen miles long, and had wooden rails. Having secured an interview with the president, secretary, conductor, and brakesman of the road—represented by one and the same individual—he was booked as a passenger, and placed on some rough iron in an open truck, with instructions to cling to the sides, and be most careful not to stand on the floor if he cared anything about his limbs. The miserable little engine gave a grunt or two, several wheezy puffs, a cat-like scream, and finally got the train under weigh, proceeding at the headlong speed of two miles an hour,“rocking,”says the narrator,“like a canoe in a cross sea. The gentleman who represented all the train officials did not get on the train, but told the engineer to go on, and he would overtake him in the course of an hour. Before I had proceeded half a mile I saw why I was not permitted to stand on the floor of the truck, for a piece of hoop-iron, which covered the wooden rails in some places, curled up into what is called a‘snake head,’and pushed through the wood with such force that it nearly stopped the train. After this was withdrawn the engine resumed its course, and at the end of seven hours hauled one weary passenger, with eyes made sore from the smoke, and coat and hat nearly burnt off by the sparks, into a station composed of a rude board shanty, through whose apertures the wind howled, having made the entire distance of fifteen miles in that time.”The drivers of the passing“prairie schooners,”as the waggons drawn by eight or more pairs of mules or oxen are called, occasionally challenged the president of the line to run a race with them in his old machine; but he scorned their offers, and kept quietly walking beside his train. This eccentric railway has since been superseded by one much more desirable, while in justice to the great line referred to, it must be said that it is now, and long has been, in admirable condition, and that it is crossed by numerous express, emigrant, and freight trains daily.The Indians have never given the trans-continental railway companies much trouble since the completion of the lines. Early in its history a story is told, however, of the Chien or Dog Indians, from whom the town of Cheyenne takes its name. They had a strong prejudice against the iron horse with the fiery eyes, and determined to vanquish him. Some thirty of them mounted their ponies, and urging them up the line, valiantly charged a coming train. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that fragments of defunct red men were found shortly afterwards strewed about the road, and that the tribe has not since repeated the experiment. Perhaps better is the true story of the Piute Indians of Nevada, who tried to catch a train, and found that they had“caught a Tartar”instead. Annoyed by the snorting monster, they laid in ambush, and as it approached dexterously threw a lasso, such as is used for catching cattle, over the“smoke stack,”[pg 19]or funnel of the locomotive, while a number of them held on to the other end of the rope. The engine went on its way unharmed; but it is said that the eccentric gymnastics performed by the Indians, as they were pulled at twenty-five miles an hour over the rocks and boulders at the side of the track, were more amusing to the passengers than to themselves.Most readers will have heard of the celebrated“Cape Horn,”high up among the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the Central Pacific Railway rounds the edge of a fearful cliff. The traveller is there between six and seven thousand feet above the sea level; and at the particular point of which mention is now made there is a precipice descending almost perpendicularly to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. Above, again, rise the walls of the same rocky projection to a still greater height. The sublimity of the spot is undoubted, but as regards the passengers, the ridiculous too often appears upon the scene. Most ladies and many timid men audibly shudder at this juncture, and after taking a hasty glance downwards at the turbulent Truckee River dashing round the base of the precipice, retire to the other side of the carriage, where there is nothing but the prospect of a rough-hewn rocky wall a foot or so off the carriages. Is it with the idea of ballasting the train? Perhaps like the ostrich, they think themselves out of danger, when danger is hidden!Not very far from the above spot, on the western side of the mountains, where the grades are particularly steep, an accident occurred a few years ago which had more of the comic element than the serious. A train, proceeding at a rapid rate, broke in two, the locomotive and several carriages dashing on, while the second half of the train followed at slower speed. At length the foremost car of this part of the train left the rails, and breaking off from the couplings, turned bottom upwards on the embankment, just coming to an anchor at the edge of a ravine, into which, had it fallen, no one could have been saved. A husband of Falstaffian proportions was in one of the foremost carriages which had proceeded with the locomotive, and as soon as they stopped he scrambled off, running back to the scene of the accident, hurrying and stumbling and shinning himself on and over the rough roadway and obtrusive sleepers, for his wife was in one of the hindmost cars, and he feared the worst. At last he approached the wreck, where his wife was seen standing, calmly waving a handkerchief, she having climbed out through one of the windows, almost unhurt. She had just been tending the one damaged person of the whole number. That individual, in his anxiety to grasp something as the carriage overturned, had seized on the hot stove, and was badly, though not seriously, burned.Not altogether a nuisance is an institution inseparably connected with American trains—the peripatetic boy who offers you one minute a newspaper, the next a novel, and then anything from a cigar or a box of sweetmeats to a“prize package.”These latter are of all values, from a twenty-five cent package of stationery to a bound book at a dollar and a half, about one in a hundred of which may possibly contain a money prize. The writer had been a good customer as regards paper-covered novels, and his plan was to sell the books back at half-price, then purchasing a new story, and this, of course, suited the boys well enough. In consequence of these and other purchases, he was one day allowed to win a five-dollar“greenback”in a prize package. He was somewhat annoyed afterwards to find that he had been used really as the“decoy duck.”The news of his winnings flew through the carriage, and even through the train, and the enterprising youngster soon[pg 20]sold a dozen or so of the same packages, and, it may be added, the same number of purchasers. There were no more prizes that day!ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.A newspaper is published regularly on the overland trains of the Pacific Railway. There are telegraph stations everywhere on the route, and the latest news is handed“aboard”to the editor, leader-writer, compositor, and pressman—represented by, or condensed into, one and the same individual—as soon as the train arrives, and is immediately“set up”and printed. Thus“specials,”“extra specials,”and“special extra specials”follow one another in rapid succession, and keep the train alive with excitement.A term which has come into vogue here originated on the Pacific Railway during the writer’s stay in California. A terrible accident occurred near Oakland, in which one[pg 21]train of the long cars usual in the United States met and literally“telescoped”another. The expression was used in a rather curious way in San Francisco for some time afterwards. If a business man in a hurry ran into another person—say, for example, coming round a corner—the latter would ejaculate,“Hi! are you trying totelescopea fellow?”The writer will not soon forget his ride from Laramie to Sherman, a station on one of the ridges of the Rocky Mountains, which the Pacific Railway crosses at an altitude of over 8,000 feet. Armed with a pass from the company, the courteous station-master at the former place made no objection to his accompanying a locomotive with a snow-plough attached in front, then starting ahead of the regular train. The plough was a rough specimen of its kind, in form not greatly unlike the ram of an ironclad, and was constructed of sheet-iron, covering a strong wooden frame. But it did its work efficiently, scattering the soft snow on either side in waves and spray, reminding one of the passage of some great ocean steamship through the billows. The snow had drifted in places till it was five or six feet deep on the road, but this proved child’s play to the plough, and the services of the navvies, who, seated on the coal, were swinging their legs over the side of the tender, were not required. The greatest danger on the line, now so amply protected by great snow sheds—literally wooden tunnels—and snow fences, arises from snow which has thawed, frozen, re-thawed, and re-frozen until it is literally packed ice. The wheels of a locomotive, arrived at such a point, either revolve helplessly, without progressing, or run clean off the metals.The mention of the effect of ice on the rails recalls a story told by Colonel Bulkley, when the latter was chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. The colonel during the civil war in the States was at the head of a constructing party, who built temporary lines of telegraph to follow the advancing northern army. The driver of a train which passed through the district in which they were engaged had been ordered to stop nightly and pick the party up, but one night neglected to do so, and the weary constructors had to tramp a dozen miles in the dark to the nearest village. The men naturally determined that this should not occur again, and so next morning armed themselves with several boxes of bar soap. What for? To soap the rails! Colonel Bulkley tells gleefully how they rubbed it on for about a quarter of a mile, how the train arrived at the place, and after gliding on a certain distance, from the momentum it had acquired, came nearly to a standstill, and how the men jumped on and told the joke to everybody. The engineer next day did not forget to remember them.“Some writers strongly advise the traveller to make a halt at Sherman station,”says Mr. Rae.“The inducements held out to him are mountain scenery, invigorating air, fishing and hunting. A sojourn among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains has the attraction of novelty to recommend it. Life there must be, in every sense of the word, a new sensation. But some sensations are undesirable, notwithstanding their undoubted freshness. That splendid trout swarm in the streams near Sherman admits of no dispute. Yet the disciple of Isaak Walton should not be tempted to indulge rashly in his harmless and charming sport. It is delightful to hook large fish; but it is less agreeable to be pierced through by arrows. Now, the latter contingency is among the probabilities which must be taken into consideration. A few weeks prior to my journey, one of the conductors of the train by which I travelled, learned, by practical experience, that fishing among the[pg 22]Rocky Mountains has palpable and painful drawbacks. Having taken a few days’ holiday, he went forth, fishing-rod in hand, to amuse himself. While whipping the stream in the innocence of his heart, he was startled to find himself made the target for arrows shot by wild Indians. He sought safety in flight, and recovered from his wounds, to the surprise as much as to the gratification of his friends. His story did not render me desirous of sharing his fate.”The Great Plains, over which the“prairie schooners”8toil, and the trains now fly, have a dreary interest of their own. In summer they are hot and dusty, and the contemplation of nearly unlimited sage-brush, and the occasional prairie dog or hen, is not enlivening; while the constant recurrence of skeletons bleaching in the sun—skeletons of overworked mules, horses, and oxen, and sometimes of the human animal—is apt to make one melancholy. But on a winter moonlight evening, when covered with snow, which has thawed in the day, and becomeglacéat night, they resemble one vast glittering lake, with the brush-covered hillocks standing for islands. The buffaloes, once so common, are rarely or never seen near the railway. In that more fertile portion of the plains nearer the Missouri, in Nebraska and adjoining states, it is also possible that the oft-times grand sight of the prairie on fire may be witnessed from the train. The writer was, one evening in May, 1868, in company with others, in a Pullman car, when huge massive clouds of smoke hanging over the horizon appeared in view. Soon it became evident, as the train approached the spot, that the prairie was on fire for miles, although fortunately at some distance from the line. The flames rose fiercely to the peaceful, starlit sky; the homesteads of settlers, trees, and hillocks stood out black against the line of destroying fire; while over all a canopy of smoke hung heavily, affording a scene not soon to be forgotten.Westward from the high point where Sherman stands, the railway line makes a rapid descent to the Laramie Plains, the trains going down, not merely by their own weight, but with brakes tightly screwed down. At Dale Creek, on this section of the line, a wonderful bridge is crossed. It is 650 feet long, and in the centre of the deep ravine it bridges is 126 feet high. It is built entirely of wood, was erected in thirty days, and is a perfect puzzle of trestle-work.“More than one passenger,”says Mr. Rae,“who would rather lose a fine sight than risk a broken neck, breathes more freely, and gives audible expression to his satisfaction, when once the cars have passed in safety over this remarkable wooden structure.”Now the train is again proceeding rapidly; in twenty miles, the descent of 1,000 feet is accomplished. Next, Laramie City is reached, round which is a good grazing country. This is succeeded by the plains known as“The Great American Desert,”another barren sage-brush-covered stretch of country. And yet—in addition to the fact that even sage-brush is good for something, a decoction of it being recommended in cases of ague—the desert has been proved to contain its treasures. At Carbon, and other stations on the line, fine deposits of coal have been found, and are worked to advantage. It was at first feared that all the coal for the railway would have to be transported from far distant points.[pg 23]Among the wonders of the plains are the huge rocks and bluffs known as the“Buttes,”which often rise from comparatively level ground, and in detached spots. Seen in the gloaming, their often grotesque forms appear weird and unearthly, and the effect is increased by the fact that all around is silent and desolate, and their mocking echoes to the snorting iron horse are the only sounds that are heard. Some of these rock-masses are columnar, and others pyramidal, in form; some assume the shape of heads, human or otherwise. Now they rise in huge walls, with as wonderful colouring as have the cliffs at Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight; they are often several hundred feet in height. One, particularly noted by the writer, had almost the exact form of an enormous dog seated on its haunches.As the train approaches the confines of Mormondom some specially grand scenery is met and passed. The stern and rugged ravine known as Echo Cañon9is shut in by abrupt and almost perpendicular sandstone and conglomerate cliffs, with many a crag standing sentinel-like, and rising high towards heaven, over the impetuous, brawling Weber river. Close to the Mormon town of Echo there is a cliff 1,000 feet high, whichoverhangs its basefifty feet. There is also a rock known as“The Sphinx of the Valley,”from a resemblance to the original. Weber Cañon succeeds the first-named, and in this is to be noted a remarkable and nearly perpendicular cleft in the cliff—well known as“The Devil’s Slide.”Further on, and the train arrives at“The Devil’s Gate,”where the stern rock-walls narrow, and the dark hills approach each other closely. Here the river becomes a boiling and furious rapid, white with foam, hurrying onward with terrible impetuosity, and rollingtonsof boulders before its resistless course. Some of the early railway bridges were quite washed away by it, and many difficulties were met in the construction of the line, heavy tunneling almost obviously having been necessary in some places. But all obstacles were successfully overcome. Emerging from the gloomy, rugged cañon, the more or less fertile and cultivated Weber valley is, by contrast, a perfect glimpse of Paradise.Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his“City of the Saints.”The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the“junction”for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining-rooms, book-stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked −16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing-point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the“city”in a“mud-waggon,”a kind of packing-case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be[pg 24]one-third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill-side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans-continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by theNew York Heraldthat“railway communications corrupt good Mormons,”to which President Young is stated to have replied that“he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.”And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.This is not the place for any discussion of the Mormon mystery. It is easy to laugh at it, and say with Artemus Ward that,“While Brigham’s religion was singular, his wives were plural.”The fact remains that, in hundreds of cases, Mormons had and have but one wife; although, theoretically, they approve of polygamy. The further point[pg 25]remains that no Mormon was allowed to have more than one helpmeet unless he could prove that his means were amply sufficient for her support. Industry was the keystone of Brigham Young’s teachings, however otherwise mixed with fanaticism and superstition, and the result has been that thousands of people, mostly poor, who settled in an unpromising-looking country, have now homes and farms of their own, and that by sheer hard work the desert has been made literally“to blossom as the rose.”A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.Salt Lake City has been laid out with care, and the streets are wide and well kept; while, excepting those of a small business centre, every house has a very large garden attached. The days of the“avenging angels,”or Danites, is over, and every man’s life and property are nowadays safe there, although at one time many suspected or obnoxious persons were, as our American cousins say,“found missing.”On one terrible occasion—the Mountain Meadow massacre—a whole train of emigrants who, on their way to California, had encamped near the city, were murdered by Indians, whom, there is no doubt, the Mormons had incited to the deed. A dignitary of the Mormon Church, Bishop Lee, suffered the death-penalty at the hands of the United States authorities for his share in the transaction. The emigrants, then passing with their families by the hundred, had, there is no doubt, much aggravated the Mormons by jeering and mockery, and sometimes by purloining their cattle and goods. There has been for many years a garrison of United States troops kept at Camp Douglas, a short distance from Salt Lake City, for the protection of Gentiles,10and the regulation of affairs generally.[pg 26]One of the best features of this strange community is the marked absence of drunkenness and profligacy. Most Mormons are teetotallers, and drink little more than tea or coffee, or the crystal water which runs in deep brooks through every street, and has its birth in the heights of the beautiful snow-clad Wahsatch Mountains, which are a great feature in the scenery of Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City has a remarkable building, known by the faithful as“The Tabernacle,”and by the irreverent as the“Big Egg-shell,”from the oval form of its roof. It holds 8,000 persons, or, under pressure, even more. It has an organ in point of size the second in America. The writer attended a service there, given in honour of some missionary Mormons who were about to part for Europe. The Salt Lake theatre is another feature of the place, and has a good company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses. We once saw there some twenty-five of Brigham Young’s family in the front rows of the pit. Formerly, it is said, payment at the doors was taken“in kind,”and a Mormon would deposit at the box-office a ham, a plump sucking-pig—not alive—a bag of dried peaches, or a dozen mop-handles, maybe, for his seats!Taking a last glimpse of the great Salt Lake, passing Corinne, where, when it was only six weeks old, a bank and a newspaper office, both in tents, had been established, the train proceeds through a more or less barren district on its way to Nevada, the Silver State, a country where, for the most part, life is only endurable when one is making money rapidly. Those who would see some of the silver mines with comparative ease“get off”the train at Reno, thence proceeding by branch rail to Virginia City and Gold Hill, places where that form of mining life may be studied to perfection. So great has been the yield of the Nevada and other silver mines of adjoining territories, that, as most of us know, the value of silver has actually depreciated. Some of the millionaires of San Francisco gained their wealth in Nevada.In the United States the distances between leading places is so great that the fares charged, albeit generally moderate, cannot suit slender purses, while empty pockets are nowhere. In consequence many attempt to smuggle themselves through. The writer remembers, in about the part of the route under notice, a“dead-head”who had for several stations managed to elude the notice of the guard, but who was at last detected, and put off at a point a dozen or more miles from the nearest settlement. The“dead-head,”like the stowaway on board ship, of whom as many as fourteen have been concealed on a single vessel, and not one of them discovered by the proper authorities till far out at sea, is an unrecognised institution on the railways of the United States. Perhaps because our ticket system is more rigidly enforced, few attempt to take a free passage on English railways, although it is stated that a sailor was found, some little time since, asleepundera carriage, his arms and legs coiled round the brake-rods, having succeeded in nearly making the trip from London to Liverpool undiscovered. But, then, sailors are hardened to jars and shocks and noises, by being accustomed to the warring of the elements and so forth. The reader may remember that when, some few years ago, a Great Western train intersected and completely cut in two another which crossed its path, a sailor was found asleep on the seat of ahalfthird-class carriage, and that he was quite angry[pg 27]when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digression, so let us return to our subject—“dead heads.”Examples of this tribe have boasted that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good-natured guards—always“conductors”in America—will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been known to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open trestle-work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to“get!”He has often worked his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left in the snow half-way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, andvice versâ, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the vagabond deserve something for his enterprise? Perhaps in that land, now far more of corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become a better and more prosperous man.Few tourists or travellers of leisure will fail to pay a flying visit to the grand and beautiful lakes and tarns lying among the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which separate the Silver from the Golden State, and are crossed by the Pacific Railway at an elevation of 7,042 feet above the sea level. From the Summit and Truckee stations there are all necessary facilities for reaching Donner, Tahoe, and other lakes, and for a stay among some of the grandest scenery in the world. The space occupied by this chapter would not describe in the barest details the grand mountain peaks, in one case rising to an altitude of 14,500 feet; the forests of magnificent trees; the quieter valleys“in verdure clad;”the waterfalls and cataracts and torrents of this Alpine region, which is within half a day’s journey of San Francisco, and but three or four hours from districts which for eight months of the year have the temperature of Southern Italy. Sufficiently good coaches convey you to leading points, where there are comfortable inns, or, in the summer months, travellers can do a little tent-life and open-air camping with advantage, the climate among the mountains being pure, bracing, and yet warm. On the leading lakes there are boats to be had, and on one or two there are small steamers plying regularly. Fishing and hunting can be indulged in to the heart’s content. The Sierra mountain trout is unsurpassed anywhere; while the sportsman can bag anything from a Californian quail to a grizzly bear—the latter, more especially,if he can. At most of the ordinary places of resort he will get the morning papers of San Francisco the same day, while Truckee boasts of a journal of its own, published, be it observed, 7,000 feet up the mountains!11One of the writer’s recollections of the Sierra region is not so pleasant, but then it was under its winter aspect. He had been warned on leaving San Francisco that the railway might be“snowed up,”as it was in 1871-2, when for several weeks there was a blockade, and he was recommended to go to New YorkviâPanama. That voyage he had once made, and, besides, had a desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey[pg 28]from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to New York is made through 3,000 miles of snow. So he started, and for twelve hours or so all went well; but at the very“summit”of the railway line,i.e., its highest point among the Sierra Nevada, and near the station of the same name, the train came suddenly to a standstill in the gloom of a long“snow-shed”tunnel. Worse, as it seemed to some, the engine deserted it, and ran away, while the conductor was also absent for a long time. The carriages were not too well lighted, although quite warm enough, thanks to the glowing stoves, while memories of former blockades and half-starved passengers did not aid in reassuring the frozen-in travellers. Few slept that night, and, indeed, in one carriage, where there were several squalling babies and scolding females, it would have been difficult. Some of the older travellers, who had something of Mark Tapleyism about them, did their best to cheer the rest, and passed their wicker-covered demijohns—flasks are hardly enough for a seven days’ journey, which might be indefinitely extended—to those who had not provided themselves; one individual did his best to relieve the monotony with a song; but it fell rather flat, and melancholy reigned supreme.12But not for long. About seven next morning there was a commotion; a whistle in the distance; another nearer, which, hoarse as it was, sounded like heavenly music; and in a few minutes the good locomotive arrived, coupled with the train, and took it to the nearest station, where breakfast was ready for all who would partake. And that breakfast! Trout, chicken, venison, hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and molasses, and all the usual, and some other of the unusual, adjuncts of a regular American meal. The traveller must not expect all these luxuries at places nearer the centre of the continent, where, in some cases, all that you will get are beans and bacon, hot bread, tea or coffee, and perhaps stewed (dried) apples or peaches. At such places the excuse is sufficient, for everything is brought from a considerable distance, while the stations themselves have only been erected for the railway, and sometimes do not boast a single dwelling other than those immediately connected with it.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.And so we descend, first to the foot-hills, and then to the plains of sunny California. Evidences of mining, past and present, are to be often seen: flumes and ditches through which the water is rushing rapidly, old shafts, and works, and mills, and boarding-houses. But the glory is departed, or rather changed for the more permanent vineyard and grain-field and orchard. Some of the finest wines and fruits are raised among these said foot-hills. And now we cross the American river, and are in Sacramento, the legislative capital of the State, a city surrounded by pleasant suburbs, handsome villas, and splendid mansions. Thence to San Francisco there is the choice of a ride on the Sacramento River to the Bay, or one of two railways—once so near the Bay City, few care to delay, and so press on. The railway bears you through a highly-cultivated country to Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco, and place of residence for many of its merchant princes. Here all the year round flowers are in full bloom. When leaving California in winter we noted roses, daisies, verbenas, pansies, violets,[pg 29]hollyhocks, calla lillies, and camellias, all growing in the open-air. This is not particularly surprising, for in our own country, in Devonshire and Cornwall, particularly at Penzance, a modified statement of the same nature might be made. At Oakland the railway runs out on a wooden pier or bridge, one mile and a quarter long, to the bay.Of San Francisco and its glorious bay these pages have already furnished some account. It is the grand depôt for all that concerns commerce and travel between every part of America and much of Europe and the Pacific generally. The successful miner, trader, or farmer, from Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and all outlying territories, spends his money there; as the metropolis of the coast-trade of all kindcentresthere. Hence its success and cosmopolitan character.In speaking of the cosmopolitan characteristics of the Golden City, a traveller (Mr. Carlisle), says that one of the good points, coming, as did he, from the remoteness of Japan, is the proximity of the city to Europe as regards the receipt of news.“The city of San Francisco is eight hours behind London in the matter of time,[pg 30]and one turns this to good advantage. When her corn-merchants go down to their offices in the morning they find on their desks a report of the Liverpool market of that morning; each morning paper has two or three columns filled with telegrams of the preceding evening from all parts of Europe, and not unfrequently there appears among these telegrams a notice of the following kind:—‘TheTimesof to-day has an article in which it says,’&c., &c., giving the substance of that morning’s leader.”The present writer can illustrate this point by an actual occurrence in his own experience. Every reader will remember the terrible explosion in the Regent’s Park, which did so much damage, and which happened about half-past three in the morning. He was then occupying the post of“telegraphic editor,”&c., on the staff of theAlta California, the oldest journal published on that coast. The news of the explosion reached him by telegram at 11.30 theevening before, that is,apparently, before it happened! TheAltatherefore was able to give the sad intelligence to all its readers—some few of them as early as four o’clock—the next morning, while the London newspapers of the early editions could naturally have nothing about it, as they were printed before its occurrence.Mr. W. F. Rae, a writer before quoted in regard to the character which the city unfortunately acquired in early days, says of it:—“From being a bye-word for its lawlessness and licentiousness, the city of San Francisco has become in little more than ten years as moral as Philadelphia, and far more orderly than New York.”The fact is that one must obtain a“permit”to carry a revolver at all, and that permission cannot properly be obtained by anyone of dissipated or dangerous character. A heavy fine is inflicted on any one wearing a pistol without having secured the necessary authority. The same writer says:—“That the Golden State is of extraordinary richness is well known to every traveller. To some, as to me, it may have been a matter of rejoicing to discover that California is also a land teeming with unexpected natural beauties and rare natural delights.”He quotes approvingly Lieutenant-Governor Holden’s speech at a festive meeting held in Sacramento, California, on the completion of the Pacific Railway.“Why, sir,”said the Lieutenant-Governor, a gentleman who had himself done much towards the successful consummation of that grand enterprise,“we have the bravest men, the handsomest women, and the fattest babies of any place under the canopy of heaven!”Baron Hübner, in his published work,13says of the climate,“It is a perpetual spring;”and then, alluding to the decreased yield of gold, remarks truly,“Its real riches lie in the fertility of the soil.”And once more, Margharita Weppner, the German lady-traveller before mentioned, says, speaking of a fruit-show she visited:—“What I saw there could only be found in California, for I have never seen anything to equal it, even in the tropics.”She adds, enthusiastically:—“This beautiful city of the golden land I prefer to any other in America. My preference is due to the agreeable kind of life which its people lead, and to the extraordinary salubrity of the climate.”The present writer has preferred to collate from these independent sources rather than from his own long experience; but he can testify to the truth of every one of the above statements. One of the grandest features in San Francisco’s present[pg 31]and assured future success is the fact that the steamship companies of the whole Pacific make it their leading port.From San Francisco the traveller bent on seeing the world can proceed to New Zealand and Australia, calling at Honolulu in the Hawaïan Islands, and Fiji, on the way;orhe can make his way to China, calling at Japan, in steamships having perhaps the most roomy accommodation in the world;orhe can reach Panama and South American ports, calling at Mexican portsen route, by steamships which pass over the most pacific part of the Pacific Ocean;or, again, he can make delightful trips northwards to Californian and Oregonian and British Columbian ports;or, once again, southwards to ports of Southern California. These lines are running constantly, and the above list is far from complete. Whither away?

