T H E
UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY,
Easte” (Division,
THREE THOUSAND MILES IN A RAILWAY CAR,
By CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
PII IL. A. D. E. L. P. H. I. A :
RINGWALT & BROWN, sº power Book AND Job PRINTERs
Nos. 111 and 113 South Fourth Street.
1867.




PRE PACE.
The following pages contain the record of a journey made by a party
of gentlemen from Philadelphia to Kansas and back, during the month
of November, 1866. The object of the excursion was to examine the
condition of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, to assemble in
council, at Leavenworth, those who were specially interested in it, and
to make such scientific and industrial researches along the route as might
be of advantage to the enterprise. How this was effected has already
been laid before the public in several prominent journals.
The writer has taken pains in these letters to depict, as truthfully as
possible, his experience and impressions of this very interesting journey.
As the condition of that grand national enterprise, the Pacific Railway,
was the principal subject of discussion by the tourists, the facts thus
evolved form, of course, the subject matter of the series. As for the rest,
he has done his utmost to set forth how he and his friends passed their
time during their trip of three thousand miles in a railroad car, and what
were his real feelings at the time. His chief object in republishing
these letters—written originally for Forney's Press, of Philadelphia–
has been to express, in a collected and somewhat more durable form, a
slight tribute of his gratitude to the gentlemen of the company to whose
general kindness and personal courtesy he is indebted for having passed
as pleasant a month as it was ever his fortune to enjoy. -
Philadelphia, January 9, 1867. C. G. L.


TTEITE TVVTTEEST.
—Tº-
LETTE R F I R S T.
HARRISBURG, October 29, 1866.
A few years ago an excursion to Fort Riley, Kansas, seemed like a
tour to the Russian Territory, or one of those half life-long jaunts
which were indulged in by the old travelers, who, having no apprehen-
sion of being followed by any one, lied, of course, at discretion. Then
the word for such a trip was “make your will.” Then the most reck-
less traveler provided himself with long boots and many weapons, blan-
kets and blue beads, pewter jewelry and nose rings, with whatever else
might be fashionable among Indian belles and warriors. Then there
were long farewells to newspapers and other delicacies of refined life.
Then, in a word, Kansas was a distance of the first magnitude, and a
danger of the tip-topmost order. Murder and robbery were apprehensi-
ble, for, in one word, travellers were Sharp-rifled.
And now what a change . This morning we left—a pleasant party of
eleven—on our way to the terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern
Division, at that Fort Riley, which was within so short a time a mere
Indian station, with a name rather more suggestive of scalps and treaties
than of cheerful jaunts and treats. As the gentlemen of the company are
in a great measure directly interested in the stupendous industrial enter-
prise which is to connect the two oceans by an iron girdle, and as they
are well known in this relation, I take the liberty of giving their names.
They are General William J. Palmer, well known during the war as one
of the most efficient officers of the great Army of the Cumberland, Colonel
of the famed Anderson Cavalry; Mr. Ed. Miller, Thomas A. Biddle,
J. R. G. Hassard, of the New York Tribune, Captain W. F. Colton,
Dr. John L. Leconte, Mr. John Browne, Casper Souder, of the Evening
Bulletºn, Strickland Kneass, and Theodore Cuyler. In addition to these,
(5)

6
other gentlemen interested in the Pacific Railroad will join us at different
points as we progress. Our preparations, unlike those which would have
been made a few years ago, are not more extensive than those which
might be made for New York or any other not remarkably savage place.
In fact, with the comfortable “directors' car,” luxurious as that used by
Louis Napoleon himself (perhaps some of my readers have seen that me
plus ultra of locomotive comfort,) with a nest-like movable arm chair as
our least comfortable resting-place, and with the pleasing assurance that
we do not quit this car until we shall see the stone walls of Fort Riley–
in fact, journeying as the gentleman of Addisonian fame wished he might,
in smoking-cap and slippers, when so inclined—it will be seen that the
art of traveling has now reached a high state of perfection indeed.
When the reader reflects that this journey, accomplished in this style,
takes us exactly to the centre of the North American Continent, and that
it is now an almost foregone conclusion that the entire road will be com-
pleted within a few years, so that one may ride in his slippers from ocean
to ocean, it will be seen what is meant by those magic words, “industrial
progress.” A phrase which I have heard defined by a humble student of
Republican principles as meaning that “all the world should keep on
having a better and better time.”
An illustration of a minor branch of industrial progress met my eye on
the “Pennsylvania Central,” in the form of a splendid stone villa, such
as is called a cottage ornée in England, a chateau in France, and a Schloss
in Germany, which, as I am informed, is built entirely from paper shirt
collars. I have seen in my time a handsome house, with double coach-
house, which was made of shoe blacking; half a dozen gentlemen's man-
sions which owed their structure to oil; one beautiful mass of Gothic
towers which were literally erected from cards—(a card-house, in fact),
and one palatial pile of buttons. Yet paper shirt collars will build
more than this. When a single improvement in such a comparative trifle
sells for three hundred thousand dollars, it can be seen that they can
build up fortunes.
Another and truly magnificent item of industrial progress may be seen
further on the same road, in the Pennsylvania Steel Works, three miles
east of Harrisburg, where steel is to be manufactured by the Bessemer
process. It is nothing remarkable for palaces to be erected to labor in
these days, and the grand proportions of this building are such that with
due ornament it would not seem inferior to the proudest of our city
edifices. Simple in details as it is, this building must impress a refined
taste as one of the most beautiful of its kind in America.
{

7
l, ETT E R S B Co N. D.
CRESTLINE, OHIo, October 31, 1866.
Although my readers have doubtless heard for many years of the great
Pacific Railroad, which is to connect the two shores of the North Ameri-
can Continent, it is more than probable that the majority have a very
imperfect idea of the plan on which it is being constructed; and, in fact,
it would be difficult for any one who has not made a specialty of the sub-
ject to be familiar with it, since some of its most important features are
of a very recent introduction. Let me endeavor, then, so far as it is in
my power, to convey, within brief limits, a sketch of its present condition,
passing over the early efforts made to establish it, and the enormous
expenses and many errors which were incurred or involved before any-
thing like a practical plan, corresponding to the real wants of the whole
country, was adopted.
GENERAL SCHEME.
The Pacific Railroad, in its present condition, may be rudely compared
to a pitchfork, of which the portion west of the Rocky Mountains, or the
California branch, forms the handle, and the Omaha and the Kansas, or
rather the northern and southern roads now building east of the Rocky
Mountains, are the times. By their acts of incorporation, these roads are,
however, distinguished with singular lack of inventiveness, the one as the
Union Pacific Rail-road and the other as the Union Pacific Rail-way,
Eastern Division. As regards the latter distinctive name, I am quite of
the opinion of a writer in the Pittsburg Gazette, that it might more
properly be at present called the Southern Division. As another route to
the south of this is being planned, it will probably be known eventually
as the Central Road. It has again been suggested that, as it will form
the most direct route across the continent, it could well be called the
Continental. Owing to the similarity in names, some confusion has
arisen in the public mind as regards these two roads now being built to
the east of the Rocky Mountains.
THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD–0R OMAHA ROUTE.
Let the reader take up the latest maps—say those in “Appleton's
Guide"—and he will see that from Omaha, on the Mississippi River.
there is a railroad running westward, partly on the Nebraska and Platte
River. This is the Union Pacific Railroad, which is principally owned
in New York and New England. The president of this road is the well
known General Dix, while among those prominent in its management are
the Hon. Mr. Ames, of Massachusetts, John B. Alley and Thomas C.
-
-
Durant. It is intended, by the provisions established by Congress, that

S
this company shall build a railroad from Omaha towards the Pacific Ocean,
until it meets the Central Pacific Road of California, now travelling
rapidly towards it from the West on the other side of the Rocky Moun-
tains.
The following extract sets forth the relations of this road with the
routes east of the Missouri, which are most nearly connected with it, yet
which are not as yet completed : “There are five of these roads. 1. The
Cedar Rapids and the Missouri River. 2. The Mississippi and Missouri
Railroad, which is the Iowa arm of the Chicago and Rock Island Rail-
road. 3. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, which is the
Iowa arm of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. 4. The
Council Bluffs and St. Joseph Railroad, connecting with the Hannibal
and St. Joseph and Northern Missouri, from St. Louis. 5. The Dubuque
and Sioux City Railroad, which is pointing that way. Two of these
connections will probably be made during the course of the next summer.
In addition, the American Central Railway has been projected, which is
to run on an air line from Fort Wayne to Omaha.”
This “Omaha Road" is at present three degrees and twenty minutes
farther to the west than its more southern rival, but this advantage is
counterbalanced by the unfinished state of the roads which are to connect
it with the East. As regards climate and the impediments incident to
winter travel, it compares with the more southern or Union Pacific Rail-
way road much as the railroads of Canada and New England compare
with those of Pennsylvania. Whether the fears once entertained of the
tremendous snow drifts said to abound in Nebraska are well founded,
remains to be seen ; it is, however, to be hoped that, like many of the
other bug-bears once raised by croakers against the Pacific Railroad, they
are without reason.
THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY.
It is at Wyandotte, on the Missouri River, not far from Kansas City,
that the Union Pacific Railway—that which we are now en route to visit-
actually begins. By reference to the railroads lying towards the East,
it will be seen that its affinity with our own city, Philadelphia, is very
direct, owing to its direct connection with the so-called Pacific Road of
Missouri, which intersects the last named State. It cannot fail to interest
the reader to know something of this Missouri Road, which forms, as it
were, an introduction to the Pacific Railroad proper.
This latter track, in fact, directly unites the Pacific Road in question
with St. Louis. The Pacific Railroad of Missouri is built by a State
organization, and extends from St. Louis to the east line of Kansas, by
Kansas City and Wyandotte; at which place, as I have stated, it joins

9
or runs into the “Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division,” now making
a single route from St. Louis to Fort Riley, very nearly the centre of the
American Continent. There is at present one defect as regards a con-
tinuous connection to be found in the fact that this Pacific Railroad of
Missouri has the remarkable gauge of five feet and six inches, while that
of the Union Pacific, in both the Omaha and Fort Riley Roads, is of four
feet eight inches and a half, the same as that of the Pennsylvania Cen-
tral, and all the connecting roads between Pittsburg and Omaha. It is
thought by experienced engineers that this will eventually become the
generally adopted gauge for all railroads in America. To obviate this
difference of gauge it is intended to build along the line of the Missouri
Pacific Railroad a third track of the four-eight-and-a-half gauge. In
fact, this is the only link now wanting in the entire connection between
Philadelphia and Fort Riley, and its completion is a foregone conclusion
There are, it is true, two other differences of gauge on the intermediate
and connecting roads; but these are overcome by running cars with the
so-called broad-tread wheels; that is to say, wheels with a surface so
broad as to run on roads of a different gauge. When the mountain will
not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain; and when the
railroad is too broad for the wheel, the wheel must be made broad enough
to suit the road. It is in fact by following this principle that we of the
Fort Riley excursion are accomplishing our tour without a change of cars
for such an immense distance. I shall return, in my next, to this sub-
ject of the Union Pacific Railway.
ON THE ROAD.
We are now whirling along through Ohio, Massillon being the last
town which we passed, and I am glad to be able to chronicle that a pleas-
anter party probably never went by rail through the Buckeye State.
From the Pittsburg Chronicle, of this morning, I learn that an excursion
of prominent railway officials and distinguished citizens, composed of
friends of the Union Pacific Railway, from New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Missouri, arrived in that city this morning, en route to Fort
Riley, via Leavenworth. The excursionists, adds my authority—in
whom, by the way, I place confidence—left Philadelphia yesterday morn-
ing, in elegant “silver-palace sleeping cars, and after remaining here a
short time, proceeded on their way to Quincy, Illinois, by way of the
Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway, thence they cross the Mis-
sissippi to Leavenworth, and thence to Fort Riley. At Leavenworth the
St. Louis delegation will join the excursionists.” To which, in the words
of Brantome, I earnestly respond aimsi soit iſ—or, with the less illustri-
ous Dow, “so mote it be.”

10
I, E.T. T E R T H II: D .
I am now writing “on the road,” on the morning of October 31, 1866,
flying across Illinois at extra speed.
One of the items of greatest interest at present, from an industrial
point of view, is the Chicago-lake tunnel. Many years ago it was a sub-
ject of complaint that the water drank in Chicago was not drinkable,
which may account for the fact that the inhabitants of that enterprising
city were so unanimous in letting it alone. Strangers, who passed weeks
in the place, often departed with distinct recollection of the quality of
many stronger fluids, but the most rigid overhauling of the memory failed
to supply any reminiscence of aqua pura, or H. O. Small fishes formed
a frequent and unpleasant ingredient, and mud added a flavor by no
means conducive to temperance. Finally it was declared that the com-
plexion of the Chicago ladies was greatly injured by the fluid. News-
papers in rival and envious towns attempted to make it proverbial for
untransparency, and suggested that rouge and emails were at a premium
in the Garden City. Then the Garden-citizenesses became indignant, and
of course something had to be done. The result was the digging of a
stupendous tunnel, one compared to which
“The wonderful tunnel
Of great Mr. Brunnel,”
which runs under the Thames, is only a trifle. I say this on the author-
ity of the London Times, which declared this Chicago enterprise to be
“ the greatest feat of engineering of modern times.” -
One of the first objects pointed out to me this morning was the build-
ing, two miles out from shore, which covers the “crib,” or covering of
the lake end of the tunnel. Under this there is a descent of seventy feet
into what a visitor has described as a pandemonium of dirt and darkness.
In this pandemonium the great work advances which is to give purity to
Chicago coffee, and light to the eyes and complexions of Chicago. As I
write, this morning, only two hundred and fifty feet remain uncompleted
of the stretch of two miles which intervenes between the two shafts of
the great tunnel under Lake Michigan. An item in the Chicago Tribune,
of to-day, declares that at the ordinary distance of twenty-five feet
per day, this distance would be went through in about eleven days, but
that time will be extended to about nineteen days, owing to an accident
which occurred on Monday. So the work will proceed a little more
slowly from the western end, the workmen on that section having the
honor of finishing what they begun. -
It is needless to say that the people of Chicago have watched the pro-
gress of this great work, which reflects such credit on their unbounded

11
and proverbial enterprise, with intense interest. It is the common topic
of conversation, and its progress forms a subject of constant inquiry. Like
the great organ of Boston, it is set forth to all strangers with no little
pride. Fortunately, it is a topic of such general interest that no one has
as yet thought of saying, as “Martial in London" did some thirty years
ago, in Blackwood, of its predecessor under the Thames, that it was a
great bore—“the greatest London ever knew—and that was saying a
great deal.”
THE PALACE CAR.
A remarkable subject of interest, which our party examined this morn-
ing, was the City of Chicago—not the metropolis itself, but its reflection,
as regards splendor and enterprise, in a “sleeping car” of that name,
which runs on the “Illinois Central.” This car cost twenty thousand
dollars, and is said to be cheap at the price. Every comfort which can
be placed in such a vehicle is to be found between its wooden walls. The
seats, the sides of the car and the ceiling are exquisitely adorned in mar-
quetrie or inlaid woods, while the gilded glass frames, in ormolu, and the
general tone of color, are truly artistic. It is heated by a separate fur-
nace beneath, and its lounges and mirrors, with every other luxury,
make it in fact a rolling palace. Not less remarkable is the correspond-
ing seat-car for day passengers, which surpasses in splendor, and still
more in comfort, any car which I have ever seen on an Eastern road.
There is yet another car, which cost thirty thousand dollars, which I did
not see, but which was described as a miracle of its kind. Luxury and
enterprise are advancing with rapid steps in the West. It is said that
the most costly diamonds, the richest laces and the finest cashmeres sold
in Broadway or Chesnut streets, find their way, for the most part, to these
ultramontane towns. Perhaps in this rapid action of expenditure, as well
as acquisition, we may find one of the leading causes of the active growth
of every industrial interest in the West.
In fact, the West may yet turn the tide of manufacture against the
East. I observed yesterday, near Massillon, some thirty reaping machines
marked for an Eastern destination. At Massillon, Canton and the imme-
diately adjoining towns there is an extensive manufacture of reaping
machines, of which, as I was informed, no inconsiderable quantity is sent
Eastward. -
No one who has not seen Chicago can imagine the life, the enterprise—
* On second thoughts, I believe that “Martial” said something else about the
tunnel, and that somebody else said this. The learned professor of a century hence, who
may devote himself to commenting on this stupendous work, is hereby politely requested
by the author to settle the question.
12
in a word, the incredible vitality—which seem to inspire its every detail.
It is said that no city grows so rapidly; the lines of houses increase so
quickly that it is almost impossible to renew the street paving so as to
make it fit for use, worn as it is by ever-increasing travel. Such, at
least, is the local legend, and I am almost inclined to believe it when I
witnessed in the principal thoroughfare a rush of travel equal to that on
Broadway.
THE PRAIRIE.
As we are now passing by the towns of Leland and Mendota, we see
around the largest prairie without trees in this portion of the Union.
Like the sea, these infinite “earth oceans” give no idea from descrip-
tion. One must pass hour after hour, even in a swiftly-darting railroad
train, and then, little by little, the immense uniformity—the grand mono-
tone, which, in its repose, surpasses in one charm all variety—gradually
steals over the mind. I have heard Ole Bull speak in this strain of the
charm of the prairies and of the spell of its solitude, both in music and
in words. It is like the wonderful attraction of the desert, which seems
at first so dull, and then in time becomes so fascinating. I believe that
all poets have invariably found a more magical attraction in the single,
uniform beauty of the ocean than in all the variety of the mountains.
It was in this region, a few stations further back, that our party, feel-
ing themselves far enough out West to be generally expansive, began to
practice the salutary and invigorating national custom of making speeches
to the natives of the divers small towns through which we passed—address-
ing them from the platform of the car. My boon companion and “best
of bricks' he of the Tribune—honored be his name in Gotham –
aided by the wild outcries of Colonel Palmer and the genial Miller,
insisted that the inhabitants of Leland should be addressed by “one of
them,” which was done accordingly by him of the name. That speech
is, I believe, somewhat extant and written, (for the Tribune stood by us
as a reporter and took notes, while the joyous band of excursionists zeal-
ously hurrahed and encored,) but, as I remember, it ran thus:
“Men of the city that is getting to be, of Leland [immense cheers]:-In the three men
and two boys now before me [cheers] I behold [bully for you!] a joyous sample of that
glorious Western greatness [frightful and appalling hurrah's]—and long may it wave
[Hey—hurrah! I have been complimented [ki—i-il]—I may say, overwhelmed—with
the assertion that this splendid settlement [deafening applause]—this wondrous ranchus
ranchorum [cheers]—derived its name from the Humble Individual now before you.
[Hoo hoop hurrah! bully for you!] Yet, when I look around at the inexhaustible
resources of Nature open before me [tremendous cheers]—when I behold this level, I
may say this lea and in the infinite prairie, then I recognize the true origin of this our
name. [Admiring remark from oldest inhabitant: “Wall, I should’nt wonder if that
was the way the town came by its name.” Having swung thus far around the circle, I


