Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water

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

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

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

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

"'Here he comes!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"2. Q. What is this revelation called?

"A. A Word of Wisdom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VI

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE YOSEMITE VALLEY

I think we never felt more dirty or forlorn in our lives than on that bright morning when, crossing the bay in one of the palatial Oakland ferry steamers, sitting in the deck saloon, we were surrounded by a crowd of smartly-dressed "Frisco" ladies, particularly humiliated by the appearance of two of our fellow-travellers in the cars, in fresh morning toilettes. A bitter east wind was blowing in our teeth, and raising the muddy waters of the bay into "white horses," and the town with its straight lines running perpendicularly up the hill, showing the division of the streets into regular blocks, looked bleak and grey under the wintry sky.

We could not help being struck by the wonderful precision with which they run these enormous ferry-boats into a dock, fitted with exact nicety to their dimensions, rarely "bumping" against the floating piles, which, however give slightly to a pressure on either side as required.

As your foot is set on the wharf, an army of hotel "touts" besiege you, ready to devour you and your small hand-baggage, and it is with difficulty, and only after some display of firmness and decision, that you are allowed to select the natural choice of a first visit to San Francisco—the Palace Hotel. Rejecting the omnibus or large yellow coach, we took a carriage, to be as quickly as possible installed in a charming suite of rooms; all our possessions, from which we have been so long separated, once more gathered around us—luxury again after the four days of heat and discomfort in "the cars."

We have all heard so much, and for so long of "The Palace," that it is hard to be disenchanted. When the hotel was first built, it was a marvel of magnificence, but since then others as beautiful, as gigantic, as costly, have sprung up, by the side of which its celebrity is paling. The arches and white pillars repeat themselves seven times one above the other, round the four sides of the covered courtyard, and when lighted in the evening by the single pendant electric light, form a very brilliant and pretty sight. The attendance, as might be expected, is only moderate, increasing the feeling ever present of being only a unit among the host of visitors. You have the option of the American or European system, and there is an excellent restaurant, but the courtyard, the piazza, the long corridors leading to the ladies' entrance and waiting-rooms, are filled with groups of men lounging and hanging about; it is, in fact, a general meeting-place for the citizens, which renders it unpleasant for ladies. The rooms are not numbered according to floors, but the hotel is divided into blocks, called according to the street towards which it faces, and each block, with its separate lift and numbering, forms a house of itself.