Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-10-28
ON ALOCOMOrIu

| We never saw q more graphic sketch of IN,
sih OF Iiding on an engine than one CON
Witt Talmadge, who tried the experiment while
Journeying in the Rocky Mountains. He saws
May get on with your" asked an engi-
neer on the Pacific Railroad, at a station six on
seven thousand feet above the level OF the sea.
Certainly" he said; "but hold fast tight, on
"Tootl tootl' went the whistle, and the long
anaconda OF a rail-train first went crawling
along the rocks, but soon took on fearful mo-
mentum. Sitting in a pullman 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 CULVER and
Jump OF the iron courser, you see the "moun-
tains skip like rams, and the hills like lambsv
The door OF the locomotive furnace clangs
open and the flames rave as though they would
leap out 70 devour, and the fireman jars the coal
into the raging jaws of the monster, The en-
gineer has his hand ON the iron bit that controls
the speed, and seems to use no more exertion
than doctor feeling the pulse of a child In
aeed tne locomotive, to the engineer. is not q
mere machine, but animate He talks TO IL
seems almost to pat il lovingly on the neck
He Is proud of 1T. There is a warm understand-
rug between the two, and in occasional spurts of
steam the locomotive seems to take voice and
answer Its rider. An engine never hurts its mas
ter, save in the effort to throw the passeneers.
But the engineer, though sitting so placid, is
wide awake. He Is kept on duty only 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.
ter, every board and beam beating back the
deafening roar of the Pacific Express As we
rush on, the prairie dogs skulk into their holes,
or SIT on their hind quarters, with fore feet
lifted, as much as 10 say, "what next ?" The
antelopes scatter over the plain. We ride
unlmpeded where less than two years ago the
Dunaloes stopped thetrain as the heads STAN
peded across the track, and along here the
savages careered on their ponies. You see
mere and there groups of red men, with long
hair, and cheeks dashed with war-paint
hinged ears, and superfiuity OF dirt that buries
your last romantic notion about the "noble
men of the forest" The air is laden with
the breath OF the cedar, madrona, manzanita
and buckeye. Here we are passing throuoh
what seem the ruins of castles and temples and
cities, and calling up to mind Petra and Pom
peii and Ninevah and Thebes: but these rnins
on either side our track must have been yaster
abodes, where giants might have lived TIL the
Titans began here to play leap-frog and turn
somersault. NOW the whistle lets off q wild
scream; COW and calf on the track. The cow
we cut into halves, and the calf, with broken
legs, tumbes over into the ditch. L wonder If
that man Just ahead will get off in time. Per
haps he is deaf! Perhaps he is crazy, and wants
TO be run over! Neither. In time to save him
self he switches off and robs 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-valve, and the silence
that chiefly reigned here for six thousand wears
lets slip all its sounds of echo and reverberation
Whew! how we fly! If bolt break, or a
truck fall or a rock dislodge, we are in eterntyl
Innumerable varieties of flower break their ala
baster at the feet of the cliffs; but Wonder the
mountain tops are blooming into the white lily
OF everlasting snow. Bridges, high, narroE
tremendous, that creak and trembfe under the
pressure of the train. A tunnel Ink-black
midnight doubled dampness that never saw the
sun; while far ahead is a hint of sunlight peer
ing through hole that looks about the size of
the arch of a mouse-trap, but which widens till
at last It Is large enough TO let a whole train
escape into the golden day.
Out there is the old emigrant road, with occa-
slOnally the skeleton Of a COW or horse or the
wreck of a wagon that hOpelessy broke down on
the way; and here a mound and rough stone
at the head of it, that show where some worn
traveller finished his journey, inthOse times when
IN one year across these heights went five thous-
and wagons, pulled by seven thousand mules and
thirty thousand yoke of oxen.
And now the night begins to fall, and the train
goes Flowing through the darkness. The great
burning eye OF the locomotive peers through
and flashes far ahead upon the wild scene
The grizzly bear, the panther, the night
hawk, the cOrmOrant the pelican, the prosbeck
the eagle, that kept aloof while the dsy sbone'
may venture nearer now, if they dare. oh! how
we NY! The rush of the wind the tanning of
the car-coupliDg, the clang of the wheels the
steam hiss, the fierce shower of sparks that set
the night on fire, the shooting past of rocks five
hundred feet high, followed by a precipice
thousand feet deep, make the breath short and
the heart thump, and the very scalp lift!
how the shadows shuffiel How the crags
shlver! How the echoes rave! An express train
nj night on the Rocky Mountains. The irresist-
lble uampling the immovablei Yet the way
smoothed down by human engineering Then
II Will not be so difficult to prepare the way for
grander coming when the mountains shall he
made low, and the crooked straight, and rough
places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see il tOpetheri