To the golden land; sketches of a trip to Southern California . over which consumed three nights and fourdays in the cars. The country may be described in asentence: 400 miles of swamp, 800 miles of a wilder-ness of trees and undergrowth interspersed with rudeTexan clearings, 700 miles of horrible desert, and 100miles of verdant beauty. Of Texas I have but space torepeat the witty description given by a bishop on thecars: Texas has more rivers and less water, morecows and less butter, more creed and less religion, thanany country. At one time we were 4500 feet above thesea, at another 200 feet
To the golden land; sketches of a trip to Southern California . over which consumed three nights and fourdays in the cars. The country may be described in asentence: 400 miles of swamp, 800 miles of a wilder-ness of trees and undergrowth interspersed with rudeTexan clearings, 700 miles of horrible desert, and 100miles of verdant beauty. Of Texas I have but space torepeat the witty description given by a bishop on thecars: Texas has more rivers and less water, morecows and less butter, more creed and less religion, thanany country. At one time we were 4500 feet above thesea, at another 200 feet below it. The desert must havebeen blood-curdling in pre-railway days. No water, noshelter, apparently no limit. Only sandy, rocky wasteswith scarce a green thing on them, and no cover from theburning heat of the day or the tornadic winds and water-spouts which now and anon burst over them in , however, thanks to George Stephenson, you careeralong as gaily as ApoUyons passengers in HawthornesCelestial Railroad, and when you reach the end, the desert,. TO THE GOLDEN LAND. 31 I repeat, is forgotten. Yet it was bad enough, and strangeenough. Thrice in one day I saw in the far distance shin-ing lakes of water, their banks lined with shadowy water there was not. It was but the mirage—wondroussham ; to us interesting merely, but to the pioneers andgold-seekers forty years ago how fatal a spoke just now of running along far below sea-level. Itis even so. We crossed for eighty miles where once flowedthe waters of the Californian Gulf The vfery names of thestations tell of the terrors and escapes of a painful past:Sweet Water, Painted Rock, Mohawk Summit, MammothTank, Flowing Well, Volcano Springs, Dry Camp, WhiteWater. As in Sahara, the horrid distances are measuredout by the names of the infrequent wells. At El Paso I took advantage of a long delay to cross theRio Grande and plant my feet in Mexico and in a Mexicantown. The latter is commonplace
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidtogoldenland, bookyear1889