[pg 14]CHAPTER II.Ocean to Ocean.—The Connecting Link.The Great Trans-Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The“Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a“Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The“Great Egg-shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away?Sufficient mention of New York has already been made in this work. The tourist or traveller bound round the world, viâ the great trans-continental railway and San Francisco, has at starting from the commercial metropolis of America, and as far as Omaha, a choice of routes, all the fares being identical for a“through ticket”to the Pacific. You may go among the Pennsylvanian mountains and valleys, and catch many a glimpse of the coal and coal“ile”fields; the country generally being thickly wooded. The Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, and Fort Wayne Railway passes through really grand scenery, and the construction of the road has been a work of great difficulty, involving extensive cuttings and embankments and long tunnels. The road takes a serpentine course among the mountains, and at one point, known as the“Horse-shoe Bend,”the line curves round so much that it almost meets itself again. A train following your own appears to be going in the opposite direction. The only city of any importance on this route, before Chicago is reached, is Pittsburg, the busy, coaly, sooty, and grimy—a place reminding one of Staffordshire, and abounding in iron and cutlery works. It is situated among really charming scenery, near where the Monongahela, Alleghany, and Ohio rivers meet, and is an ugly blot among the verdant and peaceful surroundings. After leaving Pittsburg the railroad passes through a charmingly fresh and fruitful country, watered by the Ohio.“Long stretches of green meadows, shut in by hill and dale, shady nooks, cosy farm-houses, and handsome villas, steamers, barges, boats, and timber-rafts—almost as large as those famous Rhine rafts—on the river, make up a varied and most attractive scene.”Next you reach Indiana, a country of fairly good soil, bad swamps, fearful fever and ague, and an indolent and shiftless people. In general terms it is a good country to leave.But the tourist’s popular route from New York to Chicago is that briefly known as“The Great Central.”At Niagara it passes over a bridge spanning the river below the great Falls, where a tolerable view is obtainable. Most tourists naturally stop a day or two at the Falls, where there are fine hotels. They have been so often described that every schoolboy knows all about them. They are especially worth seeing under their winter aspect, when miniature icebergs and floes are falling, crashing, and grinding with the water. Below the Falls these will bank up to a considerable height, and the river is in places completely frozen over. From the rocks huge stalactites of hundreds of tons of ice depend. The contrast of the dashing green waters with the crystal ice and virgin snow around is very beautiful.[pg 15]Some idea of the volume of water may be gathered from this fact: the Niagara River a mile and a half above the Falls is two and a half miles wide, and is there very deep. At the Falls all this water is narrowed to about 800 yards in breadth. A traveller already mentioned6thus describes her impressions:—“Nor do I think that the most powerful imagination can, with its greatest effort, attain even an approximate notion of the awful sublimity of this natural wonder. Like all other stupendous things which the mind has been unaccustomed to measure and to contemplate, Niagara requires time to grow upon one. The mind also demands time to struggle up to its dimensions, and time to gather up its harmonies into the mighty tones which finally fill the soul with their overwhelming cadences, and whose theme, ever-varying but still the same—as in the hands of a Handel or a Beethoven—thunders through the whole extent of one’s being—‘Almighty Power!’“The chief impression produced upon the mind by Niagara is the perpetuity of immeasurable force and grandeur. This it is which lends such a strange fascination to the Falls; however pressingly one is desirous of getting away, one is obliged to turn back again, and yet again, like the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. There is nothing in the way of natural scenery which has stamped itself so clearly, indelibly, and awfully on my mind as this gigantic magnificence; as this mighty body of waters, gliding stealthily but rapidly on its onward course above the Falls, springing forward more wildly, more exultingly, as it nears the brink, until it leaps over into the abyss to swell the mighty canticle, which, for thousands and thousands of years, by day and by night, through every season, has ascended in tones of subdued thunder to the Creator’s throne.”Passing over all intermediate points, the traveller at length reaches the Garden City, Chicago. This, which used to be counted a western city—it is 900 miles west of New York—is now considered almost an eastern one. And it must be remembered that this place of half a million souls is a port. Large sailing-vessels and steamers enter and leave it daily, and through Lake Michigan and the chain of other lakes can reach the ocean direct. There are miles on miles of wharfs, and it is generally considered one of the“livest”business places in America. Handsomely laid-out and built, the city now hardly bears a trace of the terrific conflagration which in 1871 laid three-fourths of the finest streets in ruins.From Chicago to Omaha the various routes have little to interest the ordinary traveller, and so, while speeding on together, let us dine in a Pullman hotel car. On entering you will be presented with a bewildering bill of fare, commencing with soups and finishing with ice-cream and black coffee. The dinner is served on little separate tables, while the purity of the cloths and table napkins, the brightness of the plate, and the crystal clearness of the glass-ware, leave nothing to desire. You can have a glass of iced water, for they have an ice-cellar; you can obtain anything, from a bottle of beer to one of Burgundy, port, or champagne; and cigars are also kept“en board;”while at the particular point indicated you will not pay more than seventy-five cents (about three shillings) for the dinner. It must be admitted that the liquid refreshments are generally very dear: a“quarter”[pg 16](i.e., twenty-five cents, the fourth of a dollar) for any small drink, fifty cents for a very small bottle of Bass, and wines expensive in proportion. Still you dine at your ease and leisure, instead of rushing out with a crowd at the“eating stations,”where the trains usually stop three times a day. We have the authority of Mr. W. F. Rae for stating that“no royal personage can be more comfortably housed than the occupant of a Pullman car, provided the car be an hotel one.”7A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.At Omaha, on the Missouri, the Pacific Railwaypropercommences, although the various New York and other lines, as we have seen, connect with it. The river, irreverently known on the spot as“The Great Muddy,”from the colour of its water and its numerous sand and mud banks, is crossed at this point by a fine bridge.Aproposof the said banks, which are constantly shifting, a story is told of a countryman who, years ago, before the age of steam ferries, wanted to cross the Missouri near this point. He did not see his way till he observed a sand-bank“washing-up,”as they call it, to the surface of the water near the shore on which he stood. He jumped on it, and it shifted so rapidly that it took him clear across the river, and he was able to land on the opposite side! The story is an exaggerated version of fact. The shifting sand-banks make navigation perilous, and good river pilots command a high figure.The literature of the railway has hardly yet been attempted. It is true that scarcely a day passes without something of interest transpiring in connection therewith: now some grand improvement, now a terrible accident or narrow escape, and now again the opening of some important line. The humours of railroad travel—good and bad—often enliven the[pg 17]pages of our comic journals, while the strictly mechanical aspect of the subject is fully treated in technical papers. But the facts remain that all this is of a transient nature, and that the railway can hardly be said yet to have a literature of its own.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.The following episodes mainly refer to the grand railway under notice, which is by all odds the longest direct road on the surface of the globe. From New York to San Francisco the distance by this railway is 3,300 miles, and the ticket for the through journey is about two feet long! This would be more justly described as a series of tickets or coupons. The writer has crossed the American continent twice by this route, his first trip having been made on its completion in 1869, when, as correspondent of a daily journal, he had ample facilities for examining it in detail. In Chicago he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Pullman, who kindly furnished him with information which in those days, at all events, was new to the British public. He was even then trying to get his famous carriages introduced into England; as events proved, it took him several years to get them even tested. In this connection he is credited with abon mot. He was speaking of our land in the highest terms, but, like many Americans, did not think we adopted new ideas with sufficient readiness.“It is a grand country,”said he,“a grand country. But you have to be bornveryyoung there;”meaning that otherwise you might grow grey in the consummation of even a promising scheme.[pg 18]When the writer first crossed the continent the railway was very much in the rough. Rails laid at the rate of seven, and, on one occasion,tenmiles a day, can hardly be implicitly relied upon; much of the road was flimsily ballasted, and many of the bridges were temporary wooden structures of a shaky order. The train had sometimes to literally crawl along; passengers would often get off and walk some distance ahead, easily beating the locomotives, and be found seated on the boulders at the side of the road, having had time for a quarter of an hour’s smoke. Mr. James Mortimer Murphy, in his“Rambles in Northwestern America,”gives some similar experiences on a still rougher line on which he travelled from Wallula, on the Columbia River, to a point in Washington Territory. The railroad was only fifteen miles long, and had wooden rails. Having secured an interview with the president, secretary, conductor, and brakesman of the road—represented by one and the same individual—he was booked as a passenger, and placed on some rough iron in an open truck, with instructions to cling to the sides, and be most careful not to stand on the floor if he cared anything about his limbs. The miserable little engine gave a grunt or two, several wheezy puffs, a cat-like scream, and finally got the train under weigh, proceeding at the headlong speed of two miles an hour,“rocking,”says the narrator,“like a canoe in a cross sea. The gentleman who represented all the train officials did not get on the train, but told the engineer to go on, and he would overtake him in the course of an hour. Before I had proceeded half a mile I saw why I was not permitted to stand on the floor of the truck, for a piece of hoop-iron, which covered the wooden rails in some places, curled up into what is called a‘snake head,’and pushed through the wood with such force that it nearly stopped the train. After this was withdrawn the engine resumed its course, and at the end of seven hours hauled one weary passenger, with eyes made sore from the smoke, and coat and hat nearly burnt off by the sparks, into a station composed of a rude board shanty, through whose apertures the wind howled, having made the entire distance of fifteen miles in that time.”The drivers of the passing“prairie schooners,”as the waggons drawn by eight or more pairs of mules or oxen are called, occasionally challenged the president of the line to run a race with them in his old machine; but he scorned their offers, and kept quietly walking beside his train. This eccentric railway has since been superseded by one much more desirable, while in justice to the great line referred to, it must be said that it is now, and long has been, in admirable condition, and that it is crossed by numerous express, emigrant, and freight trains daily.The Indians have never given the trans-continental railway companies much trouble since the completion of the lines. Early in its history a story is told, however, of the Chien or Dog Indians, from whom the town of Cheyenne takes its name. They had a strong prejudice against the iron horse with the fiery eyes, and determined to vanquish him. Some thirty of them mounted their ponies, and urging them up the line, valiantly charged a coming train. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that fragments of defunct red men were found shortly afterwards strewed about the road, and that the tribe has not since repeated the experiment. Perhaps better is the true story of the Piute Indians of Nevada, who tried to catch a train, and found that they had“caught a Tartar”instead. Annoyed by the snorting monster, they laid in ambush, and as it approached dexterously threw a lasso, such as is used for catching cattle, over the“smoke stack,”[pg 19]or funnel of the locomotive, while a number of them held on to the other end of the rope. The engine went on its way unharmed; but it is said that the eccentric gymnastics performed by the Indians, as they were pulled at twenty-five miles an hour over the rocks and boulders at the side of the track, were more amusing to the passengers than to themselves.Most readers will have heard of the celebrated“Cape Horn,”high up among the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the Central Pacific Railway rounds the edge of a fearful cliff. The traveller is there between six and seven thousand feet above the sea level; and at the particular point of which mention is now made there is a precipice descending almost perpendicularly to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. Above, again, rise the walls of the same rocky projection to a still greater height. The sublimity of the spot is undoubted, but as regards the passengers, the ridiculous too often appears upon the scene. Most ladies and many timid men audibly shudder at this juncture, and after taking a hasty glance downwards at the turbulent Truckee River dashing round the base of the precipice, retire to the other side of the carriage, where there is nothing but the prospect of a rough-hewn rocky wall a foot or so off the carriages. Is it with the idea of ballasting the train? Perhaps like the ostrich, they think themselves out of danger, when danger is hidden!Not very far from the above spot, on the western side of the mountains, where the grades are particularly steep, an accident occurred a few years ago which had more of the comic element than the serious. A train, proceeding at a rapid rate, broke in two, the locomotive and several carriages dashing on, while the second half of the train followed at slower speed. At length the foremost car of this part of the train left the rails, and breaking off from the couplings, turned bottom upwards on the embankment, just coming to an anchor at the edge of a ravine, into which, had it fallen, no one could have been saved. A husband of Falstaffian proportions was in one of the foremost carriages which had proceeded with the locomotive, and as soon as they stopped he scrambled off, running back to the scene of the accident, hurrying and stumbling and shinning himself on and over the rough roadway and obtrusive sleepers, for his wife was in one of the hindmost cars, and he feared the worst. At last he approached the wreck, where his wife was seen standing, calmly waving a handkerchief, she having climbed out through one of the windows, almost unhurt. She had just been tending the one damaged person of the whole number. That individual, in his anxiety to grasp something as the carriage overturned, had seized on the hot stove, and was badly, though not seriously, burned.Not altogether a nuisance is an institution inseparably connected with American trains—the peripatetic boy who offers you one minute a newspaper, the next a novel, and then anything from a cigar or a box of sweetmeats to a“prize package.”These latter are of all values, from a twenty-five cent package of stationery to a bound book at a dollar and a half, about one in a hundred of which may possibly contain a money prize. The writer had been a good customer as regards paper-covered novels, and his plan was to sell the books back at half-price, then purchasing a new story, and this, of course, suited the boys well enough. In consequence of these and other purchases, he was one day allowed to win a five-dollar“greenback”in a prize package. He was somewhat annoyed afterwards to find that he had been used really as the“decoy duck.”The news of his winnings flew through the carriage, and even through the train, and the enterprising youngster soon[pg 20]sold a dozen or so of the same packages, and, it may be added, the same number of purchasers. There were no more prizes that day!ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.A newspaper is published regularly on the overland trains of the Pacific Railway. There are telegraph stations everywhere on the route, and the latest news is handed“aboard”to the editor, leader-writer, compositor, and pressman—represented by, or condensed into, one and the same individual—as soon as the train arrives, and is immediately“set up”and printed. Thus“specials,”“extra specials,”and“special extra specials”follow one another in rapid succession, and keep the train alive with excitement.A term which has come into vogue here originated on the Pacific Railway during the writer’s stay in California. A terrible accident occurred near Oakland, in which one[pg 21]train of the long cars usual in the United States met and literally“telescoped”another. The expression was used in a rather curious way in San Francisco for some time afterwards. If a business man in a hurry ran into another person—say, for example, coming round a corner—the latter would ejaculate,“Hi! are you trying totelescopea fellow?”The writer will not soon forget his ride from Laramie to Sherman, a station on one of the ridges of the Rocky Mountains, which the Pacific Railway crosses at an altitude of over 8,000 feet. Armed with a pass from the company, the courteous station-master at the former place made no objection to his accompanying a locomotive with a snow-plough attached in front, then starting ahead of the regular train. The plough was a rough specimen of its kind, in form not greatly unlike the ram of an ironclad, and was constructed of sheet-iron, covering a strong wooden frame. But it did its work efficiently, scattering the soft snow on either side in waves and spray, reminding one of the passage of some great ocean steamship through the billows. The snow had drifted in places till it was five or six feet deep on the road, but this proved child’s play to the plough, and the services of the navvies, who, seated on the coal, were swinging their legs over the side of the tender, were not required. The greatest danger on the line, now so amply protected by great snow sheds—literally wooden tunnels—and snow fences, arises from snow which has thawed, frozen, re-thawed, and re-frozen until it is literally packed ice. The wheels of a locomotive, arrived at such a point, either revolve helplessly, without progressing, or run clean off the metals.The mention of the effect of ice on the rails recalls a story told by Colonel Bulkley, when the latter was chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. The colonel during the civil war in the States was at the head of a constructing party, who built temporary lines of telegraph to follow the advancing northern army. The driver of a train which passed through the district in which they were engaged had been ordered to stop nightly and pick the party up, but one night neglected to do so, and the weary constructors had to tramp a dozen miles in the dark to the nearest village. The men naturally determined that this should not occur again, and so next morning armed themselves with several boxes of bar soap. What for? To soap the rails! Colonel Bulkley tells gleefully how they rubbed it on for about a quarter of a mile, how the train arrived at the place, and after gliding on a certain distance, from the momentum it had acquired, came nearly to a standstill, and how the men jumped on and told the joke to everybody. The engineer next day did not forget to remember them.“Some writers strongly advise the traveller to make a halt at Sherman station,”says Mr. Rae.“The inducements held out to him are mountain scenery, invigorating air, fishing and hunting. A sojourn among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains has the attraction of novelty to recommend it. Life there must be, in every sense of the word, a new sensation. But some sensations are undesirable, notwithstanding their undoubted freshness. That splendid trout swarm in the streams near Sherman admits of no dispute. Yet the disciple of Isaak Walton should not be tempted to indulge rashly in his harmless and charming sport. It is delightful to hook large fish; but it is less agreeable to be pierced through by arrows. Now, the latter contingency is among the probabilities which must be taken into consideration. A few weeks prior to my journey, one of the conductors of the train by which I travelled, learned, by practical experience, that fishing among the[pg 22]Rocky Mountains has palpable and painful drawbacks. Having taken a few days’ holiday, he went forth, fishing-rod in hand, to amuse himself. While whipping the stream in the innocence of his heart, he was startled to find himself made the target for arrows shot by wild Indians. He sought safety in flight, and recovered from his wounds, to the surprise as much as to the gratification of his friends. His story did not render me desirous of sharing his fate.”The Great Plains, over which the“prairie schooners”8toil, and the trains now fly, have a dreary interest of their own. In summer they are hot and dusty, and the contemplation of nearly unlimited sage-brush, and the occasional prairie dog or hen, is not enlivening; while the constant recurrence of skeletons bleaching in the sun—skeletons of overworked mules, horses, and oxen, and sometimes of the human animal—is apt to make one melancholy. But on a winter moonlight evening, when covered with snow, which has thawed in the day, and becomeglacéat night, they resemble one vast glittering lake, with the brush-covered hillocks standing for islands. The buffaloes, once so common, are rarely or never seen near the railway. In that more fertile portion of the plains nearer the Missouri, in Nebraska and adjoining states, it is also possible that the oft-times grand sight of the prairie on fire may be witnessed from the train. The writer was, one evening in May, 1868, in company with others, in a Pullman car, when huge massive clouds of smoke hanging over the horizon appeared in view. Soon it became evident, as the train approached the spot, that the prairie was on fire for miles, although fortunately at some distance from the line. The flames rose fiercely to the peaceful, starlit sky; the homesteads of settlers, trees, and hillocks stood out black against the line of destroying fire; while over all a canopy of smoke hung heavily, affording a scene not soon to be forgotten.Westward from the high point where Sherman stands, the railway line makes a rapid descent to the Laramie Plains, the trains going down, not merely by their own weight, but with brakes tightly screwed down. At Dale Creek, on this section of the line, a wonderful bridge is crossed. It is 650 feet long, and in the centre of the deep ravine it bridges is 126 feet high. It is built entirely of wood, was erected in thirty days, and is a perfect puzzle of trestle-work.