The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-02-26

The Land of the Mormons.
TIE sUNFLowERs AND THE BABIES. :
TIE GRAND SCENERY OF THE DIVIDE.
LETTER No. ]


Especial Correspondence of the vIRGINIAN.l
There is a tradition, too pretty not tC
be true in a poetic, if false in lit.
eral sense-that when the Mormons were
driven from Nauvoo. and took up thelI
march westward, they sowed sunflowel
seed all along the lne-that those who
were to come in ensuing years might find
il shining, unmistakable track across the
desert We questioned Mormon elder
one who drove in the first pioneer wagon
rs to the truth of this legend, -straitly
forbiddlng him, however, if it were un
true, TO spoil oGr pretty illusion. II won't
say said he, shaking his head-"I viii
only say this; that many and many time
along that march we were thankful to sub
tsist upon the sunflower seeds.
Whatever their history. whether grow
| ing there since the legendary day when
lovelorn Clytie first turned:
ION her god when he sets,
The same look that she gave when she rose. -
Or springing up with the new summer
to make a freize against a back ground of
blue mountain, and gray sage plain-there
the sunowers cluster. around the track
of the Denver & Rio Grande railway-a
| field of the cloth of gold, unrolled from
the western Atlantic to the eastern Pa
cifc slope and farther yet-for aught |
know-leagues in width, miles in length,
| IF of icl1c xToluot -bna1.tol
with petals which seem to palpitate and
quiyer in the faint summer air.
We are going to the Land of the Deseret !;
| we are going by the Denver & Rio Grande
Harrow-guage Of which you have heard.
This railway, which has long Melted the
cities and mining camps of Colorado in
the meshes of its connecting lines. has
now become in a measure transcOnti-
mental road joining the trunk lines at
Denver and Pueblo, with the Central
Pacific at Ogden; You may leave Den
yer OF Colorado Springs in the morning,
and without change Of cars, find yourself
in Salt Lake City on the afternoon Of the
next day. By eleven o'clock on bright
August morning we are en- route from Col
orado Springs, in a baby Pullman. some
what narrower than its broad-guage
brothers, but equally pretty and conve-
nient. We have with us the usual sprink-
ling of British and Bostonian tourists,
the noble army of drummers and CONNER
cial travellers, and five babies. ''Why is
it, we would mildly but firmly PROFOUND,
| lndlqre the ire of doting mothers and fond
patres ,fonailias-" is it that the soci-
ETY. for the prevention of cruelty to chill
dren permits the summer exodus of babies :?
| for infantile passengers? Why does not
someone patent baby Gas, lined with re-
| frigerators Of condensed milk, Astounding
| in pillows and rubber tubes, provided with
clothes lines-with its furnishings invest
ed in impervious brown Holland pinafores,
and here straitly crib and confine the
| innocents and their attendant nurses and
mammas 2"
AS before stated, we, unlike the old
man who placed on his fourth wife's tomb
| the couplet
If I'm alive,
will have five:
| have five-no future tense about it-fiye
babies travelling with us, and they are re-
solved we shall not forget it for moment.
| When one wearies of squalling, another is
| fully prepared to take up the strain. Fag-
| ged mothers pat them on their backs, and
jolt them up and down, and apostrophize
them in that gushing, mutilated English
which is popularity supposed to appeal to
| the infantile ear and heart. A procession
| of milk-bottle filters and baby-tenders
forms along the Pullman aisles. Disgust
ed, one rushes to the toilet room in one of
its rare intervals of vacancy-a lunge pre-
| cipitates you against a bottle of soothing
| syrup bolstered up on the floor--in right
J ing yourself, you clutch q can of condensed
milk in the toilet basin, in which three
of your fingers are baptiZed-you ''duck"
a reluctant head to avoid the numerous
| articles of baby linen hung over the mir
| rOrS and on the WindoW-then seek towel
to wipe a heated face, OF glass for ice
water-in vain The trail Of the baby is
over them all We have no wish to dwell
od a1dltseum on this theme-only to suggest
the three fold consideration that the pres
ent state of things (which all travellers
| will admit we have not exaggerated is
| unfair to the railroad whose belongings
are abused; unfair in it's monopoly of the
conveniences of the travelling public I'M
fair to the babies, who, in their helpless
ness, should not be forced on transconti-
mental trips beyond their puny strength
and patience. Meantime. the familiar
range of the Rockies is relegated to the
rear where Pike still lifts his majestic
head above the rest the Greenhorn noun
tains are gradually stripped of the soft
purple with which distance has clothed
them they too are left behind, and the
train sweeps on, through meadows Of sun
flowers. and ranks of tall bulrushes-be-
tween the clayey, consolidated cliffs, to
Canyon City. At this point, there is a
hustle Of indefinite expectation an I'm.
covered observation car is attached to the
rear, and out to it, pour all the travellers
babies inclusive. For is not this the ante
chamber to that wonder of wonders, the
Grand Canyon of the Arkansas river
which some have held as more note
worthy marvel of nature than Niagara
Falls, or Mont Blanc? Years ago, we
stood on the brow of this awful, extended
chasm, and peered into the depths below
Rocks loosened from the summit. fell, re
verberating, through a seemingly measure
less abyss. Little likelihood seemed there
then, that even this most daring of mai
rowguages would crowd for itself path
way by the thread of river below us, across
the rocks which swept, smooth and sheer
down to its banks on either side. But il
has been done, and while the rocks real
their crests in gloomy grandeur above, a
their bases is a railway thoroughfare
Nature has singled out the Arkansas, in
significant, turbid stream, for royal pas