Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-12-07

On mn olive.

% 1919 AnNcPcuuSht, "
the Rev. T. Dewitt Talmaige, who tried
the experiment while journcyiag in the
Rocky Mountains. He says: wr
May / get on with your" fasked an
engineer on the Pacific Railroad, at a sta
tion six or seven thousand feet above the
Z level Of the sea. Certainly" he said !:
but hold tight. or you may fall of" kroi-
foot ! foot !" went the whistle, and
the long anaconda of a railtrain first went
crawling along the rocks. but soon took on
fear al momentum Sitting in Pull
mans Palace Car" looking out at the
window, the passenger gets an idea of the
speed ofthe train but close by the engin-
Ger. and feeling the nervous culver and
jump of the iron courser. you see the
''mountains skip IKE rams, aud the little
hills like lambs"
The door OF the locomotive furnace
clangs open and the flames rave astliooeif
they would leap out to devour, and the
fireman jars tharoal into fhe raging jaws
OF tie monster. TIE engineer has his
baud on the iron bit that controls the.
speed, and see,asstd us no more exettiefT
than a doctor feeling the pulse Of a child.
iRIeedtbe iocofpetive. to the engineer, IS
not a machine, but animate. He talks to
it, seems almost to pat it lovingly ON the
neck. He is proud OF il. There Is a
wsrn understanding between the two.
and in occasional spurts of steam the loco
motive seems to take voice and answer its
rider. An engine never hurts its master,
save in the effort to throw the passengers.
BIT the engineer, sitting 50 placid, is
wide awake. He is kept on duty four
hours in the day, and all the energies of
body and soul cluster in his vigilant eye
and quick thumb. Two hundred lives
hang on his wrist.
We Plunge into the snow-shed with In
finite %clatter, every board and beam beat
ing back the deafening roar of the Pacific
Express. As werush on, the prairie-dogs
skulk into their holes, or SIT on their hind
quarters, with fore feet lifted, as much as
to say, ''what next" The antelopes
scamper over the plain. We ride unim-
peded, where, less than two years ago, the
buGaloes stopped the train as the herds
stamped across the track; and along here
the savages careered on their ponies. You
see here aud there groups of Red men,
Will mug NAILS anu CbCCho 0duOCu Will
war paint, ringed ears and asuperfuity of
dirt that buries your last romantic notion
about the "noble red men of the forest"
The air is laden with the breath of the
cedar, madrona, manzanita and buckere.
Here we are passing through what seem
the ruins of castles and temples and cities.
and calling up to mind Petra and Pompeii
and Nineveh and Thebes: but these ruins
on either side of the track must have been
vaster abodes. where giants might have
lived till the Titans began here 10 play
leap-frOg and turn somersault. Now the
whistle lets off "a wild scream II COW and
a calf on the track. The COW we cut into
halves, and the cali with broken legs tuml-
bles into the ditch. | wonder if that man
just ahead will get off in time. Perhaps
he is deaft Perhaps he is crazy and
wants to be run -overi Neither. In
time to save himself, he switches off and
Tobs the coroner.
Hold your breath Ravine a thousand
feet deep on this side! Embankment a
Thousand feet up on the other. As we
turn the curve the engineer pulls the
steam xal,e. and tie silence that reigned
here f,H six thousand years lets slip all its
sounds of echo and reverberat ton.
How . how we fly. fla bolt break. or
a truck fall, or n rock dislodge, we are in
eternity. Innumerable varieties OF flowers
break their alabaster at the foot of the
cliffs; but yonder the mountain tops are
blooming into the white lily of everlasting
snow. Bridges, high, narrow, ire mem
dous. that creak and tremble under the
pressure of the train. A tunnel! Ink
black. midnight doubled, %dampness that
never saw the sun while far ahead is a
kind of sunlight peering through a hole
that looks about the size of the arch of a
trap, but which widens till at last
II is large enough To let a whole train es-
into the golden day.
Gu there is the old emigrant road,
with occasionally the skeleton of a COW or
horse. or the wreck of a wagon that hope
lessly broke down on the way in days
gone by; and here a mound, and a 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,
by seven thousand yoke of oxen.
And now the night begins to fall, and
the train goes blowing through the dark
ness. The great burning eye of the loco
motive peers through. and flashes far a
bead upon the wild scene. --..a.
The grizzly bear. the panther, the
the cormorant, the pelican,
.he gro beck, the eagle, that kept aloof
while the day shone, may venture nearer
now, ifthey dare. Oh I! how we fyi-
The rush of the wind, the jammiug of the
coupling. the clang of the wheels, the
team hiss. the fierce shower ofsparks that
et the night on FIRE, the shooting past of
'ocks five hundred feet high, followed by +
|. procipice a thousand feet deep, make the
bIea.h short, aud the heart thump, and
he very scalp lift ea- = s,-ss.u 7oE
How the shadows shuttle How the
rags shiver! How the echoes rave An
train at night on the Rocky
'iountsini The irresistible tramping the =
mmiovable! Yet the way smoothed
own by human engineering. Then it will
ot be so difficult to prepare the way for a ,
coming when the mountains shall =
e madeiIow. and the crooked straight, n
nd the rough places plain. and the glory e
ftbe Lord shall be revealed. and all flesh L
hall see it together. ha4 et ~ 81
Rest Way 10 Keep Pc asoes. l
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