“More than one passenger,”says Mr. Rae,“who would rather lose a fine sight than risk a broken neck, breathes more freely, and gives audible expression to his satisfaction, when once the cars have passed in safety over this remarkable wooden structure.”Now the train is again proceeding rapidly; in twenty miles, the descent of 1,000 feet is accomplished. Next, Laramie City is reached, round which is a good grazing country. This is succeeded by the plains known as“The Great American Desert,”another barren sage-brush-covered stretch of country. And yet—in addition to the fact that even sage-brush is good for something, a decoction of it being recommended in cases of ague—the desert has been proved to contain its treasures. At Carbon, and other stations on the line, fine deposits of coal have been found, and are worked to advantage. It was at first feared that all the coal for the railway would have to be transported from far distant points.[pg 23]Among the wonders of the plains are the huge rocks and bluffs known as the“Buttes,”which often rise from comparatively level ground, and in detached spots. Seen in the gloaming, their often grotesque forms appear weird and unearthly, and the effect is increased by the fact that all around is silent and desolate, and their mocking echoes to the snorting iron horse are the only sounds that are heard. Some of these rock-masses are columnar, and others pyramidal, in form; some assume the shape of heads, human or otherwise. Now they rise in huge walls, with as wonderful colouring as have the cliffs at Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight; they are often several hundred feet in height. One, particularly noted by the writer, had almost the exact form of an enormous dog seated on its haunches.As the train approaches the confines of Mormondom some specially grand scenery is met and passed. The stern and rugged ravine known as Echo Cañon9is shut in by abrupt and almost perpendicular sandstone and conglomerate cliffs, with many a crag standing sentinel-like, and rising high towards heaven, over the impetuous, brawling Weber river. Close to the Mormon town of Echo there is a cliff 1,000 feet high, whichoverhangs its basefifty feet. There is also a rock known as“The Sphinx of the Valley,”from a resemblance to the original. Weber Cañon succeeds the first-named, and in this is to be noted a remarkable and nearly perpendicular cleft in the cliff—well known as“The Devil’s Slide.”Further on, and the train arrives at“The Devil’s Gate,”where the stern rock-walls narrow, and the dark hills approach each other closely. Here the river becomes a boiling and furious rapid, white with foam, hurrying onward with terrible impetuosity, and rollingtonsof boulders before its resistless course. Some of the early railway bridges were quite washed away by it, and many difficulties were met in the construction of the line, heavy tunneling almost obviously having been necessary in some places. But all obstacles were successfully overcome. Emerging from the gloomy, rugged cañon, the more or less fertile and cultivated Weber valley is, by contrast, a perfect glimpse of Paradise.Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his“City of the Saints.”The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the“junction”for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining-rooms, book-stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked −16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing-point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the“city”in a“mud-waggon,”a kind of packing-case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be[pg 24]one-third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill-side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans-continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by theNew York Heraldthat“railway communications corrupt good Mormons,”to which President Young is stated to have replied that“he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.”And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.This is not the place for any discussion of the Mormon mystery. It is easy to laugh at it, and say with Artemus Ward that,“While Brigham’s religion was singular, his wives were plural.”The fact remains that, in hundreds of cases, Mormons had and have but one wife; although, theoretically, they approve of polygamy. The further point[pg 25]remains that no Mormon was allowed to have more than one helpmeet unless he could prove that his means were amply sufficient for her support. Industry was the keystone of Brigham Young’s teachings, however otherwise mixed with fanaticism and superstition, and the result has been that thousands of people, mostly poor, who settled in an unpromising-looking country, have now homes and farms of their own, and that by sheer hard work the desert has been made literally“to blossom as the rose.”A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.Salt Lake City has been laid out with care, and the streets are wide and well kept; while, excepting those of a small business centre, every house has a very large garden attached. The days of the“avenging angels,”or Danites, is over, and every man’s life and property are nowadays safe there, although at one time many suspected or obnoxious persons were, as our American cousins say,“found missing.”On one terrible occasion—the Mountain Meadow massacre—a whole train of emigrants who, on their way to California, had encamped near the city, were murdered by Indians, whom, there is no doubt, the Mormons had incited to the deed. A dignitary of the Mormon Church, Bishop Lee, suffered the death-penalty at the hands of the United States authorities for his share in the transaction. The emigrants, then passing with their families by the hundred, had, there is no doubt, much aggravated the Mormons by jeering and mockery, and sometimes by purloining their cattle and goods. There has been for many years a garrison of United States troops kept at Camp Douglas, a short distance from Salt Lake City, for the protection of Gentiles,10and the regulation of affairs generally.[pg 26]One of the best features of this strange community is the marked absence of drunkenness and profligacy. Most Mormons are teetotallers, and drink little more than tea or coffee, or the crystal water which runs in deep brooks through every street, and has its birth in the heights of the beautiful snow-clad Wahsatch Mountains, which are a great feature in the scenery of Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City has a remarkable building, known by the faithful as“The Tabernacle,”and by the irreverent as the“Big Egg-shell,”from the oval form of its roof. It holds 8,000 persons, or, under pressure, even more. It has an organ in point of size the second in America. The writer attended a service there, given in honour of some missionary Mormons who were about to part for Europe. The Salt Lake theatre is another feature of the place, and has a good company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses. We once saw there some twenty-five of Brigham Young’s family in the front rows of the pit. Formerly, it is said, payment at the doors was taken“in kind,”and a Mormon would deposit at the box-office a ham, a plump sucking-pig—not alive—a bag of dried peaches, or a dozen mop-handles, maybe, for his seats!Taking a last glimpse of the great Salt Lake, passing Corinne, where, when it was only six weeks old, a bank and a newspaper office, both in tents, had been established, the train proceeds through a more or less barren district on its way to Nevada, the Silver State, a country where, for the most part, life is only endurable when one is making money rapidly. Those who would see some of the silver mines with comparative ease“get off”the train at Reno, thence proceeding by branch rail to Virginia City and Gold Hill, places where that form of mining life may be studied to perfection. So great has been the yield of the Nevada and other silver mines of adjoining territories, that, as most of us know, the value of silver has actually depreciated. Some of the millionaires of San Francisco gained their wealth in Nevada.In the United States the distances between leading places is so great that the fares charged, albeit generally moderate, cannot suit slender purses, while empty pockets are nowhere. In consequence many attempt to smuggle themselves through. The writer remembers, in about the part of the route under notice, a“dead-head”who had for several stations managed to elude the notice of the guard, but who was at last detected, and put off at a point a dozen or more miles from the nearest settlement. The“dead-head,”like the stowaway on board ship, of whom as many as fourteen have been concealed on a single vessel, and not one of them discovered by the proper authorities till far out at sea, is an unrecognised institution on the railways of the United States. Perhaps because our ticket system is more rigidly enforced, few attempt to take a free passage on English railways, although it is stated that a sailor was found, some little time since, asleepundera carriage, his arms and legs coiled round the brake-rods, having succeeded in nearly making the trip from London to Liverpool undiscovered. But, then, sailors are hardened to jars and shocks and noises, by being accustomed to the warring of the elements and so forth. The reader may remember that when, some few years ago, a Great Western train intersected and completely cut in two another which crossed its path, a sailor was found asleep on the seat of ahalfthird-class carriage, and that he was quite angry[pg 27]when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digression, so let us return to our subject—“dead heads.”Examples of this tribe have boasted that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good-natured guards—always“conductors”in America—will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been known to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open trestle-work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to“get!”He has often worked his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left in the snow half-way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, andvice versâ, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the vagabond deserve something for his enterprise? Perhaps in that land, now far more of corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become a better and more prosperous man.Few tourists or travellers of leisure will fail to pay a flying visit to the grand and beautiful lakes and tarns lying among the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which separate the Silver from the Golden State, and are crossed by the Pacific Railway at an elevation of 7,042 feet above the sea level. From the Summit and Truckee stations there are all necessary facilities for reaching Donner, Tahoe, and other lakes, and for a stay among some of the grandest scenery in the world. The space occupied by this chapter would not describe in the barest details the grand mountain peaks, in one case rising to an altitude of 14,500 feet; the forests of magnificent trees; the quieter valleys“in verdure clad;”the waterfalls and cataracts and torrents of this Alpine region, which is within half a day’s journey of San Francisco, and but three or four hours from districts which for eight months of the year have the temperature of Southern Italy. Sufficiently good coaches convey you to leading points, where there are comfortable inns, or, in the summer months, travellers can do a little tent-life and open-air camping with advantage, the climate among the mountains being pure, bracing, and yet warm. On the leading lakes there are boats to be had, and on one or two there are small steamers plying regularly. Fishing and hunting can be indulged in to the heart’s content. The Sierra mountain trout is unsurpassed anywhere; while the sportsman can bag anything from a Californian quail to a grizzly bear—the latter, more especially,if he can. At most of the ordinary places of resort he will get the morning papers of San Francisco the same day, while Truckee boasts of a journal of its own, published, be it observed, 7,000 feet up the mountains!11One of the writer’s recollections of the Sierra region is not so pleasant, but then it was under its winter aspect. He had been warned on leaving San Francisco that the railway might be“snowed up,”as it was in 1871-2, when for several weeks there was a blockade, and he was recommended to go to New YorkviâPanama. That voyage he had once made, and, besides, had a desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey[pg 28]from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to New York is made through 3,000 miles of snow. So he started, and for twelve hours or so all went well; but at the very“summit”of the railway line,i.e., its highest point among the Sierra Nevada, and near the station of the same name, the train came suddenly to a standstill in the gloom of a long“snow-shed”tunnel. Worse, as it seemed to some, the engine deserted it, and ran away, while the conductor was also absent for a long time. The carriages were not too well lighted, although quite warm enough, thanks to the glowing stoves, while memories of former blockades and half-starved passengers did not aid in reassuring the frozen-in travellers. Few slept that night, and, indeed, in one carriage, where there were several squalling babies and scolding females, it would have been difficult. Some of the older travellers, who had something of Mark Tapleyism about them, did their best to cheer the rest, and passed their wicker-covered demijohns—flasks are hardly enough for a seven days’ journey, which might be indefinitely extended—to those who had not provided themselves; one individual did his best to relieve the monotony with a song; but it fell rather flat, and melancholy reigned supreme.12But not for long. About seven next morning there was a commotion; a whistle in the distance; another nearer, which, hoarse as it was, sounded like heavenly music; and in a few minutes the good locomotive arrived, coupled with the train, and took it to the nearest station, where breakfast was ready for all who would partake. And that breakfast! Trout, chicken, venison, hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and molasses, and all the usual, and some other of the unusual, adjuncts of a regular American meal. The traveller must not expect all these luxuries at places nearer the centre of the continent, where, in some cases, all that you will get are beans and bacon, hot bread, tea or coffee, and perhaps stewed (dried) apples or peaches. At such places the excuse is sufficient, for everything is brought from a considerable distance, while the stations themselves have only been erected for the railway, and sometimes do not boast a single dwelling other than those immediately connected with it.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.And so we descend, first to the foot-hills, and then to the plains of sunny California. Evidences of mining, past and present, are to be often seen: flumes and ditches through which the water is rushing rapidly, old shafts, and works, and mills, and boarding-houses. But the glory is departed, or rather changed for the more permanent vineyard and grain-field and orchard. Some of the finest wines and fruits are raised among these said foot-hills. And now we cross the American river, and are in Sacramento, the legislative capital of the State, a city surrounded by pleasant suburbs, handsome villas, and splendid mansions. Thence to San Francisco there is the choice of a ride on the Sacramento River to the Bay, or one of two railways—once so near the Bay City, few care to delay, and so press on. The railway bears you through a highly-cultivated country to Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco, and place of residence for many of its merchant princes. Here all the year round flowers are in full bloom. When leaving California in winter we noted roses, daisies, verbenas, pansies, violets,[pg 29]hollyhocks, calla lillies, and camellias, all growing in the open-air. This is not particularly surprising, for in our own country, in Devonshire and Cornwall, particularly at Penzance, a modified statement of the same nature might be made. At Oakland the railway runs out on a wooden pier or bridge, one mile and a quarter long, to the bay.Of San Francisco and its glorious bay these pages have already furnished some account. It is the grand depôt for all that concerns commerce and travel between every part of America and much of Europe and the Pacific generally. The successful miner, trader, or farmer, from Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and all outlying territories, spends his money there; as the metropolis of the coast-trade of all kindcentresthere. Hence its success and cosmopolitan character.In speaking of the cosmopolitan characteristics of the Golden City, a traveller (Mr. Carlisle), says that one of the good points, coming, as did he, from the remoteness of Japan, is the proximity of the city to Europe as regards the receipt of news.“The city of San Francisco is eight hours behind London in the matter of time,[pg 30]and one turns this to good advantage. When her corn-merchants go down to their offices in the morning they find on their desks a report of the Liverpool market of that morning; each morning paper has two or three columns filled with telegrams of the preceding evening from all parts of Europe, and not unfrequently there appears among these telegrams a notice of the following kind:—‘TheTimesof to-day has an article in which it says,’&c., &c., giving the substance of that morning’s leader.”The present writer can illustrate this point by an actual occurrence in his own experience. Every reader will remember the terrible explosion in the Regent’s Park, which did so much damage, and which happened about half-past three in the morning. He was then occupying the post of“telegraphic editor,”&c., on the staff of theAlta California, the oldest journal published on that coast. The news of the explosion reached him by telegram at 11.30 theevening before, that is,apparently, before it happened! TheAltatherefore was able to give the sad intelligence to all its readers—some few of them as early as four o’clock—the next morning, while the London newspapers of the early editions could naturally have nothing about it, as they were printed before its occurrence.Mr. W. F. Rae, a writer before quoted in regard to the character which the city unfortunately acquired in early days, says of it:—“From being a bye-word for its lawlessness and licentiousness, the city of San Francisco has become in little more than ten years as moral as Philadelphia, and far more orderly than New York.”The fact is that one must obtain a“permit”to carry a revolver at all, and that permission cannot properly be obtained by anyone of dissipated or dangerous character. A heavy fine is inflicted on any one wearing a pistol without having secured the necessary authority. The same writer says:—“That the Golden State is of extraordinary richness is well known to every traveller. To some, as to me, it may have been a matter of rejoicing to discover that California is also a land teeming with unexpected natural beauties and rare natural delights.”He quotes approvingly Lieutenant-Governor Holden’s speech at a festive meeting held in Sacramento, California, on the completion of the Pacific Railway.“Why, sir,”said the Lieutenant-Governor, a gentleman who had himself done much towards the successful consummation of that grand enterprise,“we have the bravest men, the handsomest women, and the fattest babies of any place under the canopy of heaven!”Baron Hübner, in his published work,13says of the climate,“It is a perpetual spring;”and then, alluding to the decreased yield of gold, remarks truly,“Its real riches lie in the fertility of the soil.”And once more, Margharita Weppner, the German lady-traveller before mentioned, says, speaking of a fruit-show she visited:—“What I saw there could only be found in California, for I have never seen anything to equal it, even in the tropics.”She adds, enthusiastically:—“This beautiful city of the golden land I prefer to any other in America. My preference is due to the agreeable kind of life which its people lead, and to the extraordinary salubrity of the climate.”The present writer has preferred to collate from these independent sources rather than from his own long experience; but he can testify to the truth of every one of the above statements. One of the grandest features in San Francisco’s present[pg 31]and assured future success is the fact that the steamship companies of the whole Pacific make it their leading port.From San Francisco the traveller bent on seeing the world can proceed to New Zealand and Australia, calling at Honolulu in the Hawaïan Islands, and Fiji, on the way;orhe can make his way to China, calling at Japan, in steamships having perhaps the most roomy accommodation in the world;orhe can reach Panama and South American ports, calling at Mexican portsen route, by steamships which pass over the most pacific part of the Pacific Ocean;or, again, he can make delightful trips northwards to Californian and Oregonian and British Columbian ports;or, once again, southwards to ports of Southern California. These lines are running constantly, and the above list is far from complete. Whither away?

