The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1869-07-23
From the Chicago Republie1u.
THE TRIP ACROSS THE CONTINENT
BY RAIL.

1 CT, SiHce the ADVENT OF t1aIsGYef to b
remembered across the continent" c
our worthy townsman. and the ''Vic
| President party" one might suppose TIL
way to have been reasonably smooth
To say nothing of those many thous
ands of stalwart men, and women toe
who have since rs been thronging thi
desert waste, in OK teams, mule teams
horse teams and on foot, who have haI
10 poet TO sing of their deeds of might
or historian to tell again the story o
their privations and exposures of MAJ
and beast, as they pIodded their wear,
six months way across the American
Sahara. All that, thanks to the Pacifi,
railroad, is a thing of the past now. II
a well appointed Pullman, with gooC
supply of ice and water, your moderI
traveller may cross the desert, and down
the valley of Bitter creek, and not swear
much.
But as to scenery, what of that ? no
much certainly; the Rocky Mountains
so far as they are seen from the railroad
are misnomer. The Pacific railroad
from Omaha TO the summit of the Black
Hills (the highest poiDD has not par.
allel for smoOthness and li9htness OF
grade, so far as the eye can determines
elsewhere upon earth. For monoto.
nous desertness, the whole country,
from about 200 miles west of the cross.
nag of the Missouri to the valley of the
Sacramento, has no parallel anywhere
except upon the Great African Sahara
and were it not for its minerals, might
have well been left as ''unexplored re-
gions," as it was upon the school maps
of our boyhOod.
If you take the Salt Lake excursion,
get lay-over check at Deseret. Desc
ret is name that isapplied to the point
of debOuchure of the Weber Canon
upon the Salt Lake Valley. 1t, like all
the other to-be- towns on the road, is in
the condition of incompleteness that
Jerusalem was when Nehemiah went to
rebuild it. Behold the city was great,
but the inhabitants were few and the
houses were not builded."
"A seven hours ride, more or less, uD-
on one of Wells Il Fargo's stages Gf
you are not a woman, and have anv
sense, you will get an outside seat)
through not unpleasant country, YOU
find yourself in the city of the saints,
and all for one greenback dollar. Pro-
vided, always, that the opposition lasts,
contamination devoutlv to be wished
for, for when omnibus men fall out,
honest travellers get their due, and new
er otherwise. Salt Lake City, already
the chief place of interest between the
two ends of the road, is destined TO be-
come place of no incOnsiderable i'm
pOrtance. With mountain scenery I'M
surpassed by the best of the Swiss Alps,
it combines good water supply, cultiva-
bic land, with mild and equable clim-
ate, hot springs, boating, fishing and
driving to such degree as to attract
When time, and the newt
able law of population has driven and
Overborne that beastly barbarism, Brig
ham Young's poIygamy, that he has so
impudently showed into the center of
this nineteenth century, in the face, and
spite of all the experience and moral
teaching of mankind, either Christian
or heather, it will become place of re-
sort and residence of the pleasure seek
ers, the invalid and the snOb-no incon-
siderable portion of mankind. Before
that time comes, its hotels, it is to be
hoped, will have other qualities per-
tanning to the first-ciass than solely, as
now, a first-class price.
These Mormons have done well in
that they have made this oasis blossom
with a harvest of plenty. But their
like their religion, is a
unique impudence. Their tabernacle,
with the largest seating capacity of any
on the continent, is, as an au-
dlence room, total failure its archi-
lecture is palpable cross between
Noah's ark and muskrat house, and is
as little adapted to the uses of the
speaker as the Cave of the Winds or
Echo canon. The temple. whose SUBJ
bear a faint semblance to the
Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, are, like
that famous structure, to be a ruin that
was never completed.
There is no part of the road from
Omaha to Sacramento that is worthy to
be characterized as mountain scenery,
except Weber canon and the Sierras of
California. The scenery of the Sierra
is of a type quite its own, as distinct as
that of the Swiss Alps, as that of the
parks and mountains of Colorado, as
that of the Yosemite, itself below, I'M
like either, but entitled to rank with
them all in the first place among the
grand nature of the world. In the two
elements of sublimity and grandeur
they are only surpassed by the best of
the Swiss Alps. On the road little of
incident is to be noted, as a whole,
scarcer of animal life, none are seen save
now and then an antelope and an Indi-
an, the former takes rapid flight to his
fastness in the desert, and the latter de-
lays not far long his march i'll the same
stopping only to gaze for a
moment upon the wonderful machine
of the white man, in whose menagerie
he, with his friends, the antelope and
buffalo, are so soon to be teathered
things; shown up in a side show at a
circus as rare animals, for quarter of a
dollar. ''Lo the poor Indian" Twenty
years ago, when your correspondent
first saw it Longw harf was busy mart,
and pretty much all there was of San
Francisco. The ships of every nation
rode tenantless at anchor in the bay
sailors and officers had gone to the
mines, then misty dream of Eldorado
in the deep uDexplored mountains.
Houses of cloth, mere booths, where
groceries wet and dry were stored and
sold monte. roulette and poker played
in every house, the chink of doubloons
the principle din of the street. The peo-
pie were unwashed, unshaven, semi
whose sole business seemed
to be gambling. But now all this has
given place to the mighty city of to-day
Long rows of granite, iron and brick !;
sand hills smoOthcd down to graceful
lines of Nicolson pavement, and busy
host of well dressed men give evidence
of progress.
Civilization has made progress west
ward since Columbus, from the pillars
Of Hercules to the Golden Gate, and
now at last the star that has been ever
moving toward the vest has set beneath
the shadows of the Sierra Nevada 1t
shall no longer be said that ''Westward
the star of empire takes its way" The
Occident has emerged into the Orient,
and the West and the East exist no long
er. The empire of Westward progress
finds its ne pins ultra at the Golden
Gate, there to meet the returning tide
of emigration, henceforth to flow in an
torrent from the West toward
the East, from that monster hive of pri-
meval humanity, the great Chinese ma
ton. The Chinaman is the coming
question, and no less the coming man I;
the natural enemy of the Irishman, as,