13
give the Constitution into your hands [groans]—and the flag, with all its thirty-six
stars [frightful hisses]—and would mention that, having risen from an alderman [howls],
I would like to know why you don't hang Thad. Stevens? [Diabolical hoots.] And as
I do not waste my ammunition on dead ducks [signs of a personal attack], I hereby
invite you, in the name of the Pacific Rail Way, to step in and take an elevator.”
Here there was a tremendous and bewildering storm of applause, and
the inhabitants of the town rushed wildly up and began to climb the
steps. But at that critical instant the whistle blew—the bell rung —
our guests tumbled back to save their lives, and amid tumultuous cheers
we left the joyous and republican town of Leland.
L E T T E R F O U R T H .
THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILWAY.
A great English engineer once declared that rivers were intended, in
the ultimate and eternal fitness of things, to feed navigable canals. In
like manner, an enthusiastic American asserted that prairies were made
by Providence for railroads. In fact, the dead level around us, as I write,
and the arrow-like straightness of the track behind show that these
steppes of the West are destined to a wonderful development, so far as it
can be accomplished by transit; and what more does a country need,
save that and a good climate and soil, to become infinitely prosperous?
These advantages are enjoyed in an eminent degree by the Pacific Rail.
way, which it is now our mission to visit. It possesses within its grants
the richest lands in America, and has, between Wyandotte and the mount-
ains, the best and easiest basis of construction of perhaps any railroad in
America. This reflection, induced by the prairie, recalls the extremely
liberal and fortunate conditions under which this road is endowed.
To each of the two roads which, when completed, will form the this-
side of the Rocky Mountains portion of the Pacific Railroad, Congress
has given in bonds sixteen thousand dollars, payable in Government
bonds upon the conclusion of each mile. Over and above this, which is
of course quite inadequate to pay for the road, the company receives

14
every “alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to
the amount of ten alternate sections per mile on each side of the said
railroad on the line thereof and within the limits of twenty miles on each
side of said road not sold, reserved, or otherwise set aside by the United
States, or to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have
attached at the time the line of the road is definitely fixed.” The only
exception to this is in the Delaware reservation, where, instead of alter-
nate sections, the company receives two hundred and fifty thousand
acres of land, and in the Pottawattamie country, of which they have
three hundred thousand. Every traveler who has seen this land has
praised its extraordinary fertility. In a few years these grants alone
will fully equal in value the entire Eastern Division of the road. To
the speculator, and still more to the actual settler, the great line of the
Central Pacific Railway is said, by the most impartial judges, to present
inducements very far surpassing any other of the kind in America. It
is, in fact, easy to comprehend that when the land is of unsurpassed
fertility, and the inhabitants of unsurpassed enterprise, the world's most
rapid settlement must indubitably be along the line of the world's
greatest railroad.
It will, therefore, be understood that the Central Railroad and the
Railway are in no hurry to meet. The longer either makes its road the
more land does it get and the more subsidy. Whichever has the longest
track is of course the best endowed. The reader will readily understand
that it is better for the country that this should be so. Two roads are
better than one, so far as settling the country is concerned. In a state-
ment on this subject I find that the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Di-
vision, was originally empowered to construct its track from the western
terminus of the Missouri Pacific Railroad at Kansas City, at the eastern
boundary of Kansas, to an intersection of the Union Pacific Railroad
(the Omaha route) on the one hundredth meridian.
By an Act of Congress, passed at the last session, the company con-
structing this road was authorized to connect with the “Union Pacific 'at
any point between the one hundredth degree of longitude and the longitude
of Denver, Colorado, which is a trifle west of the one hundred and fifth
meridian. The proviso attached to this permission is that the said
company shall be entitled to only the same amount of the bonds of the
United States to aid in the construction of this line of railroad and tele-
graph as they would have been entitled to if they had connected their line
with the Union Pacific Railroad on the one hundredth degree of longitude.
This, says my authority, raises a conjecture in the minds of all who are
familiar with the map of North America, whether they mean to connect at
all. The engagement has been published, but the marriage is at present

15
indefinitely postponed. The one hundredth meridian is the material
point for intersection, if such a result was designed. But if the grant
of Congress, particularly in lands, is so liberal, and the prospect of a
thriving population, such as now crowds into the West along the line
of these roads, is so good as to warrant the speedy completion of two
independent roads, the public have no reason to regret it. “Half the
land contained in a belt forty miles wide, and long enough to span two-
thirds of the continent, is an inducement of no trifling magnitude.”
OUR EXCURSION.
At present we are flying at wild-duck speed through Illinois, still in
the prairies. I cannot avoid here paying a tribute (which I foresee I
shall renew so often as I recall this very agreeable excursion) to our host
in charge, General William J. Palmer, Treasurer of the Union Central
Pacific Railway, and other gentlemen interested in the road. Every
form in which hospitality, under the peculiar circumstances of our travel,
could be manifested, has been shown us, and every attention lavished in a
spirit of genial and gentlemanly kindness, which I have never seen outdone.
It is not merely in doing everything for their guests, but in knowing
how to do it, that these gentlemen excel. Thus far our excursion has
been in the highest degree agreeable, and should it end as happily as it
has begun, it will form one of the brightest incidents in our life. As for
our general social meetings, where mirth and song prevail, to induce
various sports at various grades, they are numerous, and marked 12t. p. d.
d. t. f.-a chemical formula used by savans and other soap-makers to
indicate “twelve times a day, and every day until further notice.”
And some there be who, at those silver flashing hours of dulcitude, do
call aloud to John the steward for that imperial nectar which rusheth
forth pearl-foaming white, then sinks to a silent, golden glory, that
liquid which -
Llamar yo nectar divino
Y a quien otros llaman vino
Porque nos VINo del cielo:
called champagne, champagna, or tschampanski, in different lands, and in
all it answers, pop Eating, too, there is of divers dainties, and smoking
Cabanas, whereafter cometh the story and many a song of ye olden tyme.
And the one last sung was as follows, and it was called forth thus: There
sat upon the platform of a depot a curly white poodle with a black nose.
And it was affirmed that this spot was “a lick with a tar brush,” which
-
16
others denied, “ For,” said they, “why should any body anoint his nose
with tar-cut bono 2 And here the answer came in :
WHY HE DID IT.
AIR-PRIMA DONNA WALTz.
Eh Jean Battis'—pourquoi?
Eh Jean Battis'—pourquoi?
Eh Jean Battis'—what for you gris
Myleetle dog's nos' wiz tar?
ANswer–Trium fando.
I gris is nos' wiz tar, be gar!
I gris is nos' wiz tar, be gar!
I gris is nos' wiz tar, be gar!
Because he 'ave von gr’ rand catar'r'rh.
REPLY-Irresistibly persuasive.
Eh Jean Battis' cºest bien,
Eh Jean Battis' cºest bien,
Eh Jean Battis' I'm glad you gris
Ze nos' of my leetle chien.
L. F. T. T E R F I R T H .
Missouri, on THE RouTE, Nov. 1, 1866.
WESTERN BOYS.
“Wouldn't I like to be a goin' to Kansas in that crowd Them
fellers has a car to themselves, and every man his own arm chair, round
loose. I just looked into the other end, and I seed such a lot of vittels
and bottles and everything nice—who' up / Just insert me in thar, an’
I'd travel to the end of the yearth.”
Such was verbatim and pronunciatim the speech which I heard
delivered yesterday by a youthful Sucker or Illinoisyan, to a party of
sympathizers of the juvenile persuasion, who were earnestly examining
our car and party from an outside position. -
“What's that railing all around the end for, Bill?” inquired a sub.
“That's to keep the children from falling off,” replied William, with
special reference to the three six-footers of the Union Pacific Railway, who
happened to be at that instant on the platform. This remark of course


17
elicited an immediate delivery of the flag of the United States, with all
the thirty-six stars and the Constitution, into the hands of the popula-
tion of Mendota, a ceremony which is now usually performed on most
trains along the route lately traveled by the President, and which, far
from losing point by reputation, is invariably received with shouts of
applause. I have observed at all the stations a frankness and ease on the
part of the youthful population of the West, differing materially from the
rustic sheepishness and modesty usually found in country boys elsewhere.
The William just referred to, when asked where was the Mayor of Men-
dota ? replied that she “was in the stable,” with a promptness which
promised a future Nasby or Artemus Ward. They are not, as a rule, a
well dressed race, these children of the prairie, but they appear to be re-
markably well fed, and not badly taught, to judge by the school-books
which the younger scions carry.
It is not remarkable that the Western boy should be bold and inde-
pendent. Every youth who enjoys health and strength knows that his
farm is ready laid out for him somewhere—a farm of deep, rich black
soil, such as is unknown even in the fertile wheat lands of Pennsylvania.
A small capital is more readily accumulated here, where labor is very
well paid, than in any other agricultural country, and with a very small
capital one may occupy a very large farm. With an education such as is
freely given to every boy, he is qualified to employ others, to make
speeches, to speculate, to be rich. If the course of many a Western lad
is like that of a prairie chicken, always up and down, it will, neverthe-
less, be found that, like prairie chickens, they are generally pretty fat
at last.
A WESTERN CROWD.
The passengers “bound West” who were this morning clustered on
the ferry-boat at Quincy, Illinois, were extremely characteristic of the
country. There were representatives of Eastern capital, of immense
railroad interests, and of the press, in our own party. Around us chat.
tered a motley group, in which the sweet Irish brogue made a “ crockery
concert” with the broad South German accents of emigrants from Swabia
and Bavaria. Two or three half-breed Indians, who would have excited
no attention whatever in the China Straits, so much did they resemble
Malays, stood by themselves, conversing in a many monosyllabled lan-
guage, while not far off was a large party that, during the war, would
have passed for a synod of guerrillas which had been captured while
holding a representative bushwackers' convention. Every man had his
rifle; fur caps of domestic appearance suggested the backwoods, and one
or two had on overcoats all of fur. Two years ago, such an assembly on
O
-

18
a country road in Tennessee would have made a solitary feel cool about
the feet, horseless between the knees, and overcoatless and penniless all
over. Now we are in happier times, let us trust that neither Satan nor
Andrew Johnson may ever be so far unchained as to let loose again the
horrors which characterized the great rebellion.
THE SCENERY.
We are now in Missouri, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph's Railroad.
Those who have at hand a map may find thereon the town of Palmyra,
which we have not long passed. The Palmyra of old has no point in
common with this Western city in reserve. The one was, the other is
yet to be, great. This passion for great Oriental names of towns is a re-
markable characteristic of our new country, and we are bearing them
westward at a rate which, if continued, will bring them round to the ori-
ginal spots. If the Yankee should ever cross the Pacific, and extend his
sway to the East, nothing is more likely than that some “school marm."
or itinerant editor, when asked for a name for a new settlement on the
site of ancient Babylon, may, by chance, unconscious of the coincidence,
suggest the old name, out of Revelations, as having a good Scriptural
sound.
As I look up from my writing, I see an immensity of unbroken prairie
on either side, more absolutely level, houseless, treeless and fenceless than
anything of the kind which has as yet met my eyes. An immense flock
of prairie hens, scared by the locomotive, rise, skim along the grass and
stubble, and settle, as if earth were far more congenial to them than air.
On looking closely, I see that a portion of it has been burned over. There
are autumnal burnings and spring burnings, according to the require-
ments of the soil, so that in prairie lands “burning over" forms a reg-
ular portion of agricultural economy. In fact, all along our route we
have had magnificent fire-spectacles. In Pennsylvania, the manufacturing
towns by night afforded splendid sights, which vividly recalled Dom-
daniel, the magician's city of fire, far in the centre of the earth, as de-
scribed by the Eastern illuminati; or still more, those strange old pictures
of Hell by Jereme Bosch, the predecessor of Hoellenbreughel, in which
flames rise sadly, strangely and eternally from the windows and croisées
of old towers against the last depth of night. Such are precisely the
artistic “effects” of the flaming chimneys of a manufacturing town as
seen by the traveler. Another parallel was suggested by a more practi.
cal, though not less picturesque, experience. It was once my fortune to
be in camp one night, and “on guard,” between the forces of Lee and
Meade. From the position where I was I could see the camp-fires of two
vast armies—some far up on heights, others down in hollows, or on level

19
ground, in a vast array, as of twinkling stars on earth. This was another
close parallel to the factory fires. But the prairie on fire is something
different from all of this. Insignificant by day, like the hero of Quevedo's
strange story, by night it rises in dignity and splendor. Many years ago I
saw a picture by Catlin, which has been reviewed in life within five min-
utes as I write. It represented a prairie on fire by day. The bounding
antelopes and buffalo, it is true, are not in sight, but the scenery, and the
long line of creeping fire, are the same as in the painting.
CAR LIFE.
This is now the fourth day which we have spent in the cars, and with
the exception of a six hours' rest at Quincy, Illinois, we have not quitted
our rolling home at any time except for thirty minutes, at Altoona,
Crestline and Chicago, for a hurried meal, by way of variety, from the
very excellent bill of fare in our own establishment. To those who have
never traveled uninteruptedly for many days in the cars, it would be
difficult to explain how soon the different portions of a single vehicle ex-
pand to the rooms of a house or the wards of a small city. The platform
becomes our practical out of doors, our street, where we get the fresh air,
while the train ahead connected with ours, full of unknown individuals,
is the down-town part of human nature, reported by the younger mem-
bers of our railroad family not to be without pretty girls, but of which we
know nothing. They, poor limited creatures, go with us only a few hun-
dred miles at best, and our car came from Philadelphia, and is bound for
Kansas |
We have our car habits all fixed, of going to bed, and sleeping, and
rising. We have our car meetings and our special retirings, each to his
favorite corner to read, sleep or write. I know where to look for either
of our captains, and where the representative of the mighty Tribune is to
be seen consulting maps and books, or extracting information by conver.
sation. Here is my carpet-bag corner; there my blanket nest. Here I
always write, and the front “room " is the Club. I find, in fact, that
after a few days humanity adapts itself to narrow conditions with wonder-
ful facility. I believe that, if it should be announced to me that the rest
of my natural life must be spent in the cars, I should not regard it as any
particularly abnormal change, so far as mere physical habitude is con-
cerned. I remember once meeting in the Old World a Queen's courier,
who expected to remain forty days and forty nights at full speed on the
road. The prospect seemed to me in those days most terrible, but I now
understand that that courier possibly had a very jolly time of it; full of
little comforts, agreeable rests and pleasing varieties. And so we go on
the way. Possibly yonder flight of wild ducks, flying like a V, pointing
to the south, have their own regular habits and settled ways while on
the feather.

20
I, E. T. T E R SIXTH .
LEAVEN worth, November 2, 1866.
The excitement caused not only along the line of our route, but in fact
over a considerable portion of the great West, by the excursion of our
party from Philadelphia to Fort Riley, has been truly remarkable. The
attentions which we have received have been many and most gratifying.
Everything which could be done, not only by General Palmer, treasurer
of the road, but by the superintendents of the various routes was so
done as to deserve the highest praise. At St. Joseph several gentlemen,
among whom I record with pleasure Mr. Meade, superintendent of
the Hannibal and St. Joseph Road, treated us as honored guests. Inter
alia, I would not pass over a supper given us at the railway station in
the latter town, which would have done credit to the best hotel in any
Atlantic city. Among other items of travel, I should mention that to
show us the speed of their engines, we passed in ten minutes seven and a
half miles between Hamilton and Kidder, in Missouri. During the
greater part of our transit on the “Hamilton and St. Joe” road we
traveled at the rate of forty-five miles per hour.
The reception at Leavenworth was, however, of the most gratifying
nature. At this point were assembled a very great proportion of all the
capitalists, engineers, contractors and others interested in the Pacific
Railway—a meeting which may be said to have excited attention through
all that very extensive portion of the vast West which expects to be bene-
fited by this colossal enterprise. Having been installed in the Planters'
House, we were speedily made the recipients of every attention and kind-
ness from a delegation of the principal citizens of the town. About fifty
friends of the members of the company, including many ladies, having
joined us at Leavenworth, we presented a glorious array. Carriages were
soon provided for our accommodation, and we were taken out to view the
fort—a picturesque and most comfortable-looking military station. Be-
yond the fort we descended to view one of the loveliest landscapes which
I have ever beheld. It was in many respects much like the views about
Lenox, Massachusetts, and, strange to say, almost as cultivated and
refined in its softer features. In studying the rich sweep of fields, dotted
with far-away farm-houses, and well fenced, which covered the valleys,
it seemed impossible to realize that, fifteen years ago, this had all been
unbroken wilderness, with only here and there the smoke curling up from
some Indian hut. In fact, on the distant and beautiful Pilot Knob before
us, we were told that an Indian mound of great size still stands. In the
golden-brown Indian Summer, tinted like the hair and eyes of dreamy
light of a beautiful woman by Giorgione or Palma Vecchio, the waving

21
hills and blending sky melted, as Gifford would have melted them, in a
mystery, yet which hid nothing. A glance—and then back to real life.
On returning, we passed the house before which General Lane killed
himself with a pistol. Our driver, a true Southwestern-looking youth,
in a Santa Fe sombrero, dryly remarked of this that “he had made a bad
shot.”
An excellent dinner awaited us at the hotel, a dinner of many luxu-
ries, in no respect differing from the best at the Continental. At its con-
clusion a few speeches, mostly brief and humorous, were delivered, and
an occasional toast. At its conclusion a more formal meeting took place,
when, after a regular introduction of the Eastern delegates present to
those of the West, by Mr. Budd, of St. Louis, tributes were paid to the
services rendered by different gentlemen, (many of whom were present.)
to the great undertaking in which all were engaged. A cordial welcome
was extended by Mr. Vaughan, of St. Louis, to all, and a short address by
Mr. Thos. A. Biddle, exceedingly felicitous in its allusions, was extremely
well received. Gen. Price, in turn, remarked upon the different phases
of the enterprise, as did also Mr Gilpin, ex-Governor of Colorado, brother
of Hon. H. D. Gilpin, of Philadelphia. Addresses of an extremely
interesting character, setting forth the whole history of the road, its
condition and prospects, were then made by Mr. E. Miller, (a gentleman
to whose courtesy and kindness the guests of the excursion are under
every obligation,) Mr. Shoemaker, Mr. Meier, of St. Louis, and Mr
Copley, of the Pittsburg Gazette, who, in turn, called on Mr. J. R. G.
Hassard, of New York. This latter gentleman replied in a very felicit-
ous speech, in which he remarked, in reference to the West, that he had
long been desirous of studying it in person, but he had begun to despair
of being able to catch up with what seemed to fly before him like an
ignus futuus. At Pittsburg they spoke of Chicago as being out West;
at Chicago they referred him to St. Joseph, Missouri; and at St. Joseph
his coachman asked him still if he was going West. And here in
Leavenworth men still looked two thousand miles towards the setting
sun, and spoke of a West still in America. This address, which was
well received, “was followed by others from Mr. Charles G. Leland and
Mr. Perry.” Mr. Archer, of St. Louis, confmunicated several interesting
data in reference to the building of the road, when the meeting adjourned,
followed, it is true, by many private meetings and discussions among the
members. A hop in the hotel, for the amusement of those who were
susceptible to the charms of ladies' society, closed the evening—or, I
may say, will close it, for I hear the tones of an excellent band lending
the music as I write.