The Great Trans-Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The“Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a“Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The“Great Egg-shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away?

The Great Trans-Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The“Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a“Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The“Great Egg-shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away?

Sufficient mention of New York has already been made in this work. The tourist or traveller bound round the world, viâ the great trans-continental railway and San Francisco, has at starting from the commercial metropolis of America, and as far as Omaha, a choice of routes, all the fares being identical for a“through ticket”to the Pacific. You may go among the Pennsylvanian mountains and valleys, and catch many a glimpse of the coal and coal“ile”fields; the country generally being thickly wooded. The Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, and Fort Wayne Railway passes through really grand scenery, and the construction of the road has been a work of great difficulty, involving extensive cuttings and embankments and long tunnels. The road takes a serpentine course among the mountains, and at one point, known as the“Horse-shoe Bend,”the line curves round so much that it almost meets itself again. A train following your own appears to be going in the opposite direction. The only city of any importance on this route, before Chicago is reached, is Pittsburg, the busy, coaly, sooty, and grimy—a place reminding one of Staffordshire, and abounding in iron and cutlery works. It is situated among really charming scenery, near where the Monongahela, Alleghany, and Ohio rivers meet, and is an ugly blot among the verdant and peaceful surroundings. After leaving Pittsburg the railroad passes through a charmingly fresh and fruitful country, watered by the Ohio.“Long stretches of green meadows, shut in by hill and dale, shady nooks, cosy farm-houses, and handsome villas, steamers, barges, boats, and timber-rafts—almost as large as those famous Rhine rafts—on the river, make up a varied and most attractive scene.”Next you reach Indiana, a country of fairly good soil, bad swamps, fearful fever and ague, and an indolent and shiftless people. In general terms it is a good country to leave.

