The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1884-01-19
YET GLORIOUS !
THE LONG JOURNEY ACROSS THE
ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

"
Views of Continual Sncw---A High
Sunrise---The Vast Outlying Fields
of the West.
Special Cbsrespondence Of The Chronicle.
OGDEN, UTAH, January 4.-When
man gets into sleeping car at Baltimore
or at Philadelphia for Chicago it is not an
occasion for any great ado. After ride
Of only a reasonable time he is in Chicago.
and the wOnderis that the journey is made
SO quickly. Likewise, when the traveller
takes berth in a car from Chicago to
Omaha, it is no event of lifetime, but
only ride of few hours. At Omaha,
howe yer, you strike a new experience.
There you enter a car wherefrOm you are
not to escape for three days, and the waste
of the prairie and the desolation of the
great mountains are before you.
You had as well give your fellow pas
sengers to understand-if you wish to be
cOmfOrtab able-that one seat in the smoking
apartment belongs to you, and you have
made a great mistake if you have not given
the porter a 81 note to emphasize this, and
laid in a box of cigars of your favorite
brand. It's tircsOme ride in spite of all
preparations.
And yet glorious! At the slow pace of
about twenty miles an hour, you go and
go and 60, through endless snow and
nothing but snow. There is the least pos
sible variety at this season Of the year for
the first day and half. At long inter
walls, very long intervals, we come to sta
tiOnS. Aud station is a little cluster OF
wooden houses poorly built, OF lumber
that was doubtless transported l, 900 miles.
A small group of dangerous looking fell
lows gather about the express car, and
three times day at places whose names
| convey no idea, you are supposed to eat
canned edibles
Yet it is worth whiie-very well worth
while, even at this dreary season. The
sheds become more frequent after a
while; and you know a snow-shed is sim
| ply wooden cover built over the track
| for one hundred feet, or for five hundred
| yards, wherever the land lies so as to
| make the snow drift there. Through these
| the engine goes-literally through snow :;
| for snow is on every side as far as the eye
can see, and indefinitely deep above you.
Then at last come the mountains
| these, too, all snow at this season, and
! their SUBMITS snowy, OF course, at all
seasons. But this only adds to their
! majesty. The canyons are almost file
with snow; and you have the pleasure of
guessing how deep the drift is that has
| blown down into them from the noun
| tains.
Riding with great del'beration along the
| side of immense piles OF frozen earth
| lueSo uOuntdlIlS, 70 VIII. duu Catching HcIc
| and there glimpses of a little evergreen
| growth; on the other side a chasm, no.
body knows how deep-suppose man or
! train of cars were to plunge into it,
! there is no guessing how many fathOms
| through the soft-looking snow it would
| bury itself of this, you dwellers in an al
most snOWess climate can have no idea.
! The bigness Of the Rocky Mountains, the
| hugeness of this great country, the very
infancy of our little achievements along the
| yet narrow section Of this continent that
| we have subdued come for the first time
| with real force into ones mind. The
| thousands of miles Of prairie. yet unsub-
| dued, and the canyons Of these noun
tains, some Of which are subduable, make
| room for all the rest of Europe, and the
| United States is yet only in its infancy.
[ had forgotten MY fellow travellers and
! the Inconvenience. and especially the
| WEAKNESS of the journey. But one sun
rise over these white hills is worth it all.
The porter called me in time to see it, but
sentimental purpose. i've paid for it,
| however, [ said to myself, and at once
put on my heaviest waring apparel. it
could not be seen we'll except from the
platform. Out on the platform, then,
when the thermometer was 10 degrees be-
low zero, | forgot the weather in watching
the rainbOw-cOlors of the reflection every
where The light would strike on a hill
far off, while we would run through dark
ness, and the dazzling effect would bring
forth admiration for blind man. Their
we would run out into streamers of sun
light, and soon again enter the shadow Of
q mountain.
must pay a tribute to the daring which
made a railroad here, and l cannot doubt
the future of people who have so fa1
conquered these wastes even as to allow (:
man to have such view of such scene
| at such time.
1 am now at Ogden. go to Salt Lake
City for time. Then on to the Pacific
Il. Il. WATSON.