22
Thus ended the great meeting of the managers of the Central Pacific
Railway, held at Leavenworth, Kansas, on October 2, 1866–a meeting
toward which attention had been called for many weeks by almost every
journal from Pittsburg to Colorado, and which, as regards the magnitude
of the enterprise concerned, and the influence and wealth of almost all
the “men of the road' concerned in it, was the most important ever
held in that immense proportion of the West whose trade lies through
St. Louis and Leavenworth.
A few—and, in fact, a very few—of the items of interest evolved at
this meeting, which I transcribe from my hasty notes, in reference to
the affairs of the Pacific Railway between Wyandotte and Fort Riley, are
as follows:
Of the Missouri Pacific Railway, (all in the State of Missouri,) there
were built since July, 1865, 64 miles of road from Warrensburg to
Kansas City. This road is now doing a business of $240,000 per month.
The Union Pacific Railway has now subscribed a capital of $5,100,000.
They have paid $3,100,000, and not put a single bond upon the market.
On the 1st of December next there will be paid $560,000. The road is
now without a dollar of floating debt. They have at present contracts
for 15,000 tons of iron, to be all delivered by April, and have 2,500
tons in transit. -
The iron for this road is made principally at the Cambria Iron Works,
at the Superior Works at Pittsburg, at Danville and Allentown, Penna.,
and at the rolling mill at St. Louis.
Fifty miles' extent of the road beyond Fort Riley is now ready for the
rails, which must be laid and finished before January next. Sixty miles
of it have been graded in sixty days. I was informed that Col. Simpson,
of the United States Engineers, had declared that there was not a better
laid track or a more perfect road in the United States.
In July, 1865, “the road” was under contract with the Government
to have one hundred miles finished in November of the same year. Owing
to several causes this was made impossible. Among these was an
unavoidable delay in the transfer of ownership, and in heavy floods,
which, in Leavenworth alone, drowned eleven persons and swept away
every bridge in the place. Thus the limitation at that time expired,
and the road remained unfinished. Additional legislation was required
and obtained before it could be resumed.
It was originally proposed to make this road a tributary to the Omaha
or Central Pacific Railroad route. To this those concerned refused to
assent, and they were finally authorized to go on as an independent route.
On the 7th September additional stock, to the amount of $2,800,000,
was subscribed, and the contract for building two hundred and fifty miles,
to be finished by December 31, 1867, was let to Shoemaker, Miller & Co.

23
One hundred and seventy-two miles of the road has thus far been built
in Kansas, extending to Junction City, three miles west of Fort Riley.
The road is, in fact, now progressing literally at the rate of one mile per
diem. In Mr. E. E. Hale's work on Kansas it may be remembered that,
in illustration of what may be regarded as the extravagant and absurd
promises of contractors and their blind zeal, he mentions that a party
once actually proposed to build 250 miles of the Pacific Railroad per
annum. If I misquote let me stand corrected. This rate of building
has, however, been outdone 25 per cent.
The following are the names of a few of the principal stockholders in
the Union Pacific Railway : J. Edgar Thomson, of Philadelphia; John
B. Anderson, of Philadelphia; Thomas A. Scott, Ed. Miller, Thomas A.
Biddle, of do.; Mr. McManus, of Reading; M. W. Baldwin & Co., of
Philadelphia; Messrs. Thaw & Clarke, of Pittsburg; Mr. Jewett, presi-
dent of the Panhandle and Steubenville Road; Hugh L. Jewett; Gov.
Dennison, of Ohio; W. H. Clements, president of the “Little Miami;"
R. M. Shoemaker, of Cincinnati; J. D. Perry, of St. Louis; Adolphus
Meier, of do.; O. B. Filley, of do.; Carlos S. Greeley; R. E. Carr, presi-
dent of the Exchange Bank, and Col. J. B. Eads, of St. Louis; W. M.
Macpherson, do.; Judge Swann and J. P. Usher, of Indiana, and Mr.
Griswold, of the Ohio and Mississippi Road.
Such are a few of the facts and items relative to this meeting, held in
relation to “the greatest industrial enterprise of the age.”
P. S.-The Leavenworth Daily Bulletin, of November 2, gives the
following list of names and details relative to our great excursion party
in that city:
“The train on the Missouri River and Pacific arrived on time, with eight passenger
cars well filled, three of them with troops for the fort. The party on the train numbered
sixty-four, among whom are the following notabilities:
“John D. Perry, president, and General W. W. Wright, superintendent of the Union
Pacific Railway, Eastern Division; General McKissick, Missouri Pacific : Adolphus
Meier, vice-president; Gen. Thomas Price, treasurer; Governor Michael Hahn, Governor
of Louisiana; Major General D. S. Stanley; ex-Governor Gilpin, of Colorado; R. C.
Cloury, superintendent of telegraph company; Hon. A. T. Blow, Giles F. Filley, of St.
Louis; General C. Smith, Platt County Railroad; C. W. Mead, Hannibal and St. Joseph
Railroad; Captain John McCook, Hon. Thomas D. Nelson, M. C. elect from Indiana,
and the following prominent gentlemen from the Eastern roads: Thomas A. Biddle,
Philadelphia; Edward Miller, Captain W. F. Colton, J. H. Newton, David Bingar, St.
Joseph; Strickland Kneass, Philadelphia; John D. Brown, Philadelphia; Mr. Yardley,
Chattanooga; J. Adams, Illinois; J. S. Walker, Pennsylvania; General William J.
Palmer, treasurer Upper Pacific Railway, Eastern Division: R. Davies, New York;
B. E. Thompson and lady, New Hampshire; John White, New Haven; C. S. Greely,
St. Louis; J. S. Hayward, Illinois; E. G. Ward, St. Louis; W. M. Patrick, George H.
Hall, William Cutler, Hon. John V. Hogan, Aug. F. Dick, Dr. Wm. Dickinson, Henry
Martin, W. L. Ganson, H. Garrard, James Archer, A. M. Gardner, 0. B. Filley, St. Louis;

24
while the press is represented by Charles G. Leland, of Forney's Philadelphia Press;
J. R. G. Hassard, New York Tribune; Caspar Souder, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin,
Josiah Copley, Pittsburg; Mr. Osborn, New York Associated Press; Henry M. Post,
Missouri Democrat; A. G. Tracy, Missouri Republican; Hon. A. C. Wilder, Rochester
Express.
“Lew. T. Smith and A. Caldwell have the management of affairs in this city.”
L ET. T E R S E V E N T H .
ForT RILEY, Kansas, Nov. 5, 1866.
At Leavenworth the Pacific Railway excursion, which started from
Philadelphia eleven strong, and which had picked up three or four at
Chicago and other places, suddenly expanded to comparatively enormous
dimensions. A deputation of fifty-four new friends from St. Louis had
joined us previous to the meeting and other ceremonies described in my
last letter. Yesterday morning, on leaving Leavenworth, we received a
reinforcement of, perhaps, a hundred, including many ladies, all destined
to visit the present terminus of the great railway, three miles beyond
Fort Riley.
Before leaving Leavenworth City, where we were so hospitably received,
and where we found every luxury which one could desire, I would give
a few items of information relative to a place which is still supposed by
many to be a mere outpost in the Indian country. Ten years ago it was
indeed nothing more, and then the wild Indians came into the little
village and were regarded with fear. Then—as Dr. Gihon, author of
Geary and Kansas has told me—wolves, by the score, howled at night,
close to the buildings, and were fearless as dogs. Now it contains nearly
twenty thousand inhabitants, and has, for example, apothecary and other
stores which would be called handsome in Chestnut Street or Broadway.
Its principal business is freighting and outfitting wagons for emigrants,
for Government, and for Santa Fe and other traders. The enormous
amount of this business may be inferred from the following facts, which
I gathered after special inquiry on the subject: Messrs. A. Caldwell &
Co., “Government freighters,” freighted last year, four thousand wagons,
with six thousand pounds each, making, in all, twenty-four millions
pounds of merchandise. To each wagon were attached twelve head of
cattle, making twenty-eight thousand head. All of this was exclusively
for Government use, and destined for the various military posts in the
-

25
Territories of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, and other more
remote places. At least half a million dollars were spent last year in
Leavenworth in repairing and mounting wagons alone. These wagons
are all of nearly the same build, strongly made and adapted for wear and
tear. It is said that when the Pacific railway shall be completed, Gov-
ernment will save at least two millions of dollars a year by the substitution
of steam for wagons.
Immense numbers of wagons are also sold and loaded here for immi-
grants and traders. To these alone there were sold last year, in Leaven-
worth, four thousand wagons and one hundred thousand head of cattle.
A single house, that of Gov. Carney, Stevens & Co., did a business of
$2,000,000 in selling supplies. When it is remembered that Leavenworth
is on the line of the Santa Fe trade, and is, to a certain extent, its
headquarters, as well as for New Mexico generally, it will be readily
understood what an enormous business, amounting (as I was told by the
best authority, in the presence of many of the first men of the place) to
nearly $100,000,000, must be carried on here. The wagon depots are
real curiosities. I saw at one at least a quarter of a mile of wagons. It
is said that at times on the plains for ten miles trains of wagons, not
more, on an average, than fifty miles apart, may often be seen. Many
indications in the town show the Santa Fe trade. One large sign—Por
mayor y menor, “wholesale and retail”—and others in Castilian, prove
that Mexicans find their way there. Great numbers of vaqueros, arrieros,
or whatever herdsmen and drivers are called, pass through the town to
the camps, cracking their long whips as loud as revolvers, and swearing
as only mule-drivers can.
Twelve years ago a writer, on leaving Leavenworth, spoke thus: “In
the first light of morning, when creation is bright and vigorous, it is
pleasant to see before you, along the roll of prairie, the white walls of
Fort Leavenworth looming up, clear and fair, from the green solitude,
more like the towers of some enchanter from the realms of poesy than
what it in reality is—an enclose where Bellona has sown her dragons'
teeth. Two miles below the fort, and west of the Missouri River, cover-
ing a bluff side and plateau of fine bottom land, is the new settlement of
Leavenworth City, and eight miles to the west Pilot Knob catches the
eye, rising abruptly above the surface of the circumjacent country, the
most conspicuous object within the range of vision. From its summit
unfolds to the south and west a prospect of thirty miles, replete with
every charming variety of slope and lawn, set with little woody bowers
that seem so many rests planted for the repeopling of the pioneers who
traverse this blooming wilderness.” Such was the scene which spread
itself before us as we left Leavenworth yesterday morning, while the sun

26
was sending up before him his red light as avant courier. True, the
grass of the hills and prairies had been burned by autumn or more deeply
shaded by fire, but many of the oaks were still green, and over all spread
the exquisite tints of autumn. It is said that in Kansas there is more
fine weather than in any other part of North America, and I can readily
believe it. Never in my life have I seen such weather as we enjoyed
since we have been in this State.
As our train was a festive one, mirth prevailed. Fresh recruits came to
us at Lawrence, Topeka, and other places along the route, each more
pleased, if possible, than their predecessors to join the immense pic-nic.
Champagne popped every minute, and echoed in the merry laughter of
lady voices, among them those of divers enchantresses whom we were
destined to meet again in a city by a river, after many days. Here it
was that Captain Gideon, ye younger, was badly winged, although he won
and wore his Norman horse-shoe; and here, too, Y. and Dot suffered from
being shot by bright eyes. As for the chronicler he escaped that day.
Feliciter evasit, mirum in modum. And so, amid gaiety and laughter,
flirtation and flatteration, we entered the Indian reservation, inhabited not
by wild but tame aborigines, Pottawatamies, who have achieved the art
of wearing the most shocking bad hats ever seen in the world. There is
a certain grotesqueness in the set and style of a Pottawottamie “tile ”
which defies description. I tried to sketch one from nature, but, like the
artist mentioned by Hone, who tried to copy an uncommonly ill-made
image of a cat, found myself incapable of making it bad enough.
The census of last year showed the population of this tribe to be
1,874, being a decrease of 404 within the year. This decrease is due to
the absence of certain irreclaimable vagabonds of the tribe, who persist
in hunting about in Iowa, Wisconsin and in the South. They were sent
after, and inquiry showed that they were doing no harm and creating no
bad feeling. Those who remained are flourishing. In 1864 they raised
64,000 bushels of corn, besides other large crops, and owned 2,200 horses
and 1,600 cattle. On the whole they are settled and industrious, though
many still rely on the chase. As I write here in Fort Riley, it is only a
few hours since a band of them passed the door, armed, and bound on a
buffalo hunt. There seems to be no affinity between them and their
relations, the wild Indians, who generally kill them when opportunity
presents itself. It is said that as they become assured of the permanent
ownership of their lands, they become more settled and industrious.
This tribe furnished seventy-one soldiers for the United States Army,
and the Agent stated that a large per centage of these died in the service.
The school established among them by the Catholics, who have the prin-
cipal direction of their religious affairs, is said to be admirably conducted,

27
and has been a very efficient help in educating the Indians, not only in
the branches usually taught in schools, but in agriculture and the arts of
housewifery, and habits of industry.
Another tribe of Indians, settled in this vicinity, of whom we saw a
few miserable, shirking, thievish-looking specimens, are the original
Kansas or Kaw Indians. This joyous band numbers only six hundred,
and is rapidly decreasing; a fact, which their Agent, Mr. Farnsworth,
attributes to their habits of promiscuous intercourse or marriage with their
nearest relations, and to a strongly developed taste for miscellaneous dis-
sipation. They are, however, well disposed towards the whites—probably
because they supply whisky—and are good Union men, since they fur-
nished the very large per centage of eighty-four soldiers for the army.
Unfortunately they care nothing for the benefits of settled life or for educa-
tion—for the Kaws are a gay party, and like the owls “belong to a club.”
The Friends, have, however, established a Mission school upon their
reservation, which is well attended. This tribe hunts buffalo, and farms
at the same time. The Pawnees steal horses from them, at least so they
complained. Whether they ever return the compliment, I did not learn.
They wear, if possible, even worse hats than the Pottawottamies, slinging
them over their eyes in a frightfully abandoned manner, with a sic semper
tyrannis expression which is beyond Bohemianism. These Indians “pick
up" and steal things, even with their toes, in an incredibly skillful man-
ner. It is possible that their extremely wicked habits made them the
subject of a hymn, said to have been written some forty years ago by a
missionary, and for which I am indebted to an old number of the Boston
Christian Register :
The Choctaw and the Cherokee;
The Kickapoo and Kaw;
Likewise the Pottawottamie–
Oh, give them all Thy law.
At 2 o'clock our train arrived at Fort Riley, where in the depot a
really splendid lunch was immediately spread. The mirth and fun
speedily became fast and furious, and the two hundred present were soon
running high-tides in enjoyment. Several of the “eminencies” present
were called for; among others, one who unfortunately was not present. I
refer to General William J. Palmer, treasurer of the Railway, whose
merits were, however, well set forth in an excellent eulogium by Mr.
Archer, of St. Louis. The recurrence of this name reminds me that it
was General Palmer who had a bill introduced in Congress last session,
which should give a company, organized for the purpose, the privilege of
tunnelling the Mississippi river at St. Louis, or, to speak more distinctly,
“the privilege of constructing a tubular bridge under the river.” The

28
project, I learn, is perfectly practicable, and is so pronounced by the best
engineers in the country. The experiments of the past twenty years
have fully proved that iron tunnels for subterranean roads are much
better than those built of masonry, like the one under the Thames in
London.
The meal and speeches at an end, horses were provided for all who
chose to ride, and we trotted, “loped '' or paced at will up to the fort, a
beautifully situated range of Government buildings, in the heart of a
highly picturesque country. While here, we received a fresh proof of
the kindness and forethought of our host, General Palmer. Learning
that a great Indian council of five thousand wild warriors—perhaps the
largest held for many years—would assemble in a day or two at Fort
Ellsworth, eighty-five miles from Riley, he kindly made arrangements to
extend the great Pacific Railway excursion thither, and insisted upon our
going. I, for one, accepted, wishing to thoroughly complete the great
trip. -
The occasion which gave rise to this great council was somewhat re-
markable. Some time ago, Colonel Chivington, of the Second Colorado,
was at Sand Creek with his command. At the same place was a large
band of Indians, who had surrendered, and were in camp. These were
attacked and slain by order of Colonel Chivington. On investigation,
Government declared the Indians had been foully treated, and ordered
forty thousand dollars indemnity to be paid them. The meeting at Fort
Ellsworth is to hand over the equivalent of this money in goods to the
Cheyennes, Arrapahoes and others.
And here, at Fort Riley, there was a parting of the tribe for a day.
Dr. Le Conte, that good fellow, havingmet an old friend in that other
good fellow, Dr. Forewood, of Fort Riley, determined to accept the Fore-
woodian invitation, and honor the Sabbath day and keep it wholly at Fort
Riley. And I being included in the joyous and resplendent invite, went
up the hill “sprightly of heart, canty and debonair.” As for Captain
Colton and my bucksome Tribune, they squandered off with the wild
and roaming revelers amid bright eyes and curls, and excessive wine
and fire water, and tobacco smoke, on all the storm and song of a howling
cantico unto Lawrence, under a full head of steam behind an untamed
locomotive. As it was written in the New York Tribune of a later
day, in these very words:
“We spent Sunday in Lawrence, where some of
Us went to church, and some went sight-seeing.
I the afternoon the bulk of our party took
The cars for Wyandotte and Kansas City
On their way home. At Kansas City an
Enthusiastic receptºn awaited them.