But the tourist’s popular route from New York to Chicago is that briefly known as“The Great Central.”At Niagara it passes over a bridge spanning the river below the great Falls, where a tolerable view is obtainable. Most tourists naturally stop a day or two at the Falls, where there are fine hotels. They have been so often described that every schoolboy knows all about them. They are especially worth seeing under their winter aspect, when miniature icebergs and floes are falling, crashing, and grinding with the water. Below the Falls these will bank up to a considerable height, and the river is in places completely frozen over. From the rocks huge stalactites of hundreds of tons of ice depend. The contrast of the dashing green waters with the crystal ice and virgin snow around is very beautiful.[pg 15]Some idea of the volume of water may be gathered from this fact: the Niagara River a mile and a half above the Falls is two and a half miles wide, and is there very deep. At the Falls all this water is narrowed to about 800 yards in breadth. A traveller already mentioned6thus describes her impressions:—

“Nor do I think that the most powerful imagination can, with its greatest effort, attain even an approximate notion of the awful sublimity of this natural wonder. Like all other stupendous things which the mind has been unaccustomed to measure and to contemplate, Niagara requires time to grow upon one. The mind also demands time to struggle up to its dimensions, and time to gather up its harmonies into the mighty tones which finally fill the soul with their overwhelming cadences, and whose theme, ever-varying but still the same—as in the hands of a Handel or a Beethoven—thunders through the whole extent of one’s being—‘Almighty Power!’

“The chief impression produced upon the mind by Niagara is the perpetuity of immeasurable force and grandeur. This it is which lends such a strange fascination to the Falls; however pressingly one is desirous of getting away, one is obliged to turn back again, and yet again, like the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. There is nothing in the way of natural scenery which has stamped itself so clearly, indelibly, and awfully on my mind as this gigantic magnificence; as this mighty body of waters, gliding stealthily but rapidly on its onward course above the Falls, springing forward more wildly, more exultingly, as it nears the brink, until it leaps over into the abyss to swell the mighty canticle, which, for thousands and thousands of years, by day and by night, through every season, has ascended in tones of subdued thunder to the Creator’s throne.”

Passing over all intermediate points, the traveller at length reaches the Garden City, Chicago. This, which used to be counted a western city—it is 900 miles west of New York—is now considered almost an eastern one. And it must be remembered that this place of half a million souls is a port. Large sailing-vessels and steamers enter and leave it daily, and through Lake Michigan and the chain of other lakes can reach the ocean direct. There are miles on miles of wharfs, and it is generally considered one of the“livest”business places in America. Handsomely laid-out and built, the city now hardly bears a trace of the terrific conflagration which in 1871 laid three-fourths of the finest streets in ruins.

From Chicago to Omaha the various routes have little to interest the ordinary traveller, and so, while speeding on together, let us dine in a Pullman hotel car. On entering you will be presented with a bewildering bill of fare, commencing with soups and finishing with ice-cream and black coffee. The dinner is served on little separate tables, while the purity of the cloths and table napkins, the brightness of the plate, and the crystal clearness of the glass-ware, leave nothing to desire. You can have a glass of iced water, for they have an ice-cellar; you can obtain anything, from a bottle of beer to one of Burgundy, port, or champagne; and cigars are also kept“en board;”while at the particular point indicated you will not pay more than seventy-five cents (about three shillings) for the dinner. It must be admitted that the liquid refreshments are generally very dear: a“quarter”[pg 16](i.e., twenty-five cents, the fourth of a dollar) for any small drink, fifty cents for a very small bottle of Bass, and wines expensive in proportion. Still you dine at your ease and leisure, instead of rushing out with a crowd at the“eating stations,”where the trains usually stop three times a day. We have the authority of Mr. W. F. Rae for stating that“no royal personage can be more comfortably housed than the occupant of a Pullman car, provided the car be an hotel one.”7

A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.

A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.

At Omaha, on the Missouri, the Pacific Railwaypropercommences, although the various New York and other lines, as we have seen, connect with it. The river, irreverently known on the spot as“The Great Muddy,”from the colour of its water and its numerous sand and mud banks, is crossed at this point by a fine bridge.Aproposof the said banks, which are constantly shifting, a story is told of a countryman who, years ago, before the age of steam ferries, wanted to cross the Missouri near this point. He did not see his way till he observed a sand-bank“washing-up,”as they call it, to the surface of the water near the shore on which he stood. He jumped on it, and it shifted so rapidly that it took him clear across the river, and he was able to land on the opposite side! The story is an exaggerated version of fact. The shifting sand-banks make navigation perilous, and good river pilots command a high figure.

The literature of the railway has hardly yet been attempted. It is true that scarcely a day passes without something of interest transpiring in connection therewith: now some grand improvement, now a terrible accident or narrow escape, and now again the opening of some important line. The humours of railroad travel—good and bad—often enliven the[pg 17]pages of our comic journals, while the strictly mechanical aspect of the subject is fully treated in technical papers. But the facts remain that all this is of a transient nature, and that the railway can hardly be said yet to have a literature of its own.

MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.

MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.

The following episodes mainly refer to the grand railway under notice, which is by all odds the longest direct road on the surface of the globe. From New York to San Francisco the distance by this railway is 3,300 miles, and the ticket for the through journey is about two feet long! This would be more justly described as a series of tickets or coupons. The writer has crossed the American continent twice by this route, his first trip having been made on its completion in 1869, when, as correspondent of a daily journal, he had ample facilities for examining it in detail. In Chicago he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Pullman, who kindly furnished him with information which in those days, at all events, was new to the British public. He was even then trying to get his famous carriages introduced into England; as events proved, it took him several years to get them even tested. In this connection he is credited with abon mot. He was speaking of our land in the highest terms, but, like many Americans, did not think we adopted new ideas with sufficient readiness.“It is a grand country,”said he,“a grand country. But you have to be bornveryyoung there;”meaning that otherwise you might grow grey in the consummation of even a promising scheme.

When the writer first crossed the continent the railway was very much in the rough. Rails laid at the rate of seven, and, on one occasion,tenmiles a day, can hardly be implicitly relied upon; much of the road was flimsily ballasted, and many of the bridges were temporary wooden structures of a shaky order. The train had sometimes to literally crawl along; passengers would often get off and walk some distance ahead, easily beating the locomotives, and be found seated on the boulders at the side of the road, having had time for a quarter of an hour’s smoke. Mr. James Mortimer Murphy, in his“Rambles in Northwestern America,”gives some similar experiences on a still rougher line on which he travelled from Wallula, on the Columbia River, to a point in Washington Territory. The railroad was only fifteen miles long, and had wooden rails. Having secured an interview with the president, secretary, conductor, and brakesman of the road—represented by one and the same individual—he was booked as a passenger, and placed on some rough iron in an open truck, with instructions to cling to the sides, and be most careful not to stand on the floor if he cared anything about his limbs. The miserable little engine gave a grunt or two, several wheezy puffs, a cat-like scream, and finally got the train under weigh, proceeding at the headlong speed of two miles an hour,“rocking,”says the narrator,“like a canoe in a cross sea. The gentleman who represented all the train officials did not get on the train, but told the engineer to go on, and he would overtake him in the course of an hour. Before I had proceeded half a mile I saw why I was not permitted to stand on the floor of the truck, for a piece of hoop-iron, which covered the wooden rails in some places, curled up into what is called a‘snake head,’and pushed through the wood with such force that it nearly stopped the train. After this was withdrawn the engine resumed its course, and at the end of seven hours hauled one weary passenger, with eyes made sore from the smoke, and coat and hat nearly burnt off by the sparks, into a station composed of a rude board shanty, through whose apertures the wind howled, having made the entire distance of fifteen miles in that time.”The drivers of the passing“prairie schooners,”as the waggons drawn by eight or more pairs of mules or oxen are called, occasionally challenged the president of the line to run a race with them in his old machine; but he scorned their offers, and kept quietly walking beside his train. This eccentric railway has since been superseded by one much more desirable, while in justice to the great line referred to, it must be said that it is now, and long has been, in admirable condition, and that it is crossed by numerous express, emigrant, and freight trains daily.

The Indians have never given the trans-continental railway companies much trouble since the completion of the lines. Early in its history a story is told, however, of the Chien or Dog Indians, from whom the town of Cheyenne takes its name. They had a strong prejudice against the iron horse with the fiery eyes, and determined to vanquish him. Some thirty of them mounted their ponies, and urging them up the line, valiantly charged a coming train. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that fragments of defunct red men were found shortly afterwards strewed about the road, and that the tribe has not since repeated the experiment. Perhaps better is the true story of the Piute Indians of Nevada, who tried to catch a train, and found that they had“caught a Tartar”instead. Annoyed by the snorting monster, they laid in ambush, and as it approached dexterously threw a lasso, such as is used for catching cattle, over the“smoke stack,”[pg 19]or funnel of the locomotive, while a number of them held on to the other end of the rope. The engine went on its way unharmed; but it is said that the eccentric gymnastics performed by the Indians, as they were pulled at twenty-five miles an hour over the rocks and boulders at the side of the track, were more amusing to the passengers than to themselves.

