Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-09
THE SHASTA EXCURSION.
TaE AWFUL BEAUTY AND SUB
LIMITY OF THE MOUNTAINS.
Magnificent Scenery-A Merry Party
The Fair at Redding-In-
cidents and Events

The Shasta excursion car from this city,
which left here Thursday evening for Sis
sons, arrived home early yesterday morn
ing. A portion of the excursionists from
this city, and from San Francisco and San
Jose, remained over at Redding on the
home trip, and will return to-day. There
were between $50 and 400 members of the
party. We had delightful trip. That
not one will gainsay. The run up was made
| leisurely, and thus the ascent of the !
mountains was by daylight, leaving Red
| ding about S o'clock and Delta about $50,
Sisson's being reached at noon. The
scenery enchanted the sightseers, and the
expressions of delight and pleasure were
constant and enthusiastic There were
many lively debates in the matter of COM
pairing the scenery with that of other |
mountain routes, but none failed to confess |
the
| GRANDEUR OF THE VIEW
And the eyer-increasing beauty and sub |
Unity of the scenes, as the train wound |
about the mountain sides along the most |
| tortuous of courses. The line follows the |
| Sacramento river nearly the whole dis |
| lance, and the views OF the crystalline stream
| are by no means the least enchanting ones |
of the magnificent landscape. Whoever |
has in his soul spark of poetic feeling will |
find it struggling for expression as he rides |
| among the glories of these frowning mount |
aims, looks aloft thousands of feet sheer up
everlasting cliffs, or glances downward
thrilled by a touch of physical fear, as the
train climbs along the precipitous mount |
ain walls, while straight below the rock |
ribbed precipices rise SO abrupt that the
very car seems TO
ovERHANG THE ABYSS
Here and the chasm there. Far below the
| river runs clear as a spring, now placid, |
now dashing over a rocky bed, now roaring
as a torrent, here falling and seethjng, ]
then very thread of silver dazzling to the |
sight. Far beyond the snow-clad noun
| tains stand, toward which the laboring
train drawn by two huge locomotives |
| slowly makes its way up a grade rising as
| abruptly as 116 feet to the mile. AT times |
full three miles are run to make one in |
actual distance as sthe bee flies, and one |
| may look down and see far and directly |
below the iron road over which he has Just |
come, appearing in the sharp perspective
| like the track of childs toy road. 1t |
would crafty the writer beyond expression |
were it possible to convey to the readers of |
the RECORD UNION by mere words an ade- |
| HudlC luCd Vi luC Vi Tic SC6utTl. |
These granite-coated mountain Sides |
| from whose bronzed hide the lofty |
| forests spring and paint their feathered |
| foliage against the fringe of blue sky |
far above the crests; these monarchs |
of the everlasting ranges that bar the pas
| sage to the fair plains of Oregon beyond
they seem in their grim majesty and awful |
immensely to defy the power of man to |
| drive a roadway through their bowels and |
4 H..
| these sleeps and cling to the breasts of these |
granite monuments of natures architect |
ure, we feel inclined to bare the brow and |
repeat with Pope:
| % Oh sons of earth attempt We still to rise
BY mountains pird on mountains to the |
skies?
Heavn still with laughter the vain toll sur
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise"
THESE AWFUL CANYONS,
| Whose deeps the eye scarce can fathom,
| eluding sight as in the distance their sides,
meeting, melt in the thick blue haze of
| depths that seem immeasurable these |
precipitous cliffs, over which at times we
| hang, and down. down, see the sheer rock
pitch, inviting us TO plunge from the verge.
| Who has not experienced this feeling |
Who, standing on the very brim of danger,
| has not felt the inclination to dash over and |
embrace the fiend that beckcns one to de-
| struction from the silent depths 1t is an |
! ever-chaDging aspect as we climb up, up; |
| ever increasing in grandeur, wonderful and |
| unrivaled. 1t silences the merry groups in |
the ten crowded cars, it bushes jest and song,
it stills the@ery breath as the onlookers
drink in with each Kaleidoscope view
grander. gloomier, brighter, darker, lighter,
| loftier, deeper, more awful draught of the
sublimity of the God whose hand fashioned
these peaks, and digged these depths
whose will raised these hills, that seem, as
we swing round and cling to their colossal
| bosoms, to fairly totter under their own
stupendous weight. But if there is here
the impressiveness and hush of the grand
eur of nature in this weird and beautiful
land in the mountain tops. to which an
other summer the deniZens of dusty towns
and noisy cities will flee by the hundreds
to be convicted of their own littleness, and
drink in draughts of the resinous atmos-
phere, pure as the breath of angels, inspir-
iting as the cup of Jove, and life-giving as
the tabled spring of eternal youth so, too
there is here beauty; beauty delicate as the
fabric of q dream.
THE SCARLET LEAVES OF
Autumn burn with fire no painters brush
dare desecrate; the brown and gold and
russell of fallen foliage defy the artists skill
the sensitive ferns and velvety moses the
purling brooks; the bursting springs the
lace-like foliage of the majestic cone bear
ers; the nodding OF the tall grasses in the
current we create as our train sweeps by:
the glorious bursts of sunshine as we
emerge from dark canyons into sudden
glowing light; the roll of green-clad hills
the wealth and abandon of rich bronze
tints upon the scared sides of excavations;
the bounding of game from the under
growth the blue and gold and royal pur-
pie of shrubs innumerable; the moss-clad
trunks of the resinous forests, now turning
to gold as the suns rays fall athwart
them; the berries that peep in blush
ing scarlet or timorous blue from
the dense underground; the trailing
vines that Chamber over and struggle down
the banks; the myriad of er-bearing
stems now stripped, but testifying still to
the glories with which they will clothe
themselves withal when spring time comes,
all whispering of their delicate
sisterhood to be born anew when winter is
gone the great fan-like leaves that lap the
edges of the streams-there is beauty even
for the artistic eye in the cliffs that rise at
points on either side of the river, and at
places fairly clasp hands, so near they stand
crowned with thousands of sentinel-like
pines and frs and other resinous and
spiky foliaged trees.
BUT IT Is AN oFFENsE
To imagery, and an insult to fancy, to at
tempt to describe this glorious scenery
Let the prophesy be made now, for it will |
be fulfilled when the air grows softer be-
meath summer sun, that to these majestic |
hills the tide of tourist travel will turn, and
here the lover of nature in her undisturbed
moods, will come while yet man has
made but feeble imprint OF his COM
mercial hand upon these glorious scenes
It is not needed that the points of interest
along the route shall be again detailed. In
former accounts that has been done in the
REcoRD-U Union by more capable pen
There is evident ON every hand in this
north part earnest faith in the country.
The people we met are full of enthusiasm
for their section. They look forward with
great interest to the
INCOMING IRRIGATION,
Anxiously expecting fair share of it. We
were told at Redding of cons. ant new in
vestments being made and steady ad-
vance of land values One of the new
people who came into this region two years
ago informed US that there has been no de-
serlion of the section by any OF that immi-
grafton. All of the families have fairly
prospe-ed and some of them remarkably