29
-
Its main features were a torch-light proces-
Sion and a band of music. The excur-
Sionists were all secured in carriages,
And praded through the streets with drums and fifes
And trumpets at their heads; and as it was
Justly suspected by the com-mit-tee
Of ar-rangements that some of the tired trav-
Elers might be disposed to give them the slip, and
Retire prematurely to their hotels,
Th’ hack drivers had strict orders to permit
No one to leave the line under any pre-
Tense whatever. But one gentleman,
Eager for bed, put his head out of the
Coach window 'nd asked the driver if they had
Not almost reached the hotel. “We aint going
To no hotel, was the consoling re-
Ply. “We’re taking you a-pleasuring.’”
But the Tribune did not roll away headlong on the rapids of this
stormy stream of champagne, out of which rose mountains of cold prairie
hens and islands of partridges, merely to follow Missouri and Kansas
fairies amid clouds of cigar smoke—for he went to Lawrence there
to organize the “buffalo hunt.” So he says. There must have been a
heavy organizing in that crowd that night! “Seven of 'em to one
hand organ.” (This is wrote to be sarcastical.)
L E T T E R. E. I. G. H. T. H.
SoCoMo'N, Kansas, November 6, 1866.
In my last letter I gave the details of our journey as far as Fort Riley.
There are, however, a few facts relative to the great Union Pacific Rail-
way, “Eastern Division,” or to that portion of it, which remain to be
noticed. From Wyandotte, Kansas, the road is now completed so far as
to about two miles beyond Junction City, which is itself about two miles
from Fort Riley. The Santa Fe trade, which formerly followed the
so-called “Old Santa Fe trail,” once struck south from Leavenworth, over
the country. There the wagons are still made and outfitted for this very
extensive and important business, but the point of its departure from
civilization—that is to say, from the railroad—moves along the latter,
and is changed about once a year. Its present point of departure is from
Junction City, which has become, under the influence, even within a few
months, a not inconsiderable town. Town lots in it are rising rapidly

30
in value, and I have heard of many startling instances of large sums or
small fortunes which have been realized by men who, having invested a
little money within the year in “Junction,” as a venture, have found it
prove a buona ventura, or bit of real luck. I shall have more to say on
this subject of other places along the graded route of the Pacific Railway
where the track is not yet laid. Meanwhile, I would speak of the extra-
ordinary inducements held forth to settlers, as well as speculators, by
investments in the Indian lands which lie along the route. These lands,
which can be purchased at a low rate, but which are rising rapidly in
value, are of a fertility and richness which seem incredible to those who
only know the thin and guano-requiring soils of the East. I have never
in my life beheld corn of such a height, or so loaded with luxuriant ears,
as I have seen in the vast fields on these lands. The plain, unvarnished
truth is, that they are simply wonderful. When it is remembered that
they are immediately adjacent what will soon be the great thoroughfare
or road of the entire North American continent, it will be seen what the
value of this property inevitably must be in a few years." At any of the
ranches on the overland route corn sells very readily at a dollar a bushel,
the market being to the West at present, and not towards the East.
Nothing impressed me more than the remarkable contentment which I
found prevailing among these “ranche-men” or farmers with their lot.
Their crops are so easily raised and sold; there is such an extraordinary
hope in the future of the country; such faith in its development, and
such buoyancy of spirits, that the most casual observer or rapid traveler
cannot but perceive that there is no humbug, no false inflation in the
industrial development of Kansas, and that the Kansas Pacific Railway
is the great band which develops and connects the work.
I am disposed to dwell for an instant, even though I anticipate my
route, in this cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits which animate all the
settlers in this very new country. Many of them live in log huts much
ruder than those of the central Western States—huts made of rough sticks
half buried in the ground. These are plastered with common mud; have
mud “banked ” against the sides, and are covered with flat mud roofs—
in fact, they look like very bad pig-styes. But their inhabitants are well-
fed, make money rapidly, and all anticipate the time when, in six months
or a year, a new house of boards and shingles will arise by the side of
the old cabin. In fact, I frequently found the new house, sometimes of
good sandstone, building near the old ranche hut, and everywhere observed
that eager anticipation, that hopefulness, even among the poorest and
most ignorant, which sufficiently attested a rapidly increasing pros-
perity. I wish I could convey to the reader an idea of the conversations
to which I have listened in a group of the inhabitants of some rising

31
town, where every man seemed fully satisfied with his prospects, where
all were full of plans and schemes, and where no one seemed to doubt
that all went well.
Fort Riley is a beautiful Government station, surrounded by a truly
glorious panorama of splendid scenery. The hills which encircle it and
sweep far onward are of picturesque form, and remarkable for one geologi-
cal feature: On nearly all of them, at about one-third of their height
from the summit, a stratum of gray white limestone, some six or ten feet
in thickness, crops out, appearing at a distance precisely like an artificial
stone wall. This, taken in connection with the crisp-brown, even prairie
grass of the late autumn, exactly resembling a new-reaped wheat-field,
gives to the scenery a faux air of cultivated country, which is truly
deceptive. A single house and the trees by the water-courses complete
the illusion, and we wonder at the absence of life.
Fort Riley, like Fort Leavenworth, is not in reality a fortress. Its
barracks and officers' houses form a square, which rather suggests, at first
sight, an elegant watering place than a military station. I cannot speak
too highly of the courtesy and urbanity of the officers of this post, and of
the hospitality which they lavished upon us. I sincerely trust that it is
no violation of the etiquette which should be observed by every traveler
recording his experiences, should I venture to return in type my acknow-
ledgments to General Custer, to Dr. Forewood; for whose hospitality and
many favors I am specially indebted; to Captain Spalding—and in fact,
to every officer of the fort whom I met—for kind acts, or offers of aid or
advice as to our proposed journey into the wilderness.
The hospital, under the charge of Dr. Forewood, was to me very inter-
esting. Its neatness and the thoroughly scientific and military execution
of details indicated the supervision of a thoroughly able and well trained
mind. I examined with great interest its meteorological and other regis-
ters, and also a small collection of the snakes, insects and smaller animals
of the vicinity, preserved in spirits. There was the famed horned frog,
the whip-snake, fabled to whip its victims to death; rattle-snakes and
copperheads, (appropriately pickled in whisky;) prairie mice and strange
insects of most uncomfortable form. I was also much gratified at being
shown a collection of minerals, gathered by Dr. Forewood during his
journey, embracing some five thousand miles in the far West, and a few
Indian objects of interest. Among the latter were a Cheyenne bow of
curious fabric, (valued by the Indians as equivalent to a horse,) and some
arrows which had been drawn from the bodies of the victims of an Indian
Illa SSacre. -
At Fort Riley we left the car which had brought us safely through
fifteen hundred miles from Philadelphia, and with two ambulances or
-

32
wagons, and three horses, went our way towards “Ellsworth.” Soon we
were indeed on the Plains. To those who are not aware of the difference,
it may be as well to explain that the prairie, such as predominates in
Missouri, Illinois and other central States, is perfectly flat and level,
while the so called Plains, which lie further to the West, are gently
undulating, consisting, indeed, of much true prairie land, which is, how-
ever, very much varied by gently swelling low hills, gradually rising in
many places to a high expanse, called a divide, which again settles down
into numerous waves of small hills. Very often the sides of the hills
break down or are washed away, forming ravines which are called canyons,
at the bottom of which are sometimes found pools or streams. The plains
present but little variety of vegetation in the autumn, when the summer
flowers which once made them glorious are vanished. A coarse reedy,
weedy grass, sprinkled with many varieties of wild sage and occasional
cact or a few “ice plants,” generally meets the eye. It is only as we
go farther on that we find more frequent patches of the crisp, moss-
like and firm buffalo grass on which the buffalo loves to feed.
We drove out from “Riley’’ on a fine, fresh Indian-summer morning–
that glorious weather which in Kansas does not merely show itself as a
meteorological favor for a few days, as in Pennsylvania, but frequently lasts
until Christmas. Three Pottowattamie Indians, breakfasting by a fire, and
boiling coffee by the road-side, vividly reminded me of gipsy camps such
as I had seen in Europe, and recalled the fact stated in Simpson's history
of that eccentric people, that the “Rommany” whom he met in America,
complained that they were often sorely puzzled by the Indians, whom
they at first took to be of their own blood. They would go and “cast
their sign º’ and address the Indians in gipsy tongue, and retire abashed.
When an Indian, half or whole breed, puts on a Mexican sombrero, yet
still retains his long braided locks, he strangely resembles an Hungarian
zigan or gipsy. I have seen in our route Indian-Mexicans who had pre-
cisely the air, color and strange glassy stare of these vagabonds of the very
Old World. - -
We halted at a ranche kept by an Irishman, who spoke cheerfully of
his success in raising and selling corn. Here we cooked our dinner—
that is to say, we had it cooked for us by our steward “John ”—boiled
our coffee, and realized the tonic effect of Plains air as an appetizer. On
one of the logs of this ranche some one had carved, in large, meat capital
letters, the following touching inscription: ~
KANSAS, THE PARADISE OF PETTICOATS.
There it was, touching in its simplicity, bold and beautiful. Ladies
are scarce in Kansas, and are worshipped accordingly. Those whom we

33
met there deserved it. Especially “our two"—the honorary members
of our Gideon's band.
In the evening we arrived at a village—one of the rapid out-growths
of the Pacific Railway—which, being situated on the Solomon creek, has
been named, by anticipation, Solomon City. Here we were genially wel-
comed by one of the prominent citizens, a Mr. Waddell, who kindly lent
us a carpenter-shop wherein to lodge. It was election day in the town
of Solomon. Some of the wisdom of the great Solomon (nomen et omen)
seems, in fact, to have inspired this healthy little village, since it appeared
to be earnestly, brilliantly, and thoroughly Radical in politics. The
representations made to the effect that my friend Hassard and myself
were respectively editorial attachés of the New York Tribune and the
Philadelphia Press were at first listened to with some incredulity; but
when our claims were established, we had nothing to complain of and we
were received even as the inhabitants of Papimanie received Panurge
when they had learned that he had seen the Pope.
The radicalism of Kansas is something intensely real. Its people are,
I believe, the most intelligent of any State. They are enterprising, vig-
orous and true-hearted, and see clearly that Republicanism means that
development of an industrial policy which is so vitally important to them.
Many can remember the blood-baptisms of 1855, and hate the old enemy
under the new form of Johnsonism, with all their heart and soul. I
shall, I foresee, have more than one occasion to speak of the noble feeling
as to politics which I found everywhere prevalent in this State.
* General Custer,” says the Tribune, while at Fort Riley, “lent us
four mule ambulances and three cavalry horses, with an orderly to take
care of them. We mounted our seats; the horsemen cantered gaily in
advance; our two teamsters, Brigham and Peter, cracked their long whips,
and dexterously tickled the tender ears of the leading mules; and so, with
waving of hats and wishing of good speed from our friends of the garrison,
we rattled out of the fort and down the dusty hill to the railway, and so
on to Junction City. We kept along the stage route all day. It was
terribly rough riding across ravines, cañons and gulches, where the road
seemed to have been made with an utter disregard of the danger of
upsetting. Brigham was an admirable driver, and brought us safely
through all the perils of the way, but we felt some uneasiness, even under
his hands, when, having asked him if he ever upset his wagon, he
answered with a laugh of derision, ‘You bet !”
* Brigham was a wonderfully rich character. A tall, swarthy fellow
with long black hair, and keen, little, almond-shaped eyes, in a nonde-
script costume, composed chiefly of boots, buckskin gauntlets, a large
overcoat and cape, and a spreading sombrero, decorated with A RED RIB.
3 -

34
Box, he was the beau ideal of a Santa Fe teamster, half Mexican and
half Indian. Brigham, however, was a New Yorker by birth; but he
had lived in all manner of uncivilized places; had delved for gold at
Pike's Peak; traded and gambled in New Mexico; and driven mules
across the Plains. He was now in Uncle Sam's service as a teamster,
but he said he was going to resign very soon. “And what will you do
then º’ I asked, ‘Not a darned thing as long as the money lasts, was
the reply. Brigham was full of anecdotes, and had a fund of dry humor
which Meister Karl was especially fond of drawing out.” He spoke
Spanish, and we noticed that whenever he was particularly pleased with
us he signified his approbation by using a few Spanish words.”
LETTE R N IN T H .
Fort ELLsworth, November 8, 1866.
“This is very much like coming back to army practice,” said one of
our party, as he spread his blankets preparatory to sleeping on the floor
of the carpenter shop at Solomon City. “Yes, we have only to fancy
that we are out after rebs..” Several of the party had been in the army,
and it was no novelty to them to sleep, wrapped up in a gray United
States blanket, on floors or the ground. I have, in fact, had frequent
occasion to observe, since the war ended, that it has had a singularly
beneficial effect in familiarizing a vast proportion of young gentlemen
with what were once regarded as real hardships and sufferings, but which
now pass for first-class frolics. With all its disasters, its loss of life, and
destruction of property, the war left us at least one valuable legacy in the
training of a vast number of men to endure fatigue, and face those
dangers which must be encountered in a new country. It is rarely that
we meet an American in Kansas who has not been a soldier, and it is
certain that familiarity in “roughing it” has induced thousands to immi-
grate hither, who, without “army practice,” would never have dared to
venture to take a look at that stupendous “elephant” which mythically
* “Yea,” quoth ME1stER KARL, “but I found that it drew out” much better when
wetted with corn juice, though, strange to say, the more it was moistened the dryer it
became.”
† Such as , -— and – , or sometimes . These were cursory
expressions. Billy, the mule, had learned Spanish from Brigham, and always started
arrectis a wribus at one particular interjection of Arabic origin.
35
represents life on the frontier, and is so often alluded to by the adventur-
ous land and money-seekers from the East.
It is well on a journey to know not only where one is going, but how
fast and how far. For the benefit of those who would know the exact
distances traversed in the longest single excursion ever made in one rail-
road car on the North American or any other Continent, I subjoin the
annexed table of distances:
- MILES.
From Philadelphia to Pittsburg........................ .... ......... …
To Chicago........................... ------------------------------------------------------
To Quincy, Illinois..............................................
To St. Joseph, Missouri..................... ... … -
To Weston................................................. ...... . . . . . . . . . . ............... 37.
To Leavenworth
To Lawrence.................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
To Fort Riley.........
1,469
To the above must be added, as an essential portion of the trip “out,”
forty miles from Leavenworth to Kansas City, with the return; giving
in all 1,509 miles. From Fort Riley to Fort Ellsworth the distance is
about 87 miles, making three days of easy travel in ambulances or on
horseback, and our party had two of the former and three of the latter,
under charge of an orderly.
Arising from our slumbers at “Solomon,” (where, as was sagely
observed by one of the party, we had bed and board, all in one,) and
inquiring the news about town, we were informed that the election of the
previous day had not been quite so favorable to the great and good cause
as had been anticipated—the Republican majority having been only about
three hundred per cent, over the Copperheads—and, also, that Governor
Cummings, of Colorado, had passed through the town in the overland
stage. This, with the fact that town lots could be had for twenty-five
dollars each, completed the summary. Solomon does not as yet boast a
newspaper, but, as one of the inhabitants informed me, they would doubt-
less have one “mighty soon.” -
Another long day in wagons or on horseback over the plains began to
convince us that we had fairly entered an immense and somewhat mono-
tonous country. Hour after hour we passed the same sad, rolling, long-
drawn earth-waves, on a road bordered with millions upon millions of
the dried wild sunflower, which in this country attains an incredible size,
and seems to especially affect the vicinity of travel. Little by little other
signs of the wilderness began to show themselves. Now and then a
buffalo's skull, with bleached horns and scattered bones, indicated that
hunting-grounds of mighty game had been where we now were. At one




36
time a freshly-killed and skinned antelope, which lay abandoned by the
wayside, excited hopes of a shot among our “sporting men.” More
interesting, however, are the caravans of wagons from Denver, suggestive
of the Rocky Mountains, now not many days distant, which met the
traveler on the overland route.
These immense vehicles, once common in Pennsylvania (where they
were known as Conestoga wagons), and which have now so generally
yielded to railroads, are still to be found in the West; but, like the
buffalo, are continually going westward. Like a wounded snake, the
trains of twenty or thirty vehicles wind their slow length along, suggest-
ing monotony, boredom and the blues to an unlimited extent. On some
roads from three to four months are often consumed in a single journey.
But they carry much substantial aid to the settlers; and the drivers, dull
as the life seems, find some strange charm in it, for I have been assured
by a gentleman extremely familiar with their ways, that of all the callings
on the frontiers there is not one to which its followers remain so constant
as the teamster business. “Once a teamster, always a teamster.”
We dined at Salina, one of the most growing, enterprising, flourishing,
driving little towns it was ever my luck to see. Salina is, in fact, perfectly
irrepressible as regards enterprise and bold hopes. With about two hun-
dred inhabitants, it has appropriated about $5,000 for a school, is taxed
up to the agony point, boasts two religious congregations, each of which
is getting ready for erecting a church, and what is most significant, utters
cries for lumber, which cannot be brought fast enough on the railroad to
supply the very considerable demand. “If any enterprising young man
wants to make money, let him come here and start a lumber yard,” said
Mr. H. L. Jones, a highly intelligent gentleman, resident in Salina, from
whom I obtained much valuable information. It is now little more than
a year since the buffalo ranged in vast flocks near the town, but they will
soon be known no more in that land at least, for Salina is growing, grow-
ing, as everything is growing in this incredible country.
I observed, as an interesting fact in Salina and other towns, or by
way-side ranches, that, on the frontier, men cannot be readily distinguished
by their appearance. Speculators, members of Congress, ranche-men,
hunters, merchants and others, all dress roughly, and sit around the fire
with a most republican equality, and astonish the verdant traveler with
their frank remarks and highly intelligent language. In fact, the
remarkable degree of intelligence and information which prevails in
Kansas among men of every calling cannot be overrated. A very large
proportion of its population is from New England or New York State;
and are men who believe in newspapers, think that “Thou shalt promote
aducation " ought to be a new commandment, and who hate treason with