Most readers will have heard of the celebrated“Cape Horn,”high up among the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the Central Pacific Railway rounds the edge of a fearful cliff. The traveller is there between six and seven thousand feet above the sea level; and at the particular point of which mention is now made there is a precipice descending almost perpendicularly to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. Above, again, rise the walls of the same rocky projection to a still greater height. The sublimity of the spot is undoubted, but as regards the passengers, the ridiculous too often appears upon the scene. Most ladies and many timid men audibly shudder at this juncture, and after taking a hasty glance downwards at the turbulent Truckee River dashing round the base of the precipice, retire to the other side of the carriage, where there is nothing but the prospect of a rough-hewn rocky wall a foot or so off the carriages. Is it with the idea of ballasting the train? Perhaps like the ostrich, they think themselves out of danger, when danger is hidden!

Not very far from the above spot, on the western side of the mountains, where the grades are particularly steep, an accident occurred a few years ago which had more of the comic element than the serious. A train, proceeding at a rapid rate, broke in two, the locomotive and several carriages dashing on, while the second half of the train followed at slower speed. At length the foremost car of this part of the train left the rails, and breaking off from the couplings, turned bottom upwards on the embankment, just coming to an anchor at the edge of a ravine, into which, had it fallen, no one could have been saved. A husband of Falstaffian proportions was in one of the foremost carriages which had proceeded with the locomotive, and as soon as they stopped he scrambled off, running back to the scene of the accident, hurrying and stumbling and shinning himself on and over the rough roadway and obtrusive sleepers, for his wife was in one of the hindmost cars, and he feared the worst. At last he approached the wreck, where his wife was seen standing, calmly waving a handkerchief, she having climbed out through one of the windows, almost unhurt. She had just been tending the one damaged person of the whole number. That individual, in his anxiety to grasp something as the carriage overturned, had seized on the hot stove, and was badly, though not seriously, burned.

Not altogether a nuisance is an institution inseparably connected with American trains—the peripatetic boy who offers you one minute a newspaper, the next a novel, and then anything from a cigar or a box of sweetmeats to a“prize package.”These latter are of all values, from a twenty-five cent package of stationery to a bound book at a dollar and a half, about one in a hundred of which may possibly contain a money prize. The writer had been a good customer as regards paper-covered novels, and his plan was to sell the books back at half-price, then purchasing a new story, and this, of course, suited the boys well enough. In consequence of these and other purchases, he was one day allowed to win a five-dollar“greenback”in a prize package. He was somewhat annoyed afterwards to find that he had been used really as the“decoy duck.”The news of his winnings flew through the carriage, and even through the train, and the enterprising youngster soon[pg 20]sold a dozen or so of the same packages, and, it may be added, the same number of purchasers. There were no more prizes that day!

ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.

ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: A SCENE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS.

A newspaper is published regularly on the overland trains of the Pacific Railway. There are telegraph stations everywhere on the route, and the latest news is handed“aboard”to the editor, leader-writer, compositor, and pressman—represented by, or condensed into, one and the same individual—as soon as the train arrives, and is immediately“set up”and printed. Thus“specials,”“extra specials,”and“special extra specials”follow one another in rapid succession, and keep the train alive with excitement.

A term which has come into vogue here originated on the Pacific Railway during the writer’s stay in California. A terrible accident occurred near Oakland, in which one[pg 21]train of the long cars usual in the United States met and literally“telescoped”another. The expression was used in a rather curious way in San Francisco for some time afterwards. If a business man in a hurry ran into another person—say, for example, coming round a corner—the latter would ejaculate,“Hi! are you trying totelescopea fellow?”

The writer will not soon forget his ride from Laramie to Sherman, a station on one of the ridges of the Rocky Mountains, which the Pacific Railway crosses at an altitude of over 8,000 feet. Armed with a pass from the company, the courteous station-master at the former place made no objection to his accompanying a locomotive with a snow-plough attached in front, then starting ahead of the regular train. The plough was a rough specimen of its kind, in form not greatly unlike the ram of an ironclad, and was constructed of sheet-iron, covering a strong wooden frame. But it did its work efficiently, scattering the soft snow on either side in waves and spray, reminding one of the passage of some great ocean steamship through the billows. The snow had drifted in places till it was five or six feet deep on the road, but this proved child’s play to the plough, and the services of the navvies, who, seated on the coal, were swinging their legs over the side of the tender, were not required. The greatest danger on the line, now so amply protected by great snow sheds—literally wooden tunnels—and snow fences, arises from snow which has thawed, frozen, re-thawed, and re-frozen until it is literally packed ice. The wheels of a locomotive, arrived at such a point, either revolve helplessly, without progressing, or run clean off the metals.

The mention of the effect of ice on the rails recalls a story told by Colonel Bulkley, when the latter was chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. The colonel during the civil war in the States was at the head of a constructing party, who built temporary lines of telegraph to follow the advancing northern army. The driver of a train which passed through the district in which they were engaged had been ordered to stop nightly and pick the party up, but one night neglected to do so, and the weary constructors had to tramp a dozen miles in the dark to the nearest village. The men naturally determined that this should not occur again, and so next morning armed themselves with several boxes of bar soap. What for? To soap the rails! Colonel Bulkley tells gleefully how they rubbed it on for about a quarter of a mile, how the train arrived at the place, and after gliding on a certain distance, from the momentum it had acquired, came nearly to a standstill, and how the men jumped on and told the joke to everybody. The engineer next day did not forget to remember them.

“Some writers strongly advise the traveller to make a halt at Sherman station,”says Mr. Rae.“The inducements held out to him are mountain scenery, invigorating air, fishing and hunting. A sojourn among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains has the attraction of novelty to recommend it. Life there must be, in every sense of the word, a new sensation. But some sensations are undesirable, notwithstanding their undoubted freshness. That splendid trout swarm in the streams near Sherman admits of no dispute. Yet the disciple of Isaak Walton should not be tempted to indulge rashly in his harmless and charming sport. It is delightful to hook large fish; but it is less agreeable to be pierced through by arrows. Now, the latter contingency is among the probabilities which must be taken into consideration. A few weeks prior to my journey, one of the conductors of the train by which I travelled, learned, by practical experience, that fishing among the[pg 22]Rocky Mountains has palpable and painful drawbacks. Having taken a few days’ holiday, he went forth, fishing-rod in hand, to amuse himself. While whipping the stream in the innocence of his heart, he was startled to find himself made the target for arrows shot by wild Indians. He sought safety in flight, and recovered from his wounds, to the surprise as much as to the gratification of his friends. His story did not render me desirous of sharing his fate.”

The Great Plains, over which the“prairie schooners”8toil, and the trains now fly, have a dreary interest of their own. In summer they are hot and dusty, and the contemplation of nearly unlimited sage-brush, and the occasional prairie dog or hen, is not enlivening; while the constant recurrence of skeletons bleaching in the sun—skeletons of overworked mules, horses, and oxen, and sometimes of the human animal—is apt to make one melancholy. But on a winter moonlight evening, when covered with snow, which has thawed in the day, and becomeglacéat night, they resemble one vast glittering lake, with the brush-covered hillocks standing for islands. The buffaloes, once so common, are rarely or never seen near the railway. In that more fertile portion of the plains nearer the Missouri, in Nebraska and adjoining states, it is also possible that the oft-times grand sight of the prairie on fire may be witnessed from the train. The writer was, one evening in May, 1868, in company with others, in a Pullman car, when huge massive clouds of smoke hanging over the horizon appeared in view. Soon it became evident, as the train approached the spot, that the prairie was on fire for miles, although fortunately at some distance from the line. The flames rose fiercely to the peaceful, starlit sky; the homesteads of settlers, trees, and hillocks stood out black against the line of destroying fire; while over all a canopy of smoke hung heavily, affording a scene not soon to be forgotten.

Westward from the high point where Sherman stands, the railway line makes a rapid descent to the Laramie Plains, the trains going down, not merely by their own weight, but with brakes tightly screwed down. At Dale Creek, on this section of the line, a wonderful bridge is crossed. It is 650 feet long, and in the centre of the deep ravine it bridges is 126 feet high. It is built entirely of wood, was erected in thirty days, and is a perfect puzzle of trestle-work.“More than one passenger,”says Mr. Rae,“who would rather lose a fine sight than risk a broken neck, breathes more freely, and gives audible expression to his satisfaction, when once the cars have passed in safety over this remarkable wooden structure.”Now the train is again proceeding rapidly; in twenty miles, the descent of 1,000 feet is accomplished. Next, Laramie City is reached, round which is a good grazing country. This is succeeded by the plains known as“The Great American Desert,”another barren sage-brush-covered stretch of country. And yet—in addition to the fact that even sage-brush is good for something, a decoction of it being recommended in cases of ague—the desert has been proved to contain its treasures. At Carbon, and other stations on the line, fine deposits of coal have been found, and are worked to advantage. It was at first feared that all the coal for the railway would have to be transported from far distant points.

Among the wonders of the plains are the huge rocks and bluffs known as the“Buttes,”which often rise from comparatively level ground, and in detached spots. Seen in the gloaming, their often grotesque forms appear weird and unearthly, and the effect is increased by the fact that all around is silent and desolate, and their mocking echoes to the snorting iron horse are the only sounds that are heard. Some of these rock-masses are columnar, and others pyramidal, in form; some assume the shape of heads, human or otherwise. Now they rise in huge walls, with as wonderful colouring as have the cliffs at Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight; they are often several hundred feet in height. One, particularly noted by the writer, had almost the exact form of an enormous dog seated on its haunches.

As the train approaches the confines of Mormondom some specially grand scenery is met and passed. The stern and rugged ravine known as Echo Cañon9is shut in by abrupt and almost perpendicular sandstone and conglomerate cliffs, with many a crag standing sentinel-like, and rising high towards heaven, over the impetuous, brawling Weber river. Close to the Mormon town of Echo there is a cliff 1,000 feet high, whichoverhangs its basefifty feet. There is also a rock known as“The Sphinx of the Valley,”from a resemblance to the original. Weber Cañon succeeds the first-named, and in this is to be noted a remarkable and nearly perpendicular cleft in the cliff—well known as“The Devil’s Slide.”Further on, and the train arrives at“The Devil’s Gate,”where the stern rock-walls narrow, and the dark hills approach each other closely. Here the river becomes a boiling and furious rapid, white with foam, hurrying onward with terrible impetuosity, and rollingtonsof boulders before its resistless course. Some of the early railway bridges were quite washed away by it, and many difficulties were met in the construction of the line, heavy tunneling almost obviously having been necessary in some places. But all obstacles were successfully overcome. Emerging from the gloomy, rugged cañon, the more or less fertile and cultivated Weber valley is, by contrast, a perfect glimpse of Paradise.

Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his“City of the Saints.”The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the“junction”for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining-rooms, book-stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked −16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing-point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the“city”in a“mud-waggon,”a kind of packing-case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be[pg 24]one-third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill-side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent.

CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.

CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.

At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans-continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by theNew York Heraldthat“railway communications corrupt good Mormons,”to which President Young is stated to have replied that“he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.”And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.

This is not the place for any discussion of the Mormon mystery. It is easy to laugh at it, and say with Artemus Ward that,“While Brigham’s religion was singular, his wives were plural.”The fact remains that, in hundreds of cases, Mormons had and have but one wife; although, theoretically, they approve of polygamy. The further point[pg 25]remains that no Mormon was allowed to have more than one helpmeet unless he could prove that his means were amply sufficient for her support. Industry was the keystone of Brigham Young’s teachings, however otherwise mixed with fanaticism and superstition, and the result has been that thousands of people, mostly poor, who settled in an unpromising-looking country, have now homes and farms of their own, and that by sheer hard work the desert has been made literally“to blossom as the rose.”

A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.

A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.

Salt Lake City has been laid out with care, and the streets are wide and well kept; while, excepting those of a small business centre, every house has a very large garden attached. The days of the“avenging angels,”or Danites, is over, and every man’s life and property are nowadays safe there, although at one time many suspected or obnoxious persons were, as our American cousins say,“found missing.”On one terrible occasion—the Mountain Meadow massacre—a whole train of emigrants who, on their way to California, had encamped near the city, were murdered by Indians, whom, there is no doubt, the Mormons had incited to the deed. A dignitary of the Mormon Church, Bishop Lee, suffered the death-penalty at the hands of the United States authorities for his share in the transaction. The emigrants, then passing with their families by the hundred, had, there is no doubt, much aggravated the Mormons by jeering and mockery, and sometimes by purloining their cattle and goods. There has been for many years a garrison of United States troops kept at Camp Douglas, a short distance from Salt Lake City, for the protection of Gentiles,10and the regulation of affairs generally.

