St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-04-21
1aiscelfanu.
ACROSS THE CONTINENT.
Interesting Observations of the Trip as


Six days to cross this continent,
with nearly a day to spare at Chica-
go, is a short and uneventful time
compared to the six months of hard
ship, suffering and dangers of the
last half of the way as experienced
by not few of the residents of this
region who are not specially old
people yet; and the general character
of such a trip is so we'll known that
there remains but little to be said by
the common observer. But to one
not much used to travel, or to one
with an interest in the scenes apart
from the commercial or bread and
butter point of view, even a rapid
glance is an inspiring and suggestive
one Leaving ST. Johnsburv on the
26th ult., we were not long in get
ting away from snow and winter to
a state of things suggestive of COM
ing spring and growing leaf and
flower. We reached a place on Sun
day morning where even in the great
city no horse cars run and the Ch1ca-
go express waits till late in the after
noon, and a pause for worship is very
grateful, while the glimpse one gets
in Toronto of COngrega tiOnalism
sets a New Highlander to making
comparisons. Would it hurt us if we
engrafted on our quiet ways some of
the fervor and business enterprise
which seeks to build up and
strengthen the individual church in
it's work of seeking and saving men
as the efficient instrumentality for
that work?
The Sante Fe route from Chicago
gives one little of special interest
only as the first of that run of nearly
which one is not conscious of any
special change of level. Nothing of
particular natural scenic interest" as
remarked by an experienced traveller
friend, within a thousand miles Of
Chicago. Where can you find an
other such place in the world? For
many thousand years this vast al
luvial plain has been slowly reclaim
ed from the ocean, receiving the wash
of the Eastern Rocky mountains and
the western Appalachian slopes, and
left all ready for use after the mellow
ing influence of the ages
Why talk about abandoned farms
of Vermont? On these vast stretches
of land, so level as to make a New
Highlander homesick for the sight of
a hill, a rock or tree, people are
neighbors when they are ten times
as far away as in any place in Yer
mont, even if the neighbors there be
just out of sight by the hill or among
the trees.
Just as we are getting pretty tired
of hundreds of miles of prairie
reaches, even if livened in the evening
by the prairie fire or an occasional
white distant light of an electric
lighted village, we come at length to
such combination as for its unique
ness should commend itself to an
artist who could interpret its signifi-
canoe. Still on the plains, now of the
richest yellow brown, what relief
to see the horizon broken bv long
ranges of mountains white with snow
and brilliant in the sunlight, and over
hung with a sky gently fecked with
clouds trying to rival the beauty of
the snow-clad mountains. Alps and
green hills and lovely valleys we are
accustomed to associate, but a
Colorado desert hanked by such a
vast number of range after range,
through so wide a sweep of vision,
has a beauty all it's own and not
often arrayed in art
Where can one go and not find
the much travelled American, who
throws cold water over the enjoy
ment of any scene by his-'Humph
you ought to see" well, yes, but
let us alone till we get there" AS
we leave Trinidad we begin more
decidedly to realize that we are
climbing, as two big engines puff
and groan over taking our overland
express at the rate of a jog trot vi
the gorges and ravines, the memory
OF which makes the Westerner smil,
pityingly at the magniloquent cpl
thets which are bestowed on thu
White Mountain passage. Here W.
go through a tunnel a mile long
higher by fifteen hundred feet thar
+he ton of MI WaShinectnn and OH