37
all their hearts in every form, from Johnsonism up to State rights and
rebellion.
Riding all the afternoon, we at length arrived at “Honneck's,” where
we slept in the open air, under the lee of a haystack, cooking our supper
and breakfast, en bivouac, by a camp-fire. Even our accomplished and
infinitely courteous chief in command, Colonel Charles B. Lamborn, secre-
tary of the U. P. R. W., E. D. (I trust that I have written rightly these
initials of the Pacific Railway), could do no better for us, and no healthy
man need ask for more of an Indian-summer night, when he has blankets
and an overcoat. As it was, however, an unusual occasion, “Gideon's
Band,” or the vocalists of the excursion, were unusually “song-full”
around the fire, giving out their choice effusions, much to the amazement
of an admiring audience of teamsters and settlers from an adjacent ranche.
These latter, I found, were Bavarian Germans.
I was awakened about four in the morning by a strange concert. All
was silent in the camp; the fire had burned low to a few embers; far in
the distance the prairie fires were coloring the horizon with a broad and
splendid fringed band of crimson, and over all shone the stars. But from
beyond the camp came a marvelously insane-sounding chorus of wailing,
yelping, whinnying and odd barking, as of a disharmony of Dutch
babies, kittens, small dogs and penny trumpets. I fell asleep and again
awoke, and still heard the chorus, but growing fainter and fainter, until
it was inaudible. Then I arose, and, sitting by the fire, at which coffee
was being boiled for “an early start,” was informed by Brigham, one of
our drivers, that the sounds I had heard proceeded from cayotes and wolves.
“In a few minutes,” says the Tribune, describing this our early rise,
“we had a fire burning and were cracking jokes around it with even more
than our usual hilarity. Young Gideon's rattling laugh spread contagious
merriment through the circle. John set the coffee pot on the coals; the
genial Golly munched a soda biscuit, and now and then cried Goll darn
this smoke " Yardley and Lewis told stories; the Captain sang to us of
the little lamb that followed Mary to school, shouting the battle-cry of
freedom, and Meister Karl, in his roughest bass, (which is strong
language. I assure you,) chanted his favorite Indian lay of The Great
Museolgee. Through all the merry trip I don’t think we were ever
merrier than during the reaction of those two comfortable hours before
dawn. As soon as it was light, breakfast was made ready (we were
reduced by this time to hard tack and salt junk), the mules were caught
and harnessed, and we mounted joyfully to our seats. Vamos, shouts
Brigham, and off we rattle.”
I spoke above of the cayotes and wolves which we heard here. But
a few years will pass, however—I might almost say a few months—and

38
the cries of the wolf and cayote will no longer be heard on the line, which
we have thus far followed, and over which the great Pacific Railroad is
being graded at the rate of a mile a day. Howl while you may, O wolves!
Your days, in these parts at least, are numbered In the eloquent
language of the great Black Kettle, chief of the Kioways or Cheyennes
(or somethings), who had not indeed seen the iron horse himself, but had
“heard tell” of it from a Kaw, who had learned something about it from
a Pottawottamie—“There is a great iron wagon coming, which goes pºſſ,
p'ſ pºſſ, and wherever it comes the buffaloes all go away " Poor old
Black Kettle—always friendly to the whites, but who could not control
his “foolish young braves”—he who was, as he said, “only a wolf, born
on the prairie, nursed on the prairie, meant to live and die on the
prairie"—he too must go with the wolves and buffalo before that terrible
“pºſſ, pºſſ,” and be no more known of men
That this is not mere poetry will appear from a few facts and figures,
which will place before the reader the enormous magnitude of the amount
of travel which is inevitably destined to pass over the Union Pacific Rail-
way when it shall be completed.
It is at present possible, as our own trip has proved, to pass in a single
car from Philadelphia to Fort Riley, almost in a straight line. It is
moreover rapidly making close connections, of the most advantageous
description, with all the principal railroads which connect the Eastern
cities with those of the West. The latest contracts made by this road,
stipulate for the construction of two hundred and fifty miles more of track,
bringing it to Pond Creek, within two hundred miles of Denver City;
that is to say, six hundred and seventy miles west of St. Louis, and one
thousand, two hundred and twenty-seven miles west of Pittsburg / It is
worth noting, in this connection, that Pennsylvania furnishes a handsome
proportion of the amount of railroad iron required for this enterprise. In
connection with this road, there are already projected a vast amount of
lateral roads; the mere suggestion of which is already stimulating settle-
ment and promising immense markets to Eastern manufactures. The
amount of goods sold, for instance at Salina, is about ten times as much
as would be sold in a town of the same size in Pennsylvania, and this
remarkable rate of consumption is to be found at obscure ranche stores
on side roads, so freely is money spent in the West. Now, what will be
the amount of travel on a road running through more than a thousand
miles of rich prairie of incredible fertility, and forming, as it will, the
most direct, the most agreeable, the most unimpeded by snow in winter,
of the roads which are to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?
As a writer in the Pittsburg Gazette has remarked: “The Eastern
Division starts from two points on the west bank of the Missouri River,

39
Leavenworth and Wyandotte. The two branches uniting at Lawrence,
Kansas, make from that point directly west, on as near an air-line as
possible, through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California to San
Francisco, or until it meets the Western Division from that city coming
this way.” The first six hundred miles of the road west of the Missis-
sippi River is only about fifty miles out of an air line.
it is evident at a glance that, according to the map of North America,
this forms the real, continental, straight Pacific Railway, to which all
others—as, for instance, the Nebraska–Omaha route, or the Southern-
Fremont route—cannot be regarded as other than mere tributaries or
wings. But it is with regard to the connection between the road east of
the Rocky Mountains with the Central and Western Divisions, that the
future greatness of the former consists. At present the Pacific Railway,
Eastern Division, follows closely the overland and European China mail
route. By the Eastern Division we mean that part of the Pacific Rail-
way which lies east of the Rocky Mountains or of Denver. The Central
Division embraces that portion which reaches from Denver to Salt Lake.
The Western Division is from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, Utah.
In my next letter I shall give a number of items relative to the present
condition of these other routes.
1. Ett E R T E N T H.
Fort ELLsworth, Kansas, November 9, 1866.
THE CENTRAL Division.
“Then you are the gentlemen who are going to knock Brigham
Young's kingdom higher than a kite’” So said an intelligent stranger,
who, having descended for a short relief from the overland stage at Hon-
neck's, and attracted by our fire, had quietly joined us.
“How so?” was our query.
“Why, when your Pacific Railway is finished, the sinners will travel
through Utah at such a rate that it will be ‘all up' with the saints. By
the way, you havn't heard Brigham's last sermon, I suppose Here it
is ; I'll read it to you.”
Saying this, he read a very funny and very highly salted discourse, which
some wicked Gentile had reported and printed—perhaps the editor of the
Vedette knows where. It raised a hearty laugh, but in my mind it gave
rise to reflection. Truly the great road will destroy the realm of Mor-
mon without the aid of legislation, by letting in light upon its ignorant
famatics. -
40
Of the Central Pacific Railway, I learn from the Rocky Mountain
News and Pittsburg Gazette that thirty million dollars have been sub-
scribed to its stock in Europe, and that the latest surveys have demon-
strated that a nearly straight railroad can be laid between Denver and
Salt Lake City, which will save many hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually in transportation. The present road, used by United States
mail coaches, is not only two hundred and nine miles longer than that
which will be traversed by the railroad, but is also more exposed to
dangers of travel, involving the passage of the two snowy Sierras, the
Rocky Mountains and the Wasatch. -
The direct road from Denver to Salt Lake City, following the line of
the fortieth degree, pursues the diameter of a circle, (of which the above
road is the circumference,) having a course due east and west. The
through distance is four hundred and three miles. This road, starting
from Denver, ascends Clear creek to Empire City; it crosses the Snowy
Sierra at Berthoud's pass, and descends immediately into the Middle park.
The whole distance from the Snowy Sierra to the Sierra Wasatch is
across the valley of the great Colorado, descending the bank of White
river to Green, and then ascending the bank of Wintah river to the
Wasatch. This road then traverses a continued succession of parks and
valleys, free from any considerable altitudes, other than the two Sierras.
It pursues a river border continuously, through a country depressed
among mountains, covered and protected within them, fertile in soil and
genial in temperature through the year. -
The following table gives an accurate statement of the distances to be
saved :
º
PRESENT LINE, OR NO. I.
Denver to Salt Lake City, by Bridger's pass............................. 612 miles.
PROPOSED LINE, OR NO. II.
Denver to Salt Lake City, by Berthoud pass............................. 40.3 miles.
Distance saved.................................................................. 209 miles.
Stations on road No. 1
Stations on road No. 2........................ -------------------------------------------- 34
- --
Stations saved............ - - - - - - ------------------ --------------------------------- - - -..... 17
Saved in construction of stations, at $1,200 each,
Saved in expense of maintenance, at $400 per month 79,600
Saved in 148 horses, at $175 each................................... 25,900
Saved in forage..................................................................... 53,020
Total................................................................. ................ $178,920
Saved in time both ways
Saved in miles traveled during 730 trips per year
... 2 days
152,570







41
That is to say, one hundred and fifty-two thousand five hundred and
seventy miles, as the United States mail coaches now travel. “To this
is to be added the economy resulting from the decrease of time and
expenses; the increase of speed; the favorable influence of the climate,
scenery and soil; the growth of population and way travel; the superior
excellence, safety and convenience of the road; the timber, fuel and
water in uninterrupted abundance and good quality; the compact, shel-
tered and attractive farms which nature offers within the parks.”
Some have assumed that it would only be necessary to follow the
Indian trails or wagon routes in making this road; but “it is now demon-
strated, beyond controversy, that the straight route through the centre of
the United States' possessions is the one that should be hastened through
first.” -
The greatest activity, enterprise and energy are being displayed on
this, as on the other routes. People most fortunately have not been obliged
to wait to the end to see the substantial results of the immense capital
and labor embarked. Thus in the Eastern Division, from Leavenworth
to Fort Riley, so far as completed, the road is unable to supply the
demand for freight and passage. As all these roads grow, towns and
ranches spring up by their side, and the whole State or Territory is
awakened to intense enterprise and hopefulness. Every man who lives
anywhere on the proposed Pacific route, from St. Louis to San Francisco,
is inspired by it to fresh labor, and there are few who do not believe that it
will make their fortunes. No words can adequately represent the extra-
ordinary activity and excitement now prevailing as regards the road.
The only parallel which I have ever seen to it was in the oil regions
and in “oil circles,” two years or eighteen months ago, from Pennsyl-
vania to Tennessee. The latter was, however, in a great measure, mere
feverish speculation, while the former is a legitimate industrial develop-
ment, based upon sound labor, a stupendous enterprise, and the richest,
the most certain and most inexhaustible resources of nature.
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY, WESTERN DIVISION.
The Californians, who are, perhaps, the most enterprising and
“driving '' of Americans, declare that their section, from San Francisco
to Salt Lake, must, can, will and shall be finished, if there is any virtue
in gold, gunpowder or nitro-glycerine, in two years and a half “from
date.” True, the rocks in their way are something stupendous; but then
they are accustomed to pulverize quartz and reduce mountains in a man-
ner which would have astonished Hannibal or any other man of the Barca
family. With ten thousand coolies at work, they are, in fact, working
wonders. The following extract from a letter given in the article already

42
quoted, sets forth in “graphic style "
enterprise :
several interesting features of the
“The scenery along the road is often sublime—in a few places awful. Here are
bridges, viaducts, mountain chasms, exceeding anything yet accomplished on our East-
ern roads. The heaviest work of all is the summit tunnel of one thousand seven hundred
feet in length. This tunnel, however, is not more expensive than several that have been
made through the Alleghenies.
“I incline, therefore, to the opinion that the difficulties in getting through the Rocky
Mountains have been greatly exaggerated, and that you can confidently count upon the
completion of the Pacific Railroad through the centre of North America within three
wears.”
This last surmise is, I believe, too sanguine. From five to ten years is
the time allotted by “those who ought to know.”
ON THE ROAD.
On the road between Honneck’s ranche and Ellsworth lie a number of
irregularly-shaped and extremely picturesque “buttes” or hills, whose
summits recall the “old ruin” formed mountains of the Saxon Switzer-
land, or the far more singularly worn crags of Elk river, in West Vir-
ginia. Leaving the little caravan, I rode with our “man of science” to
examine these bergs. They consisted, in great measure, of a ferruginous
rock, in which were imbedded vast quantities of curiously-shaped nodules.
Thousands upon thousands of these, resembling rusty and ragged buck-
shot, grape or cannon balls, washed or worn by the action of the rain or
atmosphere from the parent rock, lay scattered around. This stony car-
bonate of iron, known also as sphero-siderite, is curious in many respects.
I have seen it in the Great Kanawha (Virginia) region in vast masses,
containing at least seventy-five per cent of iron—a somewhat unusual
proportion, I believe, for this argillaceous ore. The nodules or balls are
formed, in the first instance, around any accidental object, such as a lump
of clay, or pebble, or even a grain of sand. One which we broke open
displayed in its nucleus a beautifully impressed foliate mark, showing
that the symmetrically rounded sphere had been, like Goethe's system of
botany, founded upon a leaf. When the outer casing is fractured or split,
this inner kernel falls out, leaving a shell, which is often precisely like
that of a nut, or the pulp of a fruit. I have seen these balls of ferru-
ginous clay when split, exactly resemble a peach and its stone, even in
color. Several which were gathered from this Kansas rock were like
pickled walnuts, chocolate confections and pecans. Four miles from these
hills, to the north, lie the celebrated rocks covered with Indian hiero-
glyphics, which were thus described eleven years ago by Max Greene:
“Five years since it was my fortune to make a discovery on the bluffs of
the Little Arkansas, about four miles northwest of the Santa Fe crossing,
of which mention is here made in the hope that it will induce some one

43
skilled in archaeological lore to visit the spot. There are hundreds of
large flat rocks, some twenty feet broad, walling an aclivity that inclines
from the river course to the southwest. Some of the characters are like
those I have seen on the ledges of Rio Puerco and among the head-
waters of the Gila. There is nothing modern in their appearance; they
must have been graven there ages ago,
“While yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelican to forms
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rocks
The glittering Parthenon.”
“These remains, I believe, are many leagues north of where any other
inscriptions are extant similar to those of Uxmal or Palenque; and this
fact may serve to strengthen the theory of the Cambrian legend of
Azatlan and the Toltec tradition of their journeyings southward.”
There are many of these Indian inscriptions on the rocks of Kansas; all -
of which will probably ere long vanish. I regretted to hear of a very
curious and attractive one which has, even within the past year, been so
shamefully defaced as to be at present well nigh destroyed. Should these
lines meet the eye of any intelligent person in the West or Southwest, who
may come near any of these “picture rocks,” I would beg him, for the sake
of science and history, to copy them—no matter how rudely—and send
the copy to some historical society. I myself will gladly receive any
favor of the kind, and transmit it to a proper receptacle. There is reason
to believe that Aztec influences once prevailed among the tribes of Kansas,
and it is possible that these picture rocks, which are said to differ very
much from the common Indian “markings,” may confirm this theory.
About 3 P. M. we reached Fort Ellsworth, and I cannot deny that the
first impressions of the place were extremely cheerless. In contrast to
the neat and cheerful buildings of creamy stone of Fort Riley, here were
palisaded or stockaded huts of one story high, plastered with mud, and
with flat mud roofs, on which a thick crop of dead weeds stood like the
hair of a frightened man. The cordial welcome which we, however,
received from the officers of this station, speedily removed any gloomy
impressions of the kind. I shall, indeed, never forget the kindness, the
hospitality, the joyful anticipation of our every possible want shown by
these gentlemen. “You will want this on your journey—or that—let me
lend it to you—I can readily spare it,” was continually uttered. We had
not halted before that “bon compagnon’ and most hospitable gentleman,
Major McElroy, had placed his tent at our service, furnished us with
every toilette facility, and invited to dine those who had not been already
hospitably “gobbled up" by other kind entertainers. Let those who
will accuse me of intruding on the province of Jenkins, in thus men.

44
tioning names; if sincere gratitude in any form be wrong, then let me
rank as a sinner in sºccula. Having spread my blankets in the corner of
the Major's tent, and dined as his guest, I was next taken in hand by
another most excellent good fellow and genial gentleman, Lieut. Browne,
quartermaster, who devoted himself to making it “all right" for us with
an energy and success which I have never seen surpassed in all my
travels.”
The new fort buildings, a mile distant, as yet unfinished, are of a
superior description, being built of sand-stone.
While standing on the outskirts of the fort, I saw approaching, on a
diminutive pony, a middle-aged Kaw Indian. Abandoned scamps as the
Kaws are, they are not a bad-looking tribe; in fact, the early French
explorers called them Les beaua hommes. When at home, they wear
bad hats; “lie on the bear-skin,” as Germans say, and look utterly
degraded. But when off on a tramp through the prairies, they array
themselves in all the glories of shaved pates, red paint, silver jinglers in
their ears, beads, red blankets, and other chaste and severe indications of
refined taste, which no gentleman's toilette should be without. This is
done to conciliate their brethren of the Plains, who have a way of taking
off the waterfalls of all civilized-dressed Indians, without chloroform,
which the latter cheerfully avoid. The gentleman approaching us had
evidently arrayed himself in proper style for a visit to his friends in the
country, and was beyond question as aboriginal as his means permitted.
He had his head shaved in two lines, and colored according to the ver-
million edict of his countrymen, which sanctions the use of any color on
the face so that it be red, while his slashed ears, his silver ear-rings of
many pendants (like those on a beaver-skin), his necklace, with a rude
brooch made of a piece of shell, his belt, Indian shirt, tunic and leggings,
all indicated the defiant savage. Our conversation was as follows:
“Hallo, Johnny.”
“ Ugh.”
“Got any buffalo skins’’
“No buffel.”
“Where's your lodge º'
Here the aborigine indulges in a series of manual vibrations, sawing off
of fingers, pointing to the sun, and other romantic manipulations, which
* “How grateful were the kind attentions of the jolly Major, who made such capital
toddies, and pitched two big tents for us; the quartermaster, who wanted to give us
everything he had in the world; the commissary, who replenished our stores, and the
commandant, who asked us to dinner.”–N. Y. Tribune.
Toddies first |!—MEistER KARL.

