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. 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
mentioned(6) thus 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” (_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)
[Illustration: A PULLMAN RAILWAY CAR.]
At Omaha, on the Missouri, the Pacific Railway _proper_ commences,
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. _Apropos_ of 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 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.
[Illustration: 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 a _bon 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
born _very_ young 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, _ten_
miles 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,” 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
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!
[Illustration: 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 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 to
_telescope_ a 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 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”(8) toil, 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 become _glacé_ at 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
Cañon(9) is 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, which _overhangs
its base_ fifty 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 rolling _tons_ of 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 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.
[Illustration: 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 the _New York Herald_ that “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 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.”
[Illustration: 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,(10) and 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,
asleep _under_ a 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 a _half_ third‐class
carriage, and that he was quite angry 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, and _vice 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 York _viâ_ Panama. That voyage he had once made, and, besides, had a
desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey 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.(12) But 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.
[Illustration: 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, 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 kind _centres_ there. 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, 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:—‘The _Times_ of 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 the _Alta California_, the oldest journal
published on that coast. The news of the explosion reached him by telegram
at 11.30 the _evening before_, that is, _apparently_, before it happened!
The _Alta_ therefore 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,(13) says 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 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; _or_ he can make his way to China, calling at Japan, in
steamships having perhaps the most roomy accommodation in the world; _or_
he can reach Panama and South American ports, calling at Mexican ports _en
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?