The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-05-07
ley inclosing it. which lies straight down

below the passing trains.
| 1t was up this slope l travelled yesterday
afternoon and evening. 1t takes two loco
motives to persuade the trains to ascend
I found a place after leaving Sacramento,
on the foremost, and had mountain ride
which think must be une1ualled consider
ing the mountains and the horse.
First there was the Sacramento valley
oak opening all, which, to most of your
readers needs no description. Only the
oaks are species not seen in Michigan or
Wisconsin. California is rich in oaks, and
these. scattered about as thickly as apple
trees in an old orchard. are the live oak,
all-leaved evergreen.
Then came the foot hills " and grad
ual change in the wood growth. The Man
camilla wood, with its shining stem and
dark green glistening leaf, mingled with
the oaks and the buckeye, which, in Cali
forna, is many stemmed bush, springing
from common root hung heavy with its
pear-shaped fruit, filling up the space be-
meath the taller oaks and the nut pines.
Finally, we came into the realm of the
conittra, and the tall stems sprang up
smooth. branchless, and tapering, rearing
their green coronals to the sky.
We are going up to the mountains! In a
valley on one hand lay a mining village
the most beautiful villages in the State are
these mining villages now. Down the
mountain side. on the other, ran the water.
led in sluices like a mill race, around 4
point here and bend there, and across
gorge yonder-the water to be used, under
the mighty power its descent gives it, to
tear the hill side down and wash the rocks
to pieces in "hydraulc mining mining,
that is, which consists in discharging a
stream of water with head Of a few hun
drcd feet, full in the face of hill side till
it is knocked into bits.-bts which contain
gold. of course, or are supposed TO.
But these too are left, as we go clanking
on through pitch dark tunnels, and over
trestle works that look like spiders webs,
and along the maze of dingy precipices;
the engine, coughing and straining in the
tug up the steepest grade yet yentured by
any engineer.
The day died out before we reached the
summit, bnt died into 4 cloudless moon
light so brilliant, SO silvery white In the
flood of light it poured across land and sky,
that one sent no regrets after the sunset.
Moonlight in the mountains and such
moonlight is something to be remembered
for life. lost all sense of the poor, every
day world, forgot so vulgar a thing as a
railway car, even the clank of the engine
seemed to come softened as from far away;
and l was sailing over pne-clad mountains,
silvery white, in an air Of balm and fra
GRANGE, and, in fact, think was about hall
asleep when my friend the engineer. pluck
ed my sleeve-we arc doubling Cape
Horn.
Round the .jutting mountain wall, So
called from its bold advance into the val
ley, and its precipitous face, the road winds
like ribbon. No human foot had ever
troddan this hight, as far as man may
Judge, till the first "hand = was lowered
down to lash himself to a tree and begin.
with pick and spade and crew, to cut a
shelf along the dizzy hight. Not even ali
Indian trail had ever passed where the long
train was passing now. The foot-sure saw
ages had never yentured here. Three
thousand feet sheer down lay the valley, in
the moonlight like lake, the mist slowly
rising and swaying, sivered by tie descend
ing light. The feathery tops Of the rock
anchored pines rose out Of the mist far be
low. Across the valley the other mountai:
frowned darkly, shaggy with bristling pine.
from base to summit.
That was one side.
On the other rose the almost perpendicu
lar wall of the mountain. round which VT
were rushing on shelf cut into the rock
wide enough for the rails, of course-wha
need of anything more, when they ar
reble-spiked, and the rolling stock of tho
best, and the engineer the safest man to b,
found?
If we went off {? If broken rail shoul'
be ahead, if rock should have rolled dow
beyond the curve yonder? Well suspec'
it would not make much difference, in thai
case, whether one was on the engine or il
a car yonder. 1t would amount to tn,
same thing, | think, when we all reached
the valley together.
But there has never been an accident.
and it is just such places as this that az,
most carefully guarded and where all pru
dence and forethought and skill are en-
gagged to be active.
do not know that have been able t,
give you half an idea of the magnitude OF
this undertaking, which has annihilateG
these weary desert spaces, and brought
East and West together. If l have sale
much about it, it Is because, after all
looking at it as l have, it seems to me tn,
railroad across the continent. the deubl,
iron bands that tie Omaha and Sacrament,
each together, over the mountains. across
vast deserts where human life finds nothin.
to sastain it, through the territories OF
tribes too, few years ago terror to the
whole border-It seems to me the railroad
is really the most wonderful thing one Sees
after all
Ex.President Fillmore.