45
is explained by Lieutenant Browne to mean, “Over the plains to the
southwest—a journey of a day and a half—a long, flat prairie, and over
two hills.”
“Been a soldier, Johnny ?”
“Ugh. Me soldier, no. My sister been soldier.”
And with this astounding and remarkable communication with regard
to the part taken by his family in the great war of the rebellion, John
departed.
The gray wolves, which howl as wildly around Fort Ellsworth as any
other place on the plains, are here made a considerable source of profit to
the soldiers, who shoot them with Quaker buttons, i. e. poison them with
strychnine. Lupus finds a delicious dead horse spread out for his
banquet, et ululat, “and howls” tune fratres ejus—“then his brethren”
audientes, “hearing,” vocem, “his voice,” rush to the feast and perish
miserably. Hoc fabula docet, “this fable teaches'’ that horse flesh is
an extremely dangerous article to meddle with, whether by wolves or
men. I believe, but I am not certain, that I was told that about 1,800
wolf-skins were thus secured at Ellsworth last year. I have, however,
myself seen within a mile, on one afternoon, two gray wolves, large as
Newfoundland dogs, lying dead and poisoned on the plains.
During the cold weather the wolyes suffer. At the time, as Francois
Willon saith,
Quand les loups wivent de vent.”
Then they howl wildly over the snow, and will sometimes attack a
man. Then, too, the buffalo “come to town,” and last winter one dashed
through the camp. There is, perhaps, not a log hut in the settlement
which has not had its rattlesnake beating time between the canvas lining
and the timbers. In one of these cabins a crotalus durissus, or rattle-
snake of the heavy sort, not long since made his home in a snug corner
over the canvas ceiling. The occupant was lulled to sleep, night after
night, by the gentle rattle of the “sarpent " over his head. One day it
occurred to him to put a large and particularly ferocious tom cat, by way
of scientific experiment, into the aperture around the stove-pipe. Tom
made his way, searching mice, for a time over the ceiling, “and then the
music began.” There was a hideous duet of rattling, hissing, squalling,
molrowing and other melodies, until Thomas reappeared with every
particular hair on end, “ looking as large as four common cats,” his tail
intensely dilated, his eyes in a horrid rage, and thus excited dashed forth
in a bee-line out into the plains, and was never more seen of man. From
that hour the snake too was silent, and peace reigned in Warsaw.
It was at Ellsworth that I first had an opportunity of studying the
prairie dog, which has also been studied and described by Horace Greeley

46
and other great lights of science. The two which I observed were named
Bob and Bill. They cannot bark without jumping, nor jump (if a dog
be “convenient”) without biting. Either one of them is a match for any
amount of single dog; as they pin their opponent by the nose, and will
not let go under less than two apples and a pint of chestnuts. When well
fed their impudence becomes sublime; their fatness a comfortable thing
to contemplate. That they are intelligent is proved by the fact that they
not only know enough to go in when it rains, but are also scientific to the
degree of preventing the rain from coming in after them—which they
effect by sagaciously casting up a circular earthwork around the mouth of
their subterranean homes. They are on the whole rather numerous on
the plains, there being about one to every square yard, and are, in fact,
almost as common as skunks in that broad expanse of country. As
regards the latter beautiful beast, I can only say that if there were any-
thing in Indian names, the term Chicago should have been applied to all
Kansas, instead of the Garden City. To render my meaning clear to the
uninitiated, I would say that Chicago is said to mean in Indian “the
place of skunks.”
We had been told that a great Indian Council of five thousand warriors
would be found at Ellsworth. In place of this army we had found only
a single gentleman of the aboriginal persuasion, who admitted that his
sister was the only warrior of the family. The five thousand we learned
were afraid to “come in,” and had determined to assemble in reduced
quantities at Fort Zarah—two days’ journey to the south. We, there-
fore, determined to relinquish with regret our opportunities to mingle in
the first society of the Cheyennes and Kiowas, and follow up with zeal
the line of the Union Pacific Railroad so far as graded, and beyond that
to its last surveying station, sixty miles and two days’ journey further on.
And with this resolve I retired to the floor of the tent, laid two blankets
(borrowed) upon it for a bed, wrapped two others (purchased) around
me, and with my head pillowed on my leather haversack, fell asleep.
L E T T E R E L E V E N T H .
FossIL CREEK, Kansas, November 10, 1866.
“Things have changed here somewhat since the good old times,”
remarked a friend as we paused by the roadside near a ranche or stage
station known as Buffalo Creek. “In those days the extra-sized Chinco-

47
teagues gaped around here by millions, and now you can only get them
in cans.”
These comments were passed over an examination of the shells of the
inocerami, with which, or rather with the impressions of which, the rocks
here abounded. In fact, for nearly a hundred miles it is impossible to
find a stone which does not contain imprints of these bivalves, which bear
such a strong family likeness to the real natives.
“Yes,” resumed my friend, “in those days it was all water here, and
now there is no water to speak of—nothing but whisky, as a general
thing. How beautiful is Nature! It never rains but it pours.”
This want of water, which cannot be denied, recalls several other wants
of the plains, which it may be as well to discuss. One of these is the
“plentiful lack” of fuel or timber, which seriously alarms many who pro-
pose settling in this country. It is, indeed, not many weeks since I read a
long article intended to prove that trees never could grow on the prairies
or the plains, let man do what he might, and I have more than once met
with printed “amilities and asinisms” to the same effect. When we
observe that the great part of Ohio, and millions of acres in Indiana, Illi-
nois and Missouri, which are now dense forest lands, were once evidently
flat prairie, we have a tolerably lucid and clear answer to the question
whether trees will grow on the immense lea-lands of the West. The old
settlers can all remember when the places now shaded by forests of
beeches and oaks, were open fields and buffalo ranges. On a changé tout
cela. As tree vegetation has advanced over the plains, rain has become
more frequent and water-courses more abundant, in accordance with that
natural law so beautifully expressed by a poet:
“Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivulets played,
And fountains sparkled in the shade.”
The ease with which trees can be set out and raised in the prairies is
something remarkable, when they can be guarded against prairie fires.
All through the Valley of the Kansas, which I have, in fact, been following
from its mouth at Wyandotte, timber abounds along the creeks. From
Wyandotte to within a few miles of Lawrence, wherever wood has “had
a chance,” the valley is heavily timbered. In the words of my excellent
and enterprising friend, Mr. Copley, of the Pittsburg Gazette, “White
oak and burr oaks abound, and I observed some red, black and other
varieties of oak of all kinds, hickory, soft maple, elm, sycamore, black
walnut, cotton-wood, hackberry, poplar and ash. Here the railway com-
pany have on their own ground an inexhaustible supply of timber for ties
and other purposes, and numerous steam saw mills are busy working it
up. The soil in this timbered district is surpassingly rich. The value

48
of such a tract to a railroad which runs for hundreds of miles through a
prairie country, can hardly be estimated.”
There is, however, a great waste of wood to be observed in the vicinity
of Topeka. Dismal, black, girdled trees, scathed by fire and left to rot,
stand like armies of ghastly spectres in the corn-fields, or lie rotting on
the ground, when a hundred miles further on there is such a demand for
lumber, and at such prices as I never before witnessed, even in the oil
region of Pennsylvania. There need be no fear that, with proper atten-
tion, wood will ever be wanting, when the plains are settled. Even in
Europe it is never deficient when care is taken to supply it. As regards
enclosures for stock, Kansas is, I believe, the native land of the Osage
orange, “which makes a hedge impervious to pigs, and before which the
most resolute cows stand aghast in mute despair.” (I quote from a gar-
dener's advertisement.)
There is an impression prevalent that the plains of Kansas are deficient
in stone for building materials. I cannot better correct this than by
again quoting from the ever observant and invaluable Copley:
“THE BLUFFs.
“More or less distant from the river (as before intimated) the valley or bottom land is
bounded by bluffs of moderate elevation, varying from fifty to one hundred feet in height.
These bluffs are perfectly destitute of timber, and are covered with grass, except where the
singularly regular stratified limestone rocks crop out. In some places, extending for long
distances, these rocks present the appearance of regular and handsome masonry of
straight vertical range-work, which is not the least beautiful feature of this paradisical
valley.
“But their beauty is of small moment compared with their utility, for they yield the
best and cheapest, and most beautiful building material I ever saw. The mass is composed
of layer over layer for many feet in thickness, the several strata being from five to six, or
to sometimes twenty inches in thickness. The texture is not unlike that of marble, but it
will not receive the same polish. The color of the stones is a light yellowish gray, and
whether viewed near or at a distance, they make beautiful houses. But the most remark-
able quality in these stonesis, that when fresh quarried they can be sawed like timber
with toothed saws, and yet after being exposed to the weather for a short time, they
acquire the hardness of marble. At Junction City there is one of these stone saw mills
in operation, and I saw some buildings composed of the blocks thus sawed. They were
twelve or fourteen inches thick, by twice that length, and as regular as pressed brick-
This will be pre-eminently the Valley of Stone Houses. These rocks underlie all the
higher prairie land in Kansas.”
I would add that this stone is identically the same with that which is
so commonly used in France. It has the same softness when quarried
and the same hardness when long exposed, and exhibits the same cavities,
formed in part by “shrinkage” when the calcareous “slip ’’ was a semi-
liquid, and partly by the decay and disappearance of small marine ani-
mals. Near Fort Riley it contained very few fossils, but further up the
valley it abounded in them, principally inocerami.

49
What the accurate Copley has said of the usual height of the hillocks
of the plains may be remembered by travelers. For at a distance these
rolls of undulating prairie, aided by atmospheric effect, look like mount-
ains far away. I shall not soon forget the evening when, with my col-
league of the Tribune, we went forth determined to scale a distant-seeming
summit, which rose like another Gray Lock against the “dimmering sky.”
“You’ll never get there,” said young Gideon, of Ohio. “Look out for
Indians,” remarked Gideon, the elder, of Philadelphia. “Don’t fall into
a gopher hole,” recommended Y. and Dot, late of Chattanooga. “Come
back in time for supper,” quoth Epistemon, ye secretary. “Take your
guns with you,” said Friar John. “Go to buffalo grass,” howled Gymnast.
And we went. In a few minutes the camp was in the middle distance;
a few more, and it formed a picturesque background, worthy of Bierstadt.
The “mighty mountain aſar off” was soon reached, and from its summit,
not higher than most city houses, we saw broad and wide, in all its glory,
a prairie scene in the deepened darkening twilight. Far away before us
rolled the plain, seeming so infinitely large, as though whole countries,
Assyrias beyond Assyrias, might be discerned, had we but the hawk-eyes
to decipher the horizon—suggestive of one of those sketches by Turner,
which, after a few minutes' study, seem to be finished to the ultimate
organic cells. All around, but deepening into night, lay the broad band
of color, from violet to red, with a full ribbon of orange, which hangs over
the prairie in every Indian summer sunset, while above twinkled the early
stars, Astarte and the new moon shining beneficently over the right shoul-
der. In the distant camp shot up the fire before which dark figures
passed from time to time, while faint shouts now and then reached the
ear. The low walls of the ranche rose black against the sky; the high
stacks of hay seemed strange monuments, and beyond all long lines of red
fires rose like the conflagration of cities. I had been told at Riley that
the prairie fires were unusually beautiful and picturesque this year, and
I can readily believe it. I have seen the ancient light of Vesuvius by
night, as it rose and fell in marvelous glory, but it did not impress me
more deeply than did the long, wild sweep of the prairie fires of the
West.
It is not always serene in this life, and there are places where comfort
cannot be cut to order, as I ascertained to my entire dissatisfaction when,
with a feeling of la grippe, resulting from an all-over-ish cold and hard
trotting, I arrived in a pouring rain at Bunker Hill station, where we
were permitted to sleep in a not very nice stable, four in a stall, on the
ground, with a rather scanty under-crust of hay. The gentleman in the
next chamber—I should say stall—was a solemn mule, who munched his
coarse hay all night long with a mechanical regularity. Once or twice I
4.
50
-
awoke—the same steady chomp, chomp lulled me to sleep again. If the
reader be a person of penetration, he has by this time, doubtless, observed
that our excursion was of a slightly chequered nature. It had varied
from the best of Augustine's cooking—which is the best anywhere—to
salt pork and hard tack, and not much of it at that—from the choicest
champagne to Indian whisky, for the genial sons of Pantagruel in our
party—from Cabanas to Missouri cut-and-dried—and were not half done
yet.
On the morn it was clear and cold—as it seemed to me, never colder,
when the Tribune kindly poured out freezing water, little by little, from a
tin cup for the Press to wash itself by-we had no other way to perform our
ablutions, and were thankful for even this small amount of wash. When
a man has not had a bath for a week he is fit to sleep with mules; ten
days of such a state inspires him to steal a horse or shoot an Indian; after
two weeks, I am told, he votes the Democratic ticket and poisons his
grandmother. “We wanted to buy some hay and corn at this ranche,
but the hostlers are strictly forbidden to sell any forage, and our note
from Gillespie was not thought sufficient to cover the case. But if you
will take it forcibly, said the head man, ‘I guess your party is the strong-
est.’ So we took it with most fierce and ruffianly countenances, paid for
it, shook hands all round, and rode away.” This is the cool and joyous
manner in which the Tribune describes an outrage of which its corres-
pondent was guilty at this place. The attention of the authorities is
respectfully called to this occurrence.
As we rode along in the ambulance, that morning, I saw afar off, on a
hill, five black dots. On the prairie everything has a meaning. We
rode along and around for a mile—I looked at a distant spot, but down near
a canyon—there were the five dots still, but they had changed their posi-
tion. As I gazed they seemed to be cattle browsing, and cattle they were,
but the free cattle of the prairie—unbranded and unowned, for they
were-buffaloes. -
Our three horsemen had seen them, too, for I soon beheld them wind-
ing far away to the left, stealing up to the game, and then dashing into
full gallop like cavaliers in a charge.
“Brave gentlemen with spurs,
Who went fast riding o'er the hills
And trampling through the furze.” -
Alas! it was all in vain. They did not see, they had not imagined the
gulches and canyons and other impassibilities which lay between them
and the beef. The buffaloes for that day escaped, and the hunters
returned without having had a shot. “The creatures stole away in buffa-
lonious manner,” said Epistemon, and thus ended the chapter. Mean-

5]
while I had paused with our savant at a bank which seemed to promise
coal, and in which there was indeed a vein of something which had a
cheerful hydro-earbonny appearance. But it was not coal, or if coal, it
was of that Rhode Island kind, of which it was joyously said, that he who
stood upon a ton of it at the last day, would be the last man burnt. I
regret to chronicle the fact, for there had been, I believe, certain expec-
tations—blessed are they who expect nothing. We consoled ourselves
by admiring an admirable efflorescence of sulphur, and gathering beauti-
ful crystals of selenite, of which great quantities were found.
While here geologizing we were joined by Mr. Wickes, a gentleman
who has labored most efficiently in surveying the route of the Union
Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, and whose name will always be con-
nected with its history. His camp was at no great distance; at what was
called Fossil creek, from the petrefactions in the rocks, and immediately
adjacent to the stick-and-mud stable and hut which form a station on the
great Overland Mail Stage route. Here the last of the outlines of the
Pacific Railway were reached, and here we attained our last resting-place
among horses. The new camp was not a bad place, and Mr. Wickes and
his staff exerted themselves to the utmost to make it agreeable to us.
Kindness and hospitality in the wilderness is ten-fold more grateful than
in towns, but when it is accompanied by every little act of courtesy which
innate politeness can suggest, its memory can never be lost. We had
received such attentions at many places and from many “groups” of
hosts here and there on our journey, and I am glad to say that they were
continued to the last point of the excursion.
A little incident soon proved that we had got into the wilderness. A
rancheman came in and reported that, going out some six miles to catch
a mule, he had seen six or seven Indians “on the loose,” all armed
and “ looking bad,” “I hadn't but two loads in my gun,” he added,
“and so I put for home.” That little clause of having only two loads in
his gun, adduced as an excuse for not holding an interview with the
representatives of a nation with whom we were diplomatically supposed to.
be at profound peace, and which was narrated as a common-place incident
of every-day life, made its little impresssion on a mind professionally
susceptible to items. “What country for a reporter" was my comment
to the Tribune. “And he said it was.”
Although we had seen but little of the Indian thus far, I had met at
Fort Ellsworth a melancholy trace of his presence, and a terrible illustra-
tion of the reasons for the undying hatred of the red man, which is to be
everywhere found on the frontier. While there, I had been introduced
to Mrs. Box and her two daughters, who had been made prisoners—I
believe by the Cheyennes. My readers can hardly fail to remember the

52
terrible story connected with their name, and which was published some
weeks since in many newspapers. Living on the border of Texas, they
were attacked by the savages, their husband and father was murdered
before their eyes, and they themselves borne into captivity, where they
endured indescribable torture, outrage and degradation. I was also intro-
duced to and conversed with Lieutenant Hesselberger, the gallant young
officer who went among the Indians and effected their ransom. While
negotiating for their freedom, the poor mother and her daughter, a young
girl of prepossessing appearance, were subjected to the most infernal abuse
in his very presence.
Events like these are of frequent occurrence. At one place on the
road we had seen, a day's travel further back, the blackened chimney of
a ranche burned by the Indians “last spring.” It is to be regretted that
Government should continue to pay annuities to any tribe, any portion of
which is at war with us. I was told that the very tribe which had mur-
dered Mr. Box were among those who were to receive presents at Zarah.
Meanwhile the Indians understand perfectly that the completion of the
Pacific Railway to Denver will cut in two the great buffalo range of the
North American continent, which will, in a great measure, deprive the
tribes of the plains of their principal means of support. Hence it is
rumored that they intend forming, or have already formed, a grand league,
and intend war. Such rumors always prevail, however, especially in
military circles on the frontier. It is, at least, certain that they are at
present at peace among themselves, and this is said to be most significant
of evil for the whites. The Indians of the plains can muster about fifteen
thousand warriors, and numbers of these have served in the army during
the war. I was told that on one occasion they had fought successfully
“in the white style.”
Those who had the pleasure of forming intimacies with these aboriginal
“soldiers and gentlemen” while they wore Uncle Sam's uniform, were
at a subsequent period often greatly agitated at meeting the friends whom
they had formerly met under such military circumstances, badly relapsed
into red ear-rings, lime-tanned moccasins and chemises brodées a la por-
cupine. Such was the case of Captain Smith, who parted with Lieuten-
ant Jones under the impression that the latter, although a few shades
darker than other people, and three or four octaves higher on the whisky
gamut, when an opportunity to sing presented itself, was still very much
of a gentleman. That any man who could play poker with the impertur-
bability of a bronze statue, and copper on the ace with such an exquisite
tact, could be other than a real Christian never once occurred to Smith.
Time rolled down—the rebel cause went up—Smith and Jones took their
last charge of “commissary” together and parted. One day, about a year



