New-York tribune., 1869-05-29
TO THE PACIFIC.
THE NEW ROUTE TO THE EAST.
IFRoM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

" Out west" HOW ldl ~ -
" Well. good bye. Give my love to Fred MeCreihS1
and Evans. and when you get back come around ana
dine with me and wen talk over the trip" All III
the same tone as if the trip" had been 10 rhiiSu9,
phia or Boston for he accepts the new situation WIN
ponnine American readiness, and already regards
San Francisco as o suburb of tNew-York. Meah-
while. will wager that McCrellish and Evans,
true blue Californians already look upon NeW-Iork
as lesser San Francisco
Through Bergen Tunnel and past Jersey villas and
villages study The Erenn0 Gossip and The EreR'ng
Bed Blanket till they excite sufficient dTOwsiness, and
then 20 to bed in the Erie sleepingcar 1t is broad,
roomy and well ventilated, as seepng-cars ought to
be but its beds are old, uneven, and half exposed,
as beds ought not to be- 1t was up TO the times hVe
wears ago. but we must do better than this, Messrs
Gould g. Fisk, from the Atlantic to the Paclhc. III
runs evenly, however upon delightfully."- smooth
track | wake at sunrise 800 miles from New-Iork,
among the SUBMITS of one of our three great noun
tain ranges-summits which now only skirt our east
ern border, but which were 80 central hundred
years ago that it was proposed to name the Whole
continent Alleghania.
Our coach has the regular complement OF charae-
ters The man who blundered into the wrong car and
has to leave it, the man who left his shawl IN the
ticketofice and had to telegraph back for it; the
man who wants an extra blanket for his bed and
can't get it, the baby that cries; the wife who de-
cares that she has not slept wink, and VIII never
enter seepingcar again as long as she lives; tho
"lone woman" who, with her back turned, Keeps
the conductor waiting for five minutes while she
fishes out her ticket from Somewhere (where do Wo-
men keep their portemonnales, and why doht they
carry them in their pockets like other people ~ the
old stagcr with his own blanket slippers soap, tow
els, brushes, note-paper. pencils. paid envelopes
ready addressed to his wife at homo, and vial of
laudanum and flask of whisky for emergencies and
the satirst who solemny the conductor that
the company will break in six months if 1t runs such
costly sleeping-cars and who implores the eating
house keeper to explain how he can afford such
breakfast for q dollar.
The breakfast boted at Hornelsyille and our tram
divided the head gdes off way and the tail an
other as bad boys say snakes will do when they are
cut in two The head disappears Dunkirk-ward; the
tail yhsks us toward Buffalo. All around US are cold
hills. whose bold sweeps remind one little OF the
Rocky Mountains miles of mountain side and CREST
with great expanses Of dark pine and spruce, broken
here by a few hundred acres blackened and charred
by fre-motted there with the cheerier hues OF pop
lar and maple: streaked downward with narrow pave
ments of peeled logs lying lengthwise-ways upon
which little streams of water are turned and huge
tree trunks stripped of bark come shooting down Ike
lightning to gray sawmllls and shining ponds IN the
valleys slopng cleared fields with stumps waist hlgh
and white trunks, some erect and ghostly others
nrone and shattered; memorial and bleaching
homes Of old battles between man and nature other
fields with the stumps extracted and lying roots up
ward. like Titanic teeth or gathered into fences
where they seem assembled in mass meetings, or
drawn up in line of battle for last CHARGE herds
cf sheep, dingy and shaggy, and scattering horses
and cattle all browsing on the cold hlllsldes farm
houses of unpainted capboards or of bold, staring
white with here and there an old log cabin; villages,
too of staring white looking cold and bare as the
tombstones on the hillside grove and that overlook
them; farmers just beginning to plow; apple and
cherry blossoms in tho orchards voets and hepeticos
in the woods, yellow cowslips in the meadows and
dandelons in tho pastures, all peeping out tlmdly
10 inGuire into the rumor whispered to them by the
winds that Spring is climbing up toward their noun
tain retreat
At Portage we cross the highest wooden bridge on
the Continent and look down from the carwindow
three hundred feet to see the Genesee take leap
of seventy feet-one glitterng sheet of snow, and
diamond, and topaz. mile further down it leaps
again. hundred and ten feet, and yet mile fur
ther ninety feet. The two lower cascades are not
seen from the rain but only limited at by the yawn-
ing chasrn and rock walls Of the winding river. If
the Portage Falls were in Yosemite Valley, or among
the Alps, instead of twelve hours from the metropo
lis. they would be visited, and painted, and photo
graphed and written of great deal more
At Bufialo-the only change between New-York
and Chicago, we take a sleeping car Of the Lake
Shore and Southern Michigan, convenient smooth
running. and tastefully finished in black walnut,
Leaving the station by the same end at which
entered it. turns me around hopelessly thenceforth,
reason as Imay, cannot throw off tho feeling that
we are going wrong that New-York is before and
not behind us. Even the suggestion of Euclid-st..
Cleveland, of which we get glimpse from the win
dow. is not mathematical enough to correct my
bewildered senses until the spires of Chicago sud-
denly twist them around right again.
After q second night among the smooth fields,
noble forests broad apple and generous farm
houses of the lake shore morning finds us on the
level grassy, limtless prairies. Suddenly another
parallel train appears on the horizon and comes
nearer and nearer to u.s.. How like bird it skins
the prarie How graceful the ribbon of light smoke
that unwinds and streams above it! How perfectly
in tho morning sunlight sheet of clear
water between US, mirrors every face at the
windows every rolling wheel under the
coaches, every shining rod OF the loco
motiyel The shadow train underneath, all wrong
side up looks more real than the actual one above
Thirty-nine hours out, we reach Chicago. Not,
however, until our train has grown very long, and
every car is crowded. for we are on the high tide of
the Spring travel Into our omnibus from the station
to the hotel, twenty-three hopeless mortals are
packed There are several emgrant families-the
worn parents all with their ocks of serious earnest
eyed little girls and plump, careless, brown-faced
boys, for the Wife of the Period who comes West,
even from Massachusetts,, has increased. and multi
piled, aud repeuished the earth. Il dolt like this
country so much myself" said an old Eastern friend
70 me to-day, "butI love TO live in it because it is