Weekly Trinity journal., 1872-03-23
NUMBER u.
ON a LOCOMOTIVE.
By REV. I. DEWITT TALMADGE.

y
engineer ON the Pacific railroad, at q
station six or seven thousand feet above
the level Of the sea. Certainly" he
said =" but hold fast tight, or you may
fall off"
loot toot ~ went the whistle, and
! the long anaconda Of rail train first
went crawling around the rocks, but soon
took ON fearful momentum. Sitting in
Pullman's palace car, looking out of the
window, the passenger gets no idea Of the
speed Of the train but close by the en-
gincor, and feeling the nervous quiver
and jump of the iron coursor, will see
tho mountains skip like rams, and tho
little hills like lambs"
The door of the locomotive furnace
clangs open, and tho flames rave as
though they would leap out to devour,
and the fireman jars the coal into tho
raging jaws of the monster. Tho en-
gneer has his hand on the iron bit that
controls the speed, and seems to use no
moro eNertion than II doctor feeling tho
! tutat ot " Cllltls iuOcCui INC loCOihOIINt,
to the engineer, is not Il mere machine,
but animate. lie talks to it, seems al
most to pat it lovingly on the neck. Ho
is proud Of it. There is warm under
standing between the two, and in occa-
sonal slrlrts 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, 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.
We plunge into a suow-shed with inf
pite clatter, every board and beam beat
ing back the deatcning 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, MS much rs
to say, "what next ?" Tho antcopcs
scamper over the plain. We ride unim-
paired whore less than two years ago tho
buffalo stopped the train as the herds
stampoded across the track and along
here the savages carccrcd on their ponies.
You see here and there groups of red men
with checks dashed with war paint, ring
ed ears and u superAuity 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,
manzanita and buckeye. Here we arc
passing through what seem the ruins OF
castles and temples and cities, and calling
up to mind Petra and Pompcii and Nj
neveh and Thehcs; but these ruins on
either side of our track must have been
vastor abodos, where giants might have
! lived till the 1itans began here to play
leap-trog and turn somersaults. Now
the whistle lets of a wild scream COW
and a calf on the track. The COW we cut
into halves, and the calf, with broken legs,
tumbled over into the ditch. | wonder
il that man just ahead, will get oifin time.
Perhaps he is crazy, and wants to be run
over Neither. In time to save himself,
he switches oil and robs the coroner.
Hold your breath! Ravinc II thousand
feet deep on this side Embankment
thousand feet up on the other As wo
turn the curve, the engineer pulls tho
steam valve and the silence that chiefly
rcigned here for six thousand years, let's
slip its sounds of echo and reverberaton.
Whcw How we fly Ifa bolt break,
or a truck fall, or rock dislodge, we are
in etornityl Innumerable varieties OF
flowers break their alabaster at the foot
Of tho cliffs; but yondcr the mountain
tops are blooming into the white lily OF
everlasting snow. Bridges, high, narrow,
tremendous, that creak and tremblo un-
der the pressure Of the train. A tunnel
nk-bIack, midnight doubled, dampness
that never saw the sun while far ahead
is hint Of sunlight peerng through n
hole that looks about the size of the arch
Of a mouse-trap, 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
occasionally the skeleton Of a COW or
horse, or the wreck Of wagon that hope
lessly broke down ON the way and here
a mound and n rough stone at the head
Of it, that shows where some worn trav-
eler finished his journey, when in ono
year across these heights went five thou
sand wagons, pulled by seven thousand
mules an thirty thousand yoke of oxen.
And now the night begins to fall, and
the train goes plowing 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, tho
night-hawh, the cormorant, the pelican,
the grosbeck, and tho eagle, that kept
aloof while the day shone, may venture
nearer now, if they dare. Oh How we
Ayi The rush of the wind, the jamming
of the car-coupling, the clang of tho
wheels the steam hiss, the fierce shower
Of sharks that set the night on fire, the
, shooting past of rocks five hundred feet
: high, followed by precipice thousand
feet deep, make the breath short and the
heart thump, and the very scalp lift.
How the shadows scuflle How the
crags shiyer! How the echoes rave |
An express train at night ON the Rocky
Mountains +! The irresistible trampling
the immovable! Yet the way is smooth
ed down by human engineering. Then
it will not be so difficult to prepare tho
, way for grander coming when the
mountains shall be laid low, and the
crooked straight, and rough places plain,