o:3
after, Smith was very far out of doors on the plains, when he found him-
self suddenly involved in a wreath of savages. Having pacified them
with a pint of sugar, and otherwise convinced them that he was a gentle-
man whose friendship was to be desired, Smith began to regard with
some interest a stupendous native in an incredibly crimson blanket, who,
without deigning to so much as grunt, had, up to date, sat like a scep-
tered hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. On asking
who he might be, the magnate condescended to honor Smith with a superb
demº oeſ/ſade, or as the Irish say, “a bit of a stare out of the tops of his
eyes,” and murmured a few haughty sentences in Dakota to an attendant,
which were thus translated to the amazed Captain:
* Him big Ingin—him heap big Ingin—him mighty d-n big heap
big Ingin—him JONES!”
When last seen, Smith had just written a letter to the Secretary of the
Interior, recommending the extermination of the Indian tribes as the
only certain means of pacifying the frontier.
Certain signs about camp convinced us that we were at last getting to
buffalo in earnest. There were raw hides, quarters of “prairie beef.”
various curious dried relics of the mighty prey, and finally there was the
greatest sign of all, Howell, * the Hunter himself, the man whose bona ſide
and daily paid and salaried business it was to hunt buffalo, and supply the
camp with meat—yea, that very morning he had gone forth, and before
eight o'clock had laid low in the grass three of the beefy monsters. A
sensible, sober, gentlemanly, well-spoken man we found him, and one
well versed in all game.
So that afternoon we too went forth to try our luck and our seven-
shooters on the Shemunga. Our excellent chief in command, Colonel
Charles B. Lamborn, and Captain Colton, (both of whom had in old days
charged many a rebel over stock and stone when in the Anderson
Cavalry.) now appeared with Mr. Browne, on horseback, while the Tri-
bune and The Press followed leisurely in the ambulances, drawn by four
“fiery mules.” This was the result of an extremely deep laid and intelli-
gent arrangement, it having been suggested that we might come across
some of the identical buffaloes seen and described by Mr. Greeley in
1860, in which case it could not be doubted that the unfortunate animals,
should they perceive the same newspaper after them again, with such a
formidable ally as Forney's Press, would not fail to take to immediate
flight.
* Certain parties, among them the New York Tºwne and that very excellent authority,
the hunter himself, call this name Howland. However, there is always a great deal to ºuc
said on both sides, Meanwhile the other side may Howl and be hanged to them
54
I observed, with interest, that Howell the Hunter bore swinging from
his belt a butcher's steel. There was something so extremely suggestive
of meat expected in this little implement, that I seemed to awake at once
into the fact that we were really not unlikely to imbrue our hands in
blood, after all. What I had hitherto regarded as visionary, now began
to seem truly bisonary. And we rode on and over the plains, holding
converse meanwhile with Brigham, our driver—a character infinitely
better worth booking than was ever Ross Browne's Yusef-Bayard
Taylor to hold the stakes.
“There they are ſº -
Two dots—two punctuation points or a colon on the vast book of the
prairie—prosaically, two buffaloes or bison. “’ Way ever so far off.”
We go soberly along, while they browse around; we draw nearer.
Our cavalry proposed to ride around, to circumvent them, if possible,
and drive them down to the ambulance, from which the representatives
of a great unfettered press (the mighty organ of a free people) might
pepper away at them without rising. It is needless to say that this pro-
posal met with the unfeigned approval of the representatives in question.
“Now—break . The buffaloes are running.” And they broke. Over
plain and canyon at headlong speed go the hunters. The ambulance rolls
behind at a most respectable gait, for Brigham is an old Santa Fe, Indian-
trading frontiersman, and can get almost a horse's run out of the “ani-
mules.” On and on. One of the “buffs" has vanished—the other
goes on rearing and plunging like a ship at sea. We are near enough now
to see the whole play. Bang! goes the first carbine—he is hit—but not
hurt. Col. Lamborn is riding him down now -there goes his revolver
on a close shot—the load is too light! Then there is some quick tack-
ing, and the man that took the reb with an empty pistol, tries his luck
with a full carbine.
Is the bull mortally wounded Quien sale 2 for night is coming on.
and it is not worth while to go on. The superb, exquisitely high-toned
sunset is graying darker and darker—we must return.
How the Hunter did it I do not know, but he took us in a straight
line, after dark, ten miles over the plain to camp. I think Santa Fé
Brigham himself had some little doubt on our going right—at least I
noticed when we came to the road he cried aloud: “Esta Zº camºng " ''
and added, in an exquisite blending of frontier English with Castilian–
“and thar goes the trail—right down along the vega / "
Although we had no game to show, “Gideon's band’’ celebrated that
night, with its songs all the louder, the great chase, for we had not only
Panurge and Epistemon and Gymnast, and all the regulars, but also a
large addition of bons Gualtiers et francs compagnons, who made, with



55
-
stupendous prairie howls and wails, an overpowering effect on the grand
chorus :
Hoo! hool hoo! the Museolgee:
Wah wah wah the blasted tree!
I slew the chief of the Muscolgee,
I burnt his squaw at a blasted tree! /
By the hind legs I tied up his cur,
He had no time to fondle on her.
Hoo! hoo! hoo! the Muscolgee:
Wah wahl wah! the blasted tree
I stripped his skull all naked and bare,
And here's his scalp with a tuft of hair;
His heart is in the eagle's maw,
His bloody bones the wolf doth gnaw.
Hoo! hoo! hoo! the Museolgee:
Wah! wah wah the blasted tree
A fagot from the blasted tree
Fired the lodge of the Museolgee:
His sinews serve to string my bow
When bent to lay his brethren low.
Hoo hoo! hoo! the Museolgee
Wah wah wah the blasted tree
It is a fine song when those who do the chorus have learned how to do
it among the Indians; and I always observed that it had a deeply moving
and solemn effect on one of our party—a taciturn gentleman of semi-
Indian blood, who never laughed at it, but always listened intently to this
exquisite gem of Choctaw song, for which the world is indebted to the
translative powers of the great Gerstaecker. Some there were who thought
that he liked not this barbarous lyric. But I have seen it greatly admired
of Kaws, and I prefer to believe that he detected in it the dark and deep
- aboriginal chords of feeling which, like the quarter and eighth tones in
Arab music, are inaudible to our Anglo-Saxon ears.
In another letter I shall describe a buffalo chase which was not unsuc-
cessful—a mighty, massive, heavy, stormy hunt. “To be continued in
our next.” Vale /
LETTER TWEL F.T. H.
FossIL CREER, KANSAs, Nov. 11, 1866.
“Who are these kedunks, anyhow ! What business 'ev they got in
here *
Such were the remarks, in an angry tone, of a driver of the overland
stage, who, on entering the not very nice stable in which we slept at
56
Fossil Creek, found three of its rather rough stalls occupied by our sleep-
ing party. -
“They're the fellers that own the Specific Railway,” was the reply,
“ and they've got an order from Mr. Gillespie to let them sleep in here.”
“Wal,” was the rejoinder, “all I've got to say is, that Gillespie's order
aint worth nothin' to keep horses out in the rain on a cold night. Dern
the coots—why don't they pile in thicker *
Saying this he turned in his horses loose, and they wandered about in
that manner which is peculiar to horses in the dark—which is alarming
to over-nervous persons.
(The Tribune here raised its head, and remarked that they were the
biggest bugs he had ever had to crawl over him.)
O, Life how great are thy changes But a few days since we were
fêted to enjoy all the honors and comforts invented—cities sent forth their
bravest and loveliest to “dous proud”—Leavenworth and Lawrence lent
us their carriages, and stood Imperial Missouri champagne and Havanas,
ad libitum, and gave us their best beds gratºs, and called us great names,
and cooked us broiled oysters with Madeira, and grouse—and now we
were more than a little lower than the horses, and despised of coachmen.
It has been my destiny ere this to sleep on the bare ground among
artillery horses. My device for keeping them away was original and
peculiar. I divided the fragment of a carefully-hoarded morsel of hard-
tack between two of the drivers, who, affected by the tenderness of the
little gift, suffered me to sleep between them. Horses never trample on
their drivers, as I well knew—a grand moral instinct teaches them to
avoid the storm of profanity which is sure to follow their intrusion.
Now, alas! I had no crackers and no drivers. But while revolving the
subject, I fell asleep and slumbered unharmed until daybreak.
When it broke it found the daring, high-spirited, audacious, fearless
and valorous chivalry of our party on the qui vive and the rampage, zeal-
ously preparing for a high-pressure hunt. Our commander, Colonel
Lamborn, who had been from the beginning indefatigable, in every
possible respect, to promote the comfort and cheerfulness of his charge;
who was the last to bed and the first to rise, that he might keep a watch-
ful eye–in fact, both eyes—on the wants and fancies of every one, and
who had, in a word, proved himself a brilliant brick—was now circu-
lating around and doing more for everybody than anybody ever did for
himself to insure for everybody a pleasant day's diversion. To me he
lent his good black horse, which had shown itself fully accomplished in
running up to buffalo and shying off. Young Gideon, the ever-glorious,
(with his jet horse-shoe in his hat,) was mounted on his favorite bay.
Gideon, the elder, and our ever-cheerful “Golly,” sat in the ambulance.



57
driven of Brigham; the Tribune, stately and chevalresque, (whom we
were wont to pass off on strangers as the English lord of the party) can-
tered along with his carbine en sling, while Y., of Chattanooga, now of
Y. (Wyandott), took the lead whenever a joke was started. And with
him went Saint Lewis.
Howell, the Hunter, took the lead. How well he did it will appear
from the sequel. The sky smiled; several of the units of our party fol-
lowed its example, and we rode on. The prairie dogs looked impudently
at us, and chattered in the ancient Dakota their opinions of our appear-
ance; and John, the orderly—the only orderly being in the cavalcade—
brought up the rear. The festive skunks ran by into the high grass; a
jack-rabbit went bounding along like an antelope, and it was all correct
with Nature. North we went, and still north, until we had gained the
ground of the day before.
“Look | don't you see them : There they are.” Straight ahead, but
far away. Yes, we can count them. “Twelve º’’ ‘‘No, fourteen.”
“D'ye see that little dot-that's a calf.” And there -—there –ever so
far to the right. There must be thirty in that other herd. They are
three miles off. If we miss the fellows straight ahead, we'll turn on the
second lot. By Jove there's another congregation of buffs off to the
left Now, boys, go in for your beef . There's your dinner on four
legs -
If one is to the leeward of the buffalo, he may ride to within half a
mile of them before they will take the alarm—sometimes much nearer.
So we rode on—the ambulance behind. Now we come to a canyon or
ravine. The Tribune, young Gideon and Saint Lewis ride circumvent-
ingly by and cautiously around to the right, while I sagaciously conclude
to stick to Howell, as doth the “Y-and-dot.” We come to a great
canyon—a ravine—and we ride softly into it and along it, peeping over
the edge, so as to get as near as possible to the bison of a buffalo whom
we intend to astonish with some remarkable specimens of a carbine-
iferous formation. Meanwhile our genial Golly has left the “avalanche,”
and is still-hunting the game afoot, on his own hook. He too got a shot.
(I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but as I went along that ravine,
I was so forgetful, both of game and geology, as to look around for an
instant and wonder if it wouldn't pay to bore for oil.) -
We are on the other side, and the herd is still walking slowly away.
I can see them now distinctly, and the thought suddenly strikes me that,
for the first time in my life, I am beholding live buffalo without paying a
quarter I am like Daniel in the lion's den, “who sot up all night
lookin' at the show, and it didn't cost him a cent " This is indeed the
romance of travel.
58
* Ha! they're running Now—BREAK! Whip, cut, go Ride your
best Let drive–the chase is up Hi-i-i-i –whoop Now we're on
it Hurrah Saint Lewis' Go it, young Gideon ſºap rap / rap
rap 1-now we have got to the mad speed—to the full run—to the
delirium !
“Rip slash! whip and spur
Sang Billy Wing-the-Wind.”
Now it is the full runaway speed, but he still gets the spur. Faster,
faster. From an elevation I see the three right-hand flankers in advance.
turning the herd. Crack goes a carbine. The buffalo turn to the left.
I ride straight on, and in a minute am the nearest to the herd by my
short cut. Rearing and plunging like ships in a high sea; their tongues
hanging out, “with broad breast, distended nostrils, head, hump and tail
to the tip, projected in a straight line like castings of bronze, driving on
with terrible force, one after another—as locomotives will over the Pacific
Railroad—hereafter.”
Hey, how they ride Tribune flying like a scudding cloud on his gallant
grey. Lewis fast and well; Yardly cool and resolved, and 1–as the
Tribune afterwards told the world–º tearing madly along like an insane
savage!” Yes, reader—little as you would believe it—it was thus he spoke
of me, his friend. “Like an insane savage " But he had the grace to
say that Meister Karl rode “almost into the herd.” For, it was about
a rod from the great bull-patriarch of the herd, a stupendous mass of
hairy horrors, who resembled all the fancied bugaboos of my boyhood
raised to the tenth power, that I raised my carbine, and taking deliberate
aim, pulled the trigger. Oh, misery it snapped Three times I cocked
and pulled trigger with the same result—which was mortifying. The
herd sweep by, and I pull up to repair damages and try again.
There are two buffalo turning away to the left, and three of the party
pursuing another to the right, along a ravine. Shall I chase the two or
help make sure of the one? I decide on the latter. Now it is full run
again. Hurrah Saint Louis has hit the hind leg and the game limps;
not much, for the speed still tries our horses to the utmost. There now
is a fine sight; the buffalo turns at bay. Tribune shies off gracefully:
Y-and-dot chassées coquettishly to the right. Now it is a run again—full
run. Tribune fires; I get a shot in behind the shoulder, on the run, and
see it hit. We all fire; there is another charge from the extremely ill-
tempered animal, which, in its mad despair, looks like the devil and the
Democratic party all in one. I cherish this simile, for, despite all that
is said of the impenetrability of buffalo skulls, the Tribune sent a ball
clear through the skull into the brain, while The Press did its little

59
utmost, as already described. So down went the living symbol of rebel-
lion, and “we” cut its throat, joyous at having secured our beef.”
I am afraid I must confess that there was rather a large amount of
lead fired into that buffalo. Every man, of course, had to kill it, and it
was unanimously agreed that to each of us belonged all the glory. Still
it is not true, as envious wretches afterwards asserted, that the miserable
animal was borne to earth by the sheer weight of lead which it carried in
all except the vital parts, and that it was caught as boys catch frogs, by
administering shot one by one, which are taken in until the reptile can
no longer jump. Spiteful, small-minded, pitiful detractors in St. Louis
and along the road did indeed say (inspired by political hatred) that we
made a lead mine of the animal. Against this I triumphantly allege the
testimony of Howell the Hunter, who, like a judicious person, expressed
amazement at the excellence of the shots, and who paid a high compli-
ment to the quality of the beef. “We might have killed forty buffalo,”
said that truly high-minded and intelligent man, “and not have got such
meat.” Which proves that we showed great sense in our selection
The quickness and neatness with which the murdered buffalo was
butchered by Mr. Howell was to me amazing—which reminds me of a
little story :
On the morning of October 29, while riding in the Market street cars
towards the Pennsylvania Central depot, where I was to join the excur-
sion, I was attracted by the appearance of a burly giant of a butcher, who
was discussing a point with two others of the craft.
“You needn't tell me,” said he, “that any man in this crowd kin kill
twenty sheep in four hours. Twenty sheep, and butcher 'em clean It
can’t be done.”
“Bill Metzger used to do it,” suggested a youth, who looked as if he
were learning;-a sort of candidatus artis carnificis.
“Bill Metzger! Yes, of course, Bill Metzger could do it. But, then,
Bill Metzger was a great man "
Now as I firmly believe that Mr. Howell can skin and clean twenty
buffalo in four hours, I submit that, according to high authority, he may
justly be called “a great man.”
In the wilderness we first find out what a man can do. In the wilder.
ness I had discovered I could hit a buffalo on the wing and cut its throat–
albeit, somebody in the party remarked that I had “almost got the crea-
ture's head off.” The remark did not greatly “disgruntle' me, for I
remember to have once heard in Italy that a man, when he cuts his first
*I afterwards read in the Tribune that Meister Karl “rushed in, and, with savage glee,
cut her throat.” Savage glee Sarage glee A nice way, that, to spake of the likes of
us, ye divil


60
throat, always nearly decapitates his victim. Afterwards he does it more
gracefully. And in the wilderness it was that the elegant Saint Lewis
developed a talent as assistant butcher, which caused a thrill of admira-
tion. In the wilderness we, too, all turned cooks, and as most of us had
had more or less army practice and bush life, it is not remarkable that in
this department we speedily covered ourselves with dirt and glory.
How do you suppose, O gentle reader that we cooked our buffalo hump
on the prairie, where there are no sticks or coal? (I sincerely hope that
I may get well over these coming sentences—“I’m almost sorry that I
e'er begun.” Truly one lives and learns.)
There is a certain fuel known in Tartary and Persia as argols. The
same is found on the plains. The glowing and poetic Max Greene has
most fortunately, I find, “arranged’ this explanation for me.
“Cooking on the prairie,” says this brave Kansasgraphist, “is done in
messes of a dozen or so of the like minded, or of sufficient homogeneous-
ness to render them tractably gregarious. For the first three hundred
miles out they have log fires; thenceforward to the Rabbit-Ear the sole
recourse for fuel is bois de vache, (a comfort are foreign words wherein to
express inelegant ideas') and these, technically termed buffalo chips,
are gathered by armfuls, dry and nice, from among the short grass, and
heaped together in mounds two and three feet in height, which, when
ignited, emit somewhat of unpleasant odor, it must be confessed, but at
the same time, for a whole night, without replenishing, smoulder away
with furnace-like intensity of heat. Bois de vache is fuel defensible,
not merely on the score of utility, for it is Hobson's choice, and if not
totally grateful to the olfactories, is not for such trifling reason to be
sneezingly rejected.”
With bois de vache, then, and prairie weeds, did Brigham, the driver,
build up a fire. In the wagon were frying-pan and gridiron, salt, pepper,
pickles of the best, butter and bread. Then there was cooking–0, great
Gaster, god and king, commemorated by our blessed father, Saint Rabe-
lais, how we did cook Brigham and the orderly preferred to have their
meat fried in a pan, with copious lumps of salt pork (heaven help their
blindness!) and so they fried it. We believed in broiling, and not too
much of it either, on a hot fire, and so we broiled it. And, verily, the
hump of the buffalo is a dainty morsel to a hungry man—daintier, indeed,
to the accomplished gourmet than to the common feeder. A French cook
would doubtless make some brilliant strokes of genius with it; I venture
to suggest, in all humility, that plum jelly, or that of grape, would be its
natural counter-point. For, as currant jelly suits venison, and peach
jelly the racy flavor of bear meat, so the piquant plum, softened in fibre,
would exactly balance the savory meat of the buffalo. (Since writing the

