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ably on the way, overtaken by storms of alkali sand, and the bones of thousands of oxen and horses bleach on these barren plains.
After three hundred miles of sage brush and alkali, we commence to climb the Sierra Nevadas, and for the next ten hours we see results of engineering skill that seem almost marvellous. Constantly ascending, we wind around the mountains on narrow shelves of rock, bri ge chasms at dizzy heights on trestle-work, and where no other course is practicable; boldly plunge through the hills, and emerge from dark funnels to dash onward through the gloom of miles of snow-sheds, by which alone this route is kept open in winter, and the road protected from the avalanches which sweep down the mountain sides. There are over fifty miles of these snow-sheds built of heavy timbers, and covered, roof and sides, with four-inch planks. They are somewhat aggravating to the traveler, as they cut off all view of the scenery, and leave him in a gloomy twilight which is neither night nor day.
On we glide past the summit, and the second morning after leaving Ogden commence the descent of the Western slope. We round “Cape Horn,” a bold promontory, which juts out and overhangs a valley 2,000 feet below, and half way up the face of the mountain on a narrow shelf of rock the trains wind round like some huge monster, where but a few years ago there was not even a foot trail—a place well calculated to unsettle the nerves of timid ladies. We pass it in safety, and turning to the left across the valley on the high trestle work bridge, and we feel inclined to hold our breath until the train reaches the solid embankment on the opposite side of the chasm.
Lower and lower we go, leaving the Alpine scenery behind us, and now, as if by magic, there opens before us the beautiful valley of the Sacramento. If is our first glimpse of the “Golden State,” and the picture is one long to be remembered. Pleasant farm houses, orchards loaded with fruit, smiling fields and fertile meadows, as far as the eye can reach, are in striking contrast with the desolate scenes of the past thirty-six hours. A short delay at Sacramento, the second city and Capital of California, and we continue on to Stockton, near which gold was first discovered in 1848.
