New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-13
LETTERs FROM NEXT DOOR.

The Overland Route will soon be SO hack
ncyed that we can no more feel the spirit Of
adventure in journey TO San Francisco than
in a voyage to Fall River Already we roll
across the continent in such luxurious ease
barring occasional collisons-that it is hard to
realize that the Indian and the buffalo are not
yet banshed from the new pathway, and the
unbroken wilderness lies scarcely an arms
length from our car windows. When Professor
Pumpelly crossed Arizona in mail-coach, no
more than nine years ago, tho journey from
Missouri 10 the Pacific was an experience
of torment ending sometimes in rlving
madness. THE fatigue of uninterrupted trav-
cling" he writes, "by day and night
Gin n crowded coach, and in the most
uncomfortable positions, was beginning to
"tell seriously upon all tho passengers, and
was producing II condition bordering on
Insanity. Instances have occurred of tray-
" elers jumping in this condition from the
coach, and wandering off to a death from
starvation upon the desert" What is the
fatigue of uninterrupted travelling now 7 You
ride from New York to San Francisco in gided
luxury, with beds, clean linen, soap and water
and towels looking glasses and wax candles
stuffed touches and silken curtains, kitchen,
larder, and dining table, and n parlor-Organ
for the destruction Of ennui.
Perhaps the contrast between the new and
the 0ld-between the desert and mountains
which two or three years ago were thousand
miles away and the desert and mountains
which to-day are only next door-appears
most remarkable when we see how comfortably
a party Of delicate women can now loll at their
ease as they are whrled across the Allkal
plains. which SO lately were terror to the
stOutest hearts The experiences of q gallant
little company of ladies and gentlemen who,
with Mr. COlfax at their head, have just
crossed the continent, are narrated in a series
Of letters from n graceful correspondent wAo
long ago won foremost place in the favor
of readers Of TIE TRIBUNE. We begin the
series to-day, and can promise that the pleasant
authorizations excited by the writer's brilliant
reputation will not be disappointed. The
pictures drawn by this well-bmown pen haze
an interest and variety far beyond the ordinary
narratives of Pacific Railroad travel. They
show us not only the incidents of the journey,
but the features of that strange civilization
which has started up along the iron pathway
where the Woodworking pioneer jostes the
professor Of thimble-rig, aud the miners
cabin stands side by side with the plank
and canvas whisky palace. They show us
also the domestic interiors of tho mining
towns. not as they appear TO the student of
statistics, but as they impress the gentler sex,
who for such aspects of life have quicker eyes
and better powers of description than any man,
however experienced in the seeing of strange
countries. We may say indeed that in these
letters the remotest West and tho newest
regions of our great republic will be described
from point of view quite different from any
that has been taken heretofore and in style
which no writer upon that part Of the world
ha3 cycl SUR passed,