The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-08-20
Still Camping on the Trail.
BY JOHN MAGUIRE

deep,
Fair as the garden of the Lord"
meet the eye on every side. The land
is in a high state of cultivation. Well
laid out towns have taken the place
Of the old stage stations of long ago,
and instead Of the rickety old mud
wagon" hauled by epizootic cayuses,
we are reclining in the elegantly mp
holstered coaches, with which Senator
Clark's salt Lake and San Pedro road
is equipped. Here 1 might with pro-
priety ask why IL is not called The
Montana and San Pedro?" for hence
forward this road, for the economy it
gives in time and money, together with
superior service, will most assuredly
command almost a monopoly OF Mon
tana and northeastern travel to Cali
fornia.
Leaving Milford behind, we are early
astir, and now speeding on our way to
Caliente, Nevada, which may be called
the gateway to Death Valley-the dis
tributing point for several mining dis
trfctS within a radius of fifty miles, in
GLIDING Phoebe and De Lamar-and
which aSsuredly will at an early date
be depot for supplies to the Tonopah
country.
Here we are entering the land of
gruesome traditions, where it is sup
posed fabulous wealth of gold and sill
yer and precious gems are hidden un-
der seas of shifting sands, TO which
Dantes lines might well apply:
"All hope abandon, we who enter here"
How many a prOspector has been
lured into this deSolate waste only to
leave his bones bleached by the arid
air, a CHASTITY tribute to its presiding
evil genii, the unappeasable drought
and the baleful Siraccoan atmosphere
can not be enumerated until the judg-
ment day. But now all is changed,
the terrorS of Death Valley exist no
more. The evil genii, so much dreaded,
are laid for evermore by that wizard
of the north" Senator w. A. Clark,
who by his magic wand-called Mon
tana pluck-nOw enables the prospector
and the investor, the miner and the
mechanic, the merchant and the man
OF leisure, to speed along in the pala-
tial splendOrs of one of the most mag
nificently appointed trains of coaches
that ever ran upon wheels. / hear the
pessimist say, Alas, there is no art or
poetry in these strenuous times The
genius of our day is too busy in the
worlds doings. i'm striving to advance
utility, to have leisure or to take an
interest in the ideal and poeticaL"
Boshi When / look at this great under
taking-the building of this San Pedro,
Los Angeles and Salt Lake railroad
over this immense stretch of desert
but soon to be desert no mOre-I see in
deed a great poetry in itself, working
with iron arms, more vast and power
full than fable could imagine of
huge manufacturers of thunderboIts for
an ideal JOve. Reality has outgrown
tiction-haS become the major videri, .
is doing a. sublime work-one. too, in
which poetry of high caste is inherent
| through hands and means unpoetical.
Mind is there, thought is there,
worthy of all the greatness of man s
reputation for sagacity, or invention,
and gigantic energy, the reaching to
and grasping the large powers of ma
Il III
thus becoming unconscious of the
poetic analogy, a. Titan again.
mis- age Is, after all. doing a great
deed. Let the dreamer, the versifieT,
the searcher after visible beauty the
painter. the statuary. incapacitated as
they all are. from the knowledge of
what We term the business of life, con-
slider cOolly without prejudice for his
art, and against what more commonly
meets him in some interrupting and
unSracfous form, reality, the ma
cbinery of governments, the science OF
banking, the fluctuations of mercantile
life. and the innumerable detail of
which he seldom thinks but without the
establishment of which he would not
be allowed TO think-by which he lives
his daily life, let him trace our manu-
features, our great mining achieve
mentS, through all their successive in
genuities, to their great uses, and their
great results. Let him travel over this
81 anu span Ol railroad connecting those
magic cities, Salt Lake and Los An
geies. and note how all is ordered, with
what precision all arrangements are
made. and conducted, and what a new
world il is in itself, moving through
space like a world, and set in motion
and stayed by the hand and by the
master craft of an American mechanic
and then in idea transferring himself
from his pesSimism and his poetic fan
cies, let him ask himself if he sees not
something beyond, quite extraneous to
himself, great thing effected which
he never could have conceived nor
have executed. and then let him say il
there be not even in this our working
world, great and living poetry, a
magnificent thought realized, a. prin-
ciple brought out, worthy an age, and
then let him be content for awhile that
his own particular capacity should for
a time be in allegiance, to great pur-
poses imperative, unproductive of the
worlds esteem.
Helloi Here's the end of a division
While changing locomotives We'll take
look at Caliente and give our i'm
pressions of it in another chapter.
JOHN MAGUIRE.