One of the best features of this strange community is the marked absence of drunkenness and profligacy. Most Mormons are teetotallers, and drink little more than tea or coffee, or the crystal water which runs in deep brooks through every street, and has its birth in the heights of the beautiful snow-clad Wahsatch Mountains, which are a great feature in the scenery of Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City has a remarkable building, known by the faithful as“The Tabernacle,”and by the irreverent as the“Big Egg-shell,”from the oval form of its roof. It holds 8,000 persons, or, under pressure, even more. It has an organ in point of size the second in America. The writer attended a service there, given in honour of some missionary Mormons who were about to part for Europe. The Salt Lake theatre is another feature of the place, and has a good company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses. We once saw there some twenty-five of Brigham Young’s family in the front rows of the pit. Formerly, it is said, payment at the doors was taken“in kind,”and a Mormon would deposit at the box-office a ham, a plump sucking-pig—not alive—a bag of dried peaches, or a dozen mop-handles, maybe, for his seats!

Taking a last glimpse of the great Salt Lake, passing Corinne, where, when it was only six weeks old, a bank and a newspaper office, both in tents, had been established, the train proceeds through a more or less barren district on its way to Nevada, the Silver State, a country where, for the most part, life is only endurable when one is making money rapidly. Those who would see some of the silver mines with comparative ease“get off”the train at Reno, thence proceeding by branch rail to Virginia City and Gold Hill, places where that form of mining life may be studied to perfection. So great has been the yield of the Nevada and other silver mines of adjoining territories, that, as most of us know, the value of silver has actually depreciated. Some of the millionaires of San Francisco gained their wealth in Nevada.

In the United States the distances between leading places is so great that the fares charged, albeit generally moderate, cannot suit slender purses, while empty pockets are nowhere. In consequence many attempt to smuggle themselves through. The writer remembers, in about the part of the route under notice, a“dead-head”who had for several stations managed to elude the notice of the guard, but who was at last detected, and put off at a point a dozen or more miles from the nearest settlement. The“dead-head,”like the stowaway on board ship, of whom as many as fourteen have been concealed on a single vessel, and not one of them discovered by the proper authorities till far out at sea, is an unrecognised institution on the railways of the United States. Perhaps because our ticket system is more rigidly enforced, few attempt to take a free passage on English railways, although it is stated that a sailor was found, some little time since, asleepundera carriage, his arms and legs coiled round the brake-rods, having succeeded in nearly making the trip from London to Liverpool undiscovered. But, then, sailors are hardened to jars and shocks and noises, by being accustomed to the warring of the elements and so forth. The reader may remember that when, some few years ago, a Great Western train intersected and completely cut in two another which crossed its path, a sailor was found asleep on the seat of ahalfthird-class carriage, and that he was quite angry[pg 27]when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digression, so let us return to our subject—“dead heads.”Examples of this tribe have boasted that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good-natured guards—always“conductors”in America—will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been known to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open trestle-work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to“get!”He has often worked his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left in the snow half-way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, andvice versâ, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the vagabond deserve something for his enterprise? Perhaps in that land, now far more of corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become a better and more prosperous man.

Few tourists or travellers of leisure will fail to pay a flying visit to the grand and beautiful lakes and tarns lying among the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which separate the Silver from the Golden State, and are crossed by the Pacific Railway at an elevation of 7,042 feet above the sea level. From the Summit and Truckee stations there are all necessary facilities for reaching Donner, Tahoe, and other lakes, and for a stay among some of the grandest scenery in the world. The space occupied by this chapter would not describe in the barest details the grand mountain peaks, in one case rising to an altitude of 14,500 feet; the forests of magnificent trees; the quieter valleys“in verdure clad;”the waterfalls and cataracts and torrents of this Alpine region, which is within half a day’s journey of San Francisco, and but three or four hours from districts which for eight months of the year have the temperature of Southern Italy. Sufficiently good coaches convey you to leading points, where there are comfortable inns, or, in the summer months, travellers can do a little tent-life and open-air camping with advantage, the climate among the mountains being pure, bracing, and yet warm. On the leading lakes there are boats to be had, and on one or two there are small steamers plying regularly. Fishing and hunting can be indulged in to the heart’s content. The Sierra mountain trout is unsurpassed anywhere; while the sportsman can bag anything from a Californian quail to a grizzly bear—the latter, more especially,if he can. At most of the ordinary places of resort he will get the morning papers of San Francisco the same day, while Truckee boasts of a journal of its own, published, be it observed, 7,000 feet up the mountains!11

One of the writer’s recollections of the Sierra region is not so pleasant, but then it was under its winter aspect. He had been warned on leaving San Francisco that the railway might be“snowed up,”as it was in 1871-2, when for several weeks there was a blockade, and he was recommended to go to New YorkviâPanama. That voyage he had once made, and, besides, had a desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey[pg 28]from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to New York is made through 3,000 miles of snow. So he started, and for twelve hours or so all went well; but at the very“summit”of the railway line,i.e., its highest point among the Sierra Nevada, and near the station of the same name, the train came suddenly to a standstill in the gloom of a long“snow-shed”tunnel. Worse, as it seemed to some, the engine deserted it, and ran away, while the conductor was also absent for a long time. The carriages were not too well lighted, although quite warm enough, thanks to the glowing stoves, while memories of former blockades and half-starved passengers did not aid in reassuring the frozen-in travellers. Few slept that night, and, indeed, in one carriage, where there were several squalling babies and scolding females, it would have been difficult. Some of the older travellers, who had something of Mark Tapleyism about them, did their best to cheer the rest, and passed their wicker-covered demijohns—flasks are hardly enough for a seven days’ journey, which might be indefinitely extended—to those who had not provided themselves; one individual did his best to relieve the monotony with a song; but it fell rather flat, and melancholy reigned supreme.12But not for long. About seven next morning there was a commotion; a whistle in the distance; another nearer, which, hoarse as it was, sounded like heavenly music; and in a few minutes the good locomotive arrived, coupled with the train, and took it to the nearest station, where breakfast was ready for all who would partake. And that breakfast! Trout, chicken, venison, hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and molasses, and all the usual, and some other of the unusual, adjuncts of a regular American meal. The traveller must not expect all these luxuries at places nearer the centre of the continent, where, in some cases, all that you will get are beans and bacon, hot bread, tea or coffee, and perhaps stewed (dried) apples or peaches. At such places the excuse is sufficient, for everything is brought from a considerable distance, while the stations themselves have only been erected for the railway, and sometimes do not boast a single dwelling other than those immediately connected with it.

ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.

ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE INTERIOR OF A SNOW-SHED IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.

And so we descend, first to the foot-hills, and then to the plains of sunny California. Evidences of mining, past and present, are to be often seen: flumes and ditches through which the water is rushing rapidly, old shafts, and works, and mills, and boarding-houses. But the glory is departed, or rather changed for the more permanent vineyard and grain-field and orchard. Some of the finest wines and fruits are raised among these said foot-hills. And now we cross the American river, and are in Sacramento, the legislative capital of the State, a city surrounded by pleasant suburbs, handsome villas, and splendid mansions. Thence to San Francisco there is the choice of a ride on the Sacramento River to the Bay, or one of two railways—once so near the Bay City, few care to delay, and so press on. The railway bears you through a highly-cultivated country to Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco, and place of residence for many of its merchant princes. Here all the year round flowers are in full bloom. When leaving California in winter we noted roses, daisies, verbenas, pansies, violets,[pg 29]hollyhocks, calla lillies, and camellias, all growing in the open-air. This is not particularly surprising, for in our own country, in Devonshire and Cornwall, particularly at Penzance, a modified statement of the same nature might be made. At Oakland the railway runs out on a wooden pier or bridge, one mile and a quarter long, to the bay.

Of San Francisco and its glorious bay these pages have already furnished some account. It is the grand depôt for all that concerns commerce and travel between every part of America and much of Europe and the Pacific generally. The successful miner, trader, or farmer, from Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and all outlying territories, spends his money there; as the metropolis of the coast-trade of all kindcentresthere. Hence its success and cosmopolitan character.

In speaking of the cosmopolitan characteristics of the Golden City, a traveller (Mr. Carlisle), says that one of the good points, coming, as did he, from the remoteness of Japan, is the proximity of the city to Europe as regards the receipt of news.

“The city of San Francisco is eight hours behind London in the matter of time,[pg 30]and one turns this to good advantage. When her corn-merchants go down to their offices in the morning they find on their desks a report of the Liverpool market of that morning; each morning paper has two or three columns filled with telegrams of the preceding evening from all parts of Europe, and not unfrequently there appears among these telegrams a notice of the following kind:—‘TheTimesof to-day has an article in which it says,’&c., &c., giving the substance of that morning’s leader.”The present writer can illustrate this point by an actual occurrence in his own experience. Every reader will remember the terrible explosion in the Regent’s Park, which did so much damage, and which happened about half-past three in the morning. He was then occupying the post of“telegraphic editor,”&c., on the staff of theAlta California, the oldest journal published on that coast. The news of the explosion reached him by telegram at 11.30 theevening before, that is,apparently, before it happened! TheAltatherefore was able to give the sad intelligence to all its readers—some few of them as early as four o’clock—the next morning, while the London newspapers of the early editions could naturally have nothing about it, as they were printed before its occurrence.

Mr. W. F. Rae, a writer before quoted in regard to the character which the city unfortunately acquired in early days, says of it:—“From being a bye-word for its lawlessness and licentiousness, the city of San Francisco has become in little more than ten years as moral as Philadelphia, and far more orderly than New York.”The fact is that one must obtain a“permit”to carry a revolver at all, and that permission cannot properly be obtained by anyone of dissipated or dangerous character. A heavy fine is inflicted on any one wearing a pistol without having secured the necessary authority. The same writer says:—“That the Golden State is of extraordinary richness is well known to every traveller. To some, as to me, it may have been a matter of rejoicing to discover that California is also a land teeming with unexpected natural beauties and rare natural delights.”He quotes approvingly Lieutenant-Governor Holden’s speech at a festive meeting held in Sacramento, California, on the completion of the Pacific Railway.“Why, sir,”said the Lieutenant-Governor, a gentleman who had himself done much towards the successful consummation of that grand enterprise,“we have the bravest men, the handsomest women, and the fattest babies of any place under the canopy of heaven!”Baron Hübner, in his published work,13says of the climate,“It is a perpetual spring;”and then, alluding to the decreased yield of gold, remarks truly,“Its real riches lie in the fertility of the soil.”And once more, Margharita Weppner, the German lady-traveller before mentioned, says, speaking of a fruit-show she visited:—“What I saw there could only be found in California, for I have never seen anything to equal it, even in the tropics.”She adds, enthusiastically:—“This beautiful city of the golden land I prefer to any other in America. My preference is due to the agreeable kind of life which its people lead, and to the extraordinary salubrity of the climate.”The present writer has preferred to collate from these independent sources rather than from his own long experience; but he can testify to the truth of every one of the above statements. One of the grandest features in San Francisco’s present[pg 31]and assured future success is the fact that the steamship companies of the whole Pacific make it their leading port.

From San Francisco the traveller bent on seeing the world can proceed to New Zealand and Australia, calling at Honolulu in the Hawaïan Islands, and Fiji, on the way;orhe can make his way to China, calling at Japan, in steamships having perhaps the most roomy accommodation in the world;orhe can reach Panama and South American ports, calling at Mexican portsen route, by steamships which pass over the most pacific part of the Pacific Ocean;or, again, he can make delightful trips northwards to Californian and Oregonian and British Columbian ports;or, once again, southwards to ports of Southern California. These lines are running constantly, and the above list is far from complete. Whither away?

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