The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1871-12-21
ON A LOCOMOTIVE.


while iourneying in the Rocky Noun
tains. lie says:
g Nav I get on with your" asked an
engineer on the Pacific railroad, at a
station six or seven thousand feet above
the level of the sea. Certainly" he
said "but hold fast tight, or you may
fall off.
"Toot! toot!" went the whistle, and
the long anaconda of railroad train hrs
went crawling along the rocks, but soon
took on fearful momentum. Sitting In
"Puln,an's Palace Car" looking out OF
the window, the passenger gets no idea OF
the speed of the train; but close by the
engineer, and feeling the nervous qulVer
and lump of the iron courser, you See the
mountains skip like lambs
@1The door of the locomotive furnace
cIapgs open, and the flames rave as If
thew would leap out to devour, and the
fireman lars tie coal into the racing jaws
Of the monster. The engineer has his
hand on the iron bit that controls the
speed, and seems to use no exertion more
than the doctor feeling the pulse OF a.
child. Indeed, the locomotive to the en-
gineer, is not mere machine; but an
animate. He talks to it, seems to pat 1t
LOVINGLY on the neck He is proud OF It,
There IS q warm understanding between
the two, and in occasional spurts OF steam
the locomotive seems to take voice and
answer its rider An engine never hurts
= it's master. save in the effort to throw the
passengers. 49,.
But the engineer, though sitting SO
placid, is wide awake. He is kept on
dutv only f0rt hours in the day, and all
the energies Of body and soul cluster In
his yigilant eye and quick thumb. Two
hundred lives hang on his wrist.
We plunge into o snOW-shed with lnh-
mite chatter, every boatd and beam beat
inc back the deafening roar of the Pacific
Express. AS we rush on, the prairie dogs
sIzullz into their holes, or sit on their
hind quarters, with fore feet lifted, as if
to saw "what next ?" The antelopes
scamper over the plains We ride IN
impeded where less than two years ago
the bufaloes stopped the train as the
herds stamped across the track; and along
here the savages cantered on their ponies.
You see here and there groups OF Red
Men, with long hair, and cheeks dashed
with war paint, ringed ears and super
iuitv Of dirt, that buries your last TO-
mantle notion of the noble red men oil
the forest" The air is laden with the
breath of cedar, madrona, manzanlta and
buckeye Here we are passing through
what seem the ruins Of castles and tenn
nIes and cities, and calling up to mind
Petra and Pompeii, and Ninevah and
Thebes; but these ruins, on either side OF
our track. must have beeen vaster abodes, |
where giants might have lived till the
Titans began here to play l@apfrog and
to turn somersaults. Now the whistle lets
off . wild scream; a cow and calf on the
track. The cow we cut in halves, and the
calf with broken legs, tumbles over into
the ditch. I wonder if that man just
ahead will get off in time Perhaps he
is deaf perhaps he is crazy, and wants
to he run over. In time to save himself
he switches off and rObs the coroner.
Hold your breath Ravine thousand
feet deep on this side, Embankmcnt a
thousand feet up the other. AS we turn
the curve the engineer pulls the steam
valve and the silence that chiefly relgns
here for six thousand years lets slip all
its sounds of echo and reVerberatlOn.
Whew how we fly. IF u bolt break, |
or truck fall, OF a rock dlslodge, we are
in eternity Innumerable variety OF
flowers break their alabaster at the feet
of the cliffs but yonder the mountain
tops are blooming into the white lily Of
everlasting snow. Bridges, high, narrow,
tremendous, that creak and tremble under |
the pressure Of the train. A tunnel ! Ink
black, midnight doubled, dampness that
never saw the sun; while Tar ahead IS
hole that looks about the size OF the arch
of a mouse trap, but which wldens till at
last it is large enough to let whole |
train escape into the golden day
Out there is the old emigrant road, |
with occasionally q skeleton OF cow or
horse, or the wreck Of wagon,that hope
le8sly broke down on the way aDd here
a small mound, and rough stone at the
head of it, that show where some worn
traveller finished his journey, IN those
times when, IN one year, across these
heights went five thousand wagons,
pulled by seven thousand mules and
thirty thousand yoke Of oxen.
And now the night begins to fall, and
Che train goes blowing through the dark
ness. The great burning eye OF the loco
motive peers through and flashes far
ahead upon the wild scene.
The grizzly bear, the panther, the
night.hawk, the cormorant. the pelican,
the gros-beck, the eagle, that kept aloof
while the day shone, may venture nearer
now, if they dare. Oh! how we fly! The
rush of the wind, the jamming oftne car
couplings, the changing of the wheels,
the steam hiss the fierce shower OF sparks
that set the night on fire, the shooting
past of rocks 500 feet high, followed by
precipice thousand feet deep, make
the breath short, and the heart thump,
and the very scalp lift
How the shadows shuttle. How the