wedge which is to open an aperture for the Pacific Railroad about to be. At Saint Joseph (Mo.), better known by the somewhat irreverent abbreviation of St. Jo, I was introduced to Mr. Alexander Majors, formerly one of the contractors for supplying the army in Utah—a veteran mountaineer, familiar with life on the prairies. His meritorious efforts to reform the morals of the land have not yet put forth even the bud of promise. He forbade his drivers and employes to drink, gamble, curse, and travel on Sundays; he desired them to peruse Bibles distributed to them gratis; and though he refrained from a lengthy proclamation commanding his lieges to be good boys and girls, he did not the less expect it of them. Results: I scarcely ever saw a sober driver; as for profanity—the Western equivalent for hard swearing—they would make the blush of shame crimson the cheek of the old Isis bargee; and, rare exceptions to the rule of the United States, they are not to be deterred from evil talking even by the dread presence of a "lady." The conductors and road-agents are of a class superior to the drivers; they do their harm by an inordinate ambition to distinguish themselves. I met one gentleman who owned to three murders, and another individual who lately attempted to ration the mules with wild sage. The company was by no means rich; already the papers had prognosticated a failure, in consequence of the government withdrawing its supplies, and it seemed to have hit upon the happy expedient of badly entreating travelers that good may come to it of our evils. The hours and halting-places were equally vilely selected; for instance, at Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, the only points where supplies, comfort, society, are procurable, a few minutes of grumbling delay were granted as a favor, and the passengers were hurried on to some distant wretched ranch,[1] apparently for the sole purpose of putting a few dollars into the station-master's pockets. The travel was unjustifiably slow, even in this land, where progress is mostly on paper. From St. Jo to Great Salt Lake City, the mails might easily be landed during the fine weather, without inconvenience to man or beast, in ten days; indeed, the agents have offered to place them at Placerville in fifteen. Yet the schedule time being twenty-one days, passengers seldom reached their destination "before the nineteenth; the sole reason given was, that snow makes the road difficult in its season, and that if people were accustomed to fast travel, and if letters were received under schedule time, they would look upon the boon as a right.
Before proceeding to our preparations for travel, it may be as well to cast a glance at the land to be traveled over.
- ↑ "Rancho" in Mexico means primarily a rude thatched hut where herdsmen pass the night; the "rancharia" is a sheep-walk or cattle-run, distinguished from a "hacienda," which must contain cultivation. In California it is a large farm with grounds often measured by leagues, and it applies to any dirty hovel in the Mississippian Valley.
