Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-11-26
On a Locomotive.

We never saw more graphic sketch OF
the sensation of riding on an engine than
one contributed to the Independent, by the
Rev. L. Dewitt Talmadge who tried the
experiment while jOurneying in the Rocky
Mountains. He says:
'May L get on with you ~ / asked an
engineer on the Pacific Railroad, at sta
ton six or seven thousand feet above the
level of the sea. Certainly he said /;
"but hold tight, or you may fall off,"
"Toot! toot /" went the whistle, and
the long anaconda of rail-train first went
crawling along the rocks, but soon took
on fearful momentum. Sitting in "Pull-
mans Palace Car" looking out at the
speed of the train but close by the engi-
neer, and feeling the nervous quiver and
jump of the iron courser, you see the
mountains skip like rams, and the little
hills like lambs"
The door of the locomotive furnace
clangs open and the flames rave as though
they, would leap out to devoVir, and the
fireman jars the coal into the raging jaws
of the monster. The engineer has his
hand on the iron bit that controls the
speed, and seems to use no more eXertion
than doctor feeling the pulse of child.
Indeed the locomotive, to the engineer, is
it, seems almost to pat it lovingly on the
neck. He is proud of it. There is 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 its master, save in
the effort to throw the passengers.
But the engineer, sitting so 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 we rush 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
buf1aloes stopped the train as the herds
stamped across the track and along here
the savages careered on their ponies. You
see here and there groups of Red Men,
with long hair, and cheeks daubed with
war paint, ringed ears and superfiuity 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 ce-
Ss
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 our track must have been
vaster abOdes, where giants might have
lived til. the Titans began here to play
leap-frOg and turn somersault. Now the
whistle lets off wild scream; cow and
a calf on the track. The COW we cut into
halves, and the calf with broken legs tum-
bles into the ditch. / wonder if that man
just ahead will get off in time Perhaps
he is deaf! Perhaps he is crazy and wants
to be run Over Neither. In time to save
himself, he switches off and robs the coro-
ner. ~ q
Hold your breath! Ravine thousad
feet deep on this side! Embankment a
thousand feet up on the Otherl As we
turn the curve the engineer pulls the steam
valve, and the silence that reigned here for
six thourand years lets sslip all its sounds
Of echo and reverberation.
Hew how we fly. If bolt break, or a
truck fall, or rock dislodge, we are in
eternity! Innumerable varities of flowers
break their alabaster at the foot of the
cliffs; but yonder the mountain tops are
blooming into the white lily of everlast-
ing snow. Bridges, high, narrow, tre-
6udL CISuh i61Iu
he pressure of the train. A tunnel! Ink
black, midnight doubled, dampness that
never saw the sun; while far ahead is a |
hint of sunlight peering 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 whole train escape
into the golden day.. .aa8n8Ts
Out there is the old emigrant road, with
the skeleton of a COW or horse,
Or the wreck of wagon that hopelessly
broke down on the way in days gone by;
and here 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
Dy seven thousand yoke of oxen.
And now the night begins to fall, and