61
foregoing, I have talked the matter over in solemn conclave with the
great Blot, and he suggests a la moding. Why not?)
Close at hand, in a canyon, we found cold, sweet water. So we fed
and were merry. In fact, I should like to know when we were not
merry. It may not be dignified to confess it, but I must avow that such
a hearty, thorough-going set of laughers, such irrepressible jokers, such
scientific and diabolically conscienceless punsters, such roarers of ancient
and quaint ballads, such Robin Good Fellows with memories stored with
droll devices, Bruscambillian arguments and Tabourétian tricks of lan-
guage, I have seldom, if ever, met, as were the members of our party.
Much of this had been at times called forth by a singular device. One
day there arose among the brethren a small hat, made from a champagne
cork, and this was “put up” under the condition that he who had last
made an original joke should keep it until another had trumped it with
one as good.
Now, the cork in question had been extracted from a bottle of what
is known as Imperial champagne, and the hat consequently bore on its
top the distinctive symbol of royalty or empire. In other words, “Y-and-
Dot” discovered, on looking at the hat, that it had a crown to it.
Here, of course, were cries of “hat ſº “ hat!” and “Y” and “Dot”
received the symbol. But he did not keep it long—nor “any other
man.”
Major McElroy, at Ellsworth, was the first who punned the hat out
of our party. It was a terrible contest, but we let it go. Another
hat was soon provided; there was no lack of material where with to make
One.
I am aware that some of these details may seem frivolous to those who
do not go deeply in anthropological analysis, according to Comte and
Buckle; yet one might as well hope to give an idea of Democracy without
alluding to whisky, or write the secret history of Andrew Johnson with-
out mentioning counterfeiters, as to historiograph the great Pacific expe-
dition and not set forth the social influence upon it of that hat. From
our uprising to our down-lying the hat went around like the inextinguish-
able laughter of the gods. The only man who ever kept it for more than
an hour was the Tribune, and he did it by putting the hat in his pocket,
mounting his horse and riding away into lonely ravines, among the deso-
late buttes, where he probably passed the time in putting conundrums to
the cayotes and selling the wolves.
On our return to camp, one of the mules distinguished himself as a
sportsman, by winging a skunk—I should say, I believe, a mephitis
Americana 2–with his hoof. It was a good shot, and the piebald party
(which resembles another piebald political party that I wot of in more

62
than one respect,) limped away into the high grass, looking as if it had
just heard from the Missouri election. On the same ride we had a
curious illustration of the singular affinity which exists between mules
and white horses. We were jogging along over the prairies, listening
to Brigham's anecdotes of Indian life and New Mexican adventures,
Cheyennes and senoritas, when our orderly passed us on the run, mounted
on one white horse, and leading another. This of course started our
team off at full speed, to which no one objected, and we had a brilliant
exhibition of their ability for a mile or two. In the South “green mules"
are often led and controlled by using a white horse as persuader. The
fact is indisputable. Should mules ever exercise the right of voting, it
will be a millenium for white horses of political proclivities, for every
mule is a Caligula at heart, and would gladly make his white horse a
consul. -
In this hunt we had gone about fifteen miles beyond Fossil creek–
which is sixty miles beyond “Ellsworth "-which is eighty-seven miles,
more or less, beyond “Riley.” Of this fifteen miles the whole was more
or less closely burrowed by prairie dogs, which are said to be on the
increase, and abundantly ſonchée with buffalo chips. Wild geese we saw
in abundance winging their way in V’s and uttering the loud sonorous
honſ dear to sportsmen. But sºmall game is said to be diminishing rapidly
on the Plains—a few years, and it will only live with the buffalo and
Indian in faded type and on yellow pages.
We returned to camp in great glory, for we had, after much travail and
contribulation of mind and resources, at last killed our buffalo. To be sure,
we had expended much lead and powder, a whole bottle of pickles, and—
no—we were out of fire-water that day. But did I not once know a bear
hunt in Virginia, to effect which the projectors took two German regiments,
a section of artillery, twenty ambulances, forty barrels of lager, and such
stores of sour-kraut and Limburger as might have supplied a city I,
too, was an invited guest on that hunt—and if I had ever written an
account of it, it would have made your hair stand on end
The dread of glorifying too highly the great deeds of the Pacific
Railway excursionists has hitherto prevented my alluding to the most
remarkable incident of our hunt. I refer to the daring and wonderful
exploit performed by one of us in riding his steed after the Indian fashion
for one hundred yards on the full run, swinging around the neck of the
animal, with one leg over the saddle. The brilliant feat, which is only
to be witnessed among the Camanches, at present—and, indeed, is never
attempted save by the élite of their best riders—was, however, success-
fully accomplished by one of us in a manner which inspired with admira-
tion the oldest frontiersman present. I describe the event as it took
63
place, for the reason that certain envious and malignant wretches subse-
quently spoke of this unparalleled and terrific performance as the sheer
result of an accident, caused by the rider's being thrown while firing close
at a buffalo. By Apollo! I should like to see them get as well out of such
a scrape with the devil's likeness in the form of a buffalo at bay coming at
them full tilt, horns down But such is this world which makes geese
of other men's swans, and swans its own geese into the purest cygnitude.
That night we went to our supper with brave appetites, and to bed with
a keen relish for rest. Next morning we were destined to right about,
face, and turn the sole of our backs to the setting sun–and we wer
ready for it.
L ET T E R T H II? T E E N T H .
ForT RILEY, KANSAs, Nov. 14, 1866.
“I don't call it being out of the world,” said a gentleman one morn-
ing on the plains, “when we are on the world's great road.”
There is much food for reflection in this remark. Many people prefer
to reside in great cities or near the sea, because they there realize that
they are en rapport with the world's great centres of civilization. It is a
feeling dear to every cosmopolite—and every man or woman is cosmopo-
lite in proportion to his or her “culture.” I do not know whether it has
occurred to any writer, (as it doubtless has to many,) that in each of its
great stages of development the world has had one grand route, which has
been the real world of man while it lasted. In the almost pre-historic
times of Phºenician commerce—we might, perhaps, say of Egyptian—the
road led from India along the shores of the Mediterranean (not without
its Lesseps, it is said,) to Cornwall in England. The Roman way led
from the Seven-hilled City northward, along the Rhine, into France,
and so on to “Watling street.” Then came the Middle Ages, when from
Venice to Nuremberg, from Nuremberg to Ghent, and from Ghent to
London, there was one glorious line of Gothic churches and merchant
prince palaces, with all the splendor of art and poetry. Then came Vasco
de Gama in 1498, with his new route around the Cape of Good Hope,
and the world's track of travel changed again, and Venice, and Augsburg,
and Nuremberg, and Ghent faded into the perfect tense. Now we are
building another road—the most wonderful of all-through regions once
unknown, and men call it the Pacific Railway. And when, afar in the

64
wilderness among the buffaloes, I saw every day the overland stage, bear-
ing the London and China mail, pass by, and found along its route the
grading of the world's railroad advancing a mile in twenty-four hours, I
felt that we were not so very remote from the most advanced points of
civilization. After all, it does not take so long to send a letter from
Denver to Paris as from many a place in Virginia to Philadelphia.
And beyond all this lies a stupendous conception as yet undeveloped, yet
which is destined to a colossal growth. Many years ago the celebrated
Iskander, or Alexander Hertzen, the great Russian publicist, said to me
in a letter, “The Pacific ocean will be the Mediterranean of the future.”
When Eastern Russia and Western America shall each contain its hun-
dred millions of inhabitants, it will be as Iskander prophecied. And to
effect this the Pacific Railroad will contribute more than any other cause.
In the face of this foregone conclusion, how weak and pitiable and igno-
rant seem those English journals which ridicule the entente cordiale
between Russia and America, and declare that it has no sound basis.
Perhaps it is as well for them to ignore such a future. When such giants
and giantesses as America and Russia embrace, it will fare but ill with
the English roses and French lilies which may be in the way.
* For when in wild embraces
We kissed with burning breath,
The rose-bud on thy bosom,
Poor thing was crushed to death.”
Without going so far as this—without even anticipating the ending of
the American portion of the world's grand route at San Francisco—it
may be worth while to contemplate some of the practical advantages to
be picked up along its way. One of these will be the rendering easily
accessible those wonderful “parks” of the Rocky Mountains which are
destined to become the “location” of the central cities of the North
American Continent. For a description of them I quote the following
from Mr. Copley's excellent letters to the Pittsburg Gazette. Speaking
of the direct route of the Central Division, as described by Mr. Wickes,
civil engineer of the Pacific Railway, he says:
“From Denver it goes up Clear Creek, a tributary of the Platte, crossing the divide to
Blue River, a tributary of Grand, following the Blue, and crossing a divide at the head
of Bear and Williams Fork to the White River; thence down the White, and crossing the
Green near the junction of the Uintah River; thence up the Uintah to Timpanogos, a
stream running into Lake Utah, following which latter stream brings us within forty-
eight miles of Salt Lake City, a direct route in continuation of the one up Smoky Hill.
The estimated length from Denver City to Salt Lake City, by the route above described,
is four hundred and twenty-seven miles.
“Should this route,” says Mr. Copley, “be found suitable for a railroad, it will give the
Union Pacific Railway of the Kansas an immense advantage, in point of directness and
distance, over its great rival of the Platte. But of that the reader is quite as able to


65
judge as I am. It is greatly to be desired that it shall be so found; for then the road
would not only pass through the richest gold fields of Colorado, but through the Middle
Park, one of the four or five strangely grand and beautiful prairie valleys, set like gems
in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains; the smallest of which is as large as eight or
ten of our counties, and surrounded on every side by lofty snow-clad mountains, some of
which are sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and ten thousand feet above
the smooth and level park. So pellucid is the atmosphere of these lofty regions, that, as
Governor Gilpin, of Colorado, told me, with a good glass a horse may be seen from the
summit of the mountains in any part of the park, and so perfectly salubrious that no
acute disease can ever originate there, or continue if brought there. ‘These parks will
be the sanitaria of the world as soon as they are accessible, was his language in speak-
ing of the health-imparting properties of their matchless atmosphere. The north, the
middle and the south parks are only separated by narrow mountain ranges, through which
there are practicable passes. They are extremely fertile, and clothed with luxuriant
grasses and flowers.”
From the descriptions of the travelers who have visited the parks, I
am willing to believe that this picture of the “happy valleys” is not
exaggerated. Sheltered by high mountains on every side, so that even
the winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, these lovely and
strange retreats, peopled by the Indian legends of many tribes with beauti-
ful and unearthly beings, offer, in many respects, attractions of that
substantial character which cannot, in the ordinary course of events, fail
to result in their being, ere long, filled with cities, towns and villages.
Many an eye which now follows these lines will, in a few years, rest on
the spires of churches which will rise above the roofs of myriad houses
in the parks of the Rocky Mountains. The rude frontiers-man, the poor
Indian, seldom susceptible to beauty, the wandering hunter, all manifest,
in speaking of the parks, a sense of delight. That their climate is the
most agreeable in the world, mild and yet bracing, I well believe, for I
found by experience that from the Mississippi the air grew healthier and
more invigorating as we went westward.
Since writing the foregoing, I have met with another sketch of these
Parks by Professor Denton, which cannot fail to interest the reader. It
is as follows:
“The mountains of Colorado traverse 9,000 miles of the length of North America. They
are known in Mexico as the Sierra Madre, and elsewhere as the Rocky Mountains. The
mountains passing through Colorado are not a single chain, but consist of numerous
spurs. These enclose large bodies of land which are called parks. These parks contain
green meadows, covered with pine, aspen and other trees, which look as if they had been
painted by a master hand. They are environed by tall shaggy mountains, most beautiful
to behold. At Denver the river is as if one stood in a vast ampitheatre. The tallest
peaks are reached by a gradual ascent. The beauty of this mountain scenery is beyond
description. One looks on the mountain chain and is constantly deceived as to distances.
Mountains 50 miles distant seem not more than 10 away—the atmosphere is so clear. In
the mountains where the miners are at work, there are scenes which one can never forget.
In some places flowers may be plucked that have pushed their buds through a covering
of ice. One range of mountains consists of horizontal layers of lava, and the mountain
5

66
sides have been cut away by water and ice, so that in some cases they are 5,000 feet high,
and absolutely perpendicular. The scenery is inexpressibly magnificent here.”
These parks may yet be the great summer resorts of Central North
America, where scores of thousands will assembe to hold their villegiatura
of summer ruralizing. Then Colorado will be called the beautiful
land. -
As a disinterested spectator—or rather as one deeply interested in all
that can conduce to develop the industrial resources of America—I cannot
enter into any spirit of rivalry between the Kansas and Nebraska Rail-
roads. Both are exerting immense influence in developing the West, in
peopling it, in filling it with cities. Both will attract lateral branches of
other railroads, and these in turn will send out other lines ad infinitum,
and so increase our national wealth. Each receives from Government a
liberal subsidy, and it is well understood that their point of junction will
be about Denver City. That either possesses certain advantages as regards
the requirements of different parts of the country, cannot be denied. An
interesting article in the Alta Californian gives the following items in
reference to the relative state of the two roads:
“The (Nebraska) road is now in running order from Omaha to Fort Kearney, two
hundred and fifty miles, at the eastern end, and from Sacramento to Alta, seventy miles,
at the western end, so that one thousand six hundred and fifty-five miles only are to be
built; and the Union Pacific Railway Company has promised that the cars shall run to
the Forks of Platte on the first of January, so that the distance will have been reduced
another hundred miles by the beginning of 1867. Peculiar influences are driving the
work ahead at both ends. In the first place, Congress has provided that each company
shall have as much of the road as it can build, so that the company which advances with
most rapidity gets the most. And the trade of the interior of the continent makes it of
vast importance to get as much as possible. It is now evident that the Pacific Railroad
is to be one of the most profitable investments in the country.
“Besides the struggle between the two railroad companies, the Union Pacific Company,
of the East, and the Central Pacific, of the West, to get as much as possible of the road,
there is additional motive for rivalry in the Montana and Utah trade. Merchandise will
seek the route which has the shortest distance for teaming and the best road. When the
Central Railway passes the summit of the Sierra Nevada, the Eastern and Western
routes will have nearly equal advantages for the traffic of Salt Lake, but the Western will
command the trade of Idaho, as the Eastern will command that of Colorado. Merchandise
can be purchased for about the same in San Francisco as in St. Louis. So the chase is
fair and the game is great. Utah has now a population of 120,000, although the United
States census of 1860 reported it only 40,273. Salt Lake City alone has 25,000 inhabit-
ants, and there are half a dozen towns with 5,000 inhabitants each. So the estimate
of 120,000, made by various well-informed persons, and accepted by Mr. Bowles, is not
far from the truth. Agriculture is more profitable in that than in any part of the Union.
º: * With their resources the interior Territories (Idaho, Montana and Utah)
must soon grow to be populous States, with a trade worthy of contest between the Atlantic
and Pacific, and all the trade must go to the railroad. There is no limitation to their
charges, and no competition possible now or probable in the future. The railroad can
afford to transport freight at one-third the price paid to teams, and make money them.”

67 -
A very important subject in relation to the Union Pacific Railway, and
one of immense value to its prosperity, is the mineral wealth of Colorado.
Of this, the most important item is, of course, coal, in relation to which I
give certain items drawn from the Denver Daily News. The principal
coal mines of Colorado now open are situated in Boulder county. Among
these the Kitchen bank shows for one hundred and sixty feet a vein twelve
feet in thickness. The coal when taken from the mine has a brilliant,
glossy black appearance, burning extremely well, leaving only a small
residuum of reddish white ashes in an almost impalpable powder. Great
quantities of resin are found scattered through the veins.
The coal fields of Boulder county occupy a great breadth of land, and
new veins are continually being discovered there. The latter discoveries
extend ten or twelve miles below Boulder city. “As far as present mining
proves, the coal beds of Colorado are at fault, some of them being almost
perpendicular, while all have a dip varying from the true inclination of
coal beds in undisturbed strata.” An undisturbed stratum of coal
evidently exists, however, in Valmont, in Boulder county. It is tolerably
certain that good coal exists about one hundred and seventy miles east of
Denver, and a shaft is now being sunk at Fort Wicked. “Lieutenant
Pierce, in his Government surveys, found what appeared to be very good
coal in great abundance, showing bold out-cropping, sixty miles south of
Denver.” Last year a party in the Middle Park discovered a very fine
vein of pure Albertine coal, “the best quality of this mineral in the world.”
The vein was traced to the distance of five miles, and showed an average
thickness of four feet. This coal ignites readily and burns “with no
perceivable smoke.”
Very important indeed to our great national railway is this fact of the
immense quantity and excellent quality of Colorado coal. Hardly less
important is the fact that a rich variety of iron ore also abounds there.
The great bulk of iron ores yet discovered, (and my information may be
relied on as being fresh to date) lies like the coal in Boulder county. The
ore is the variety known as limonite, and is found in large and numerous
deposits. On assay the ore yields seventy-six per cent, being an extremely
high standard. It is easily smelted, being in natural combination with
an excellent flux of manganese. The iron obtained is said on good
authority º be of the best quality, being soft, and presenting on fracture
that peculiar blue appearance that is deemed desirable by founders, in
selecting metal for the most important castings. In all cases where coal
mines have been opened, fire-clay has been found lying contiguous, in veins
varying from two to five feet in thickness. Lest this convenient neighbor-
hood may seem suspicious to my readers, I would state that, within my OWn
experience, in coal mines in Virginia, adjacent to property under my own

68
-
supervision, I have found this same convenient proximity of fire-clay to
bog iron ore, which—au reste—will seem perfectly natural and to be
expected, to any geologist
Iron has been found near Golden City, Colorado, in a deposit which is
believed to be a continuous lode or vein. It is essentially the same with
that already described, and yields the same remarkable per centage of
metal. A fine wide vein of excellent iron ore, discovered quite recently
on the Caché-la-Poudre, near Fort Collins, yielded sixty-five per cent, and
exists in unlimited quantities.
With coal one hundred miles or more east of Denver, and at Topeka,
that is to say, within four hundred miles, and with the almost certainty
that it will be discovered at some place, perhaps thirty or forty miles
off the road, it will be seen that there need be no apprehension as to
want of fuel. Coal cars and depots of coal will furnish no burdensome
items of expense when contrasted with the promised profits of the Pacific
Railway, E. D.
It was a rather cold and very windy day when we “embarked” in the
ambulances or on horseback to return homeward. Three of our party
had “gone on ahead” in the overland stage, and with vehicles lightened
we made fast time, arriving at Fort Ellsworth at 4 P. M. Here the same
kind care that had greeted our first visit was again lavished on the party,
Major Parker and his officers all securing from among us as many guests
as possible. I stretched my blankets on the floor of Lieutenant Browne,
Q. M., and was made thoroughly at home without delay. I was pleased
to meet there, as a fellow guest, Father Lamotte, the well known Catholic
clergyman of the Pottawottamie mission. Years of patient toil in a rude
country, with their attendant privations, had not dulled in the good Father
the innate courtliness and polish of the French abbé of the old school.
It was gratifying to listen to his accounts of his labors expressed in fluent
French—it seemed like a bit of the best part of the Old World, here so
far in the New. Quod minime reris—what we do not expect to find—has
always its charm. At an early hour the missionary wrapped himself in
his blanket like one well accustomed to such lodgings on the frontier, laid
himself on the floor and slept, motionless as an Indian, till early dawn,
when he arose, read quietly in his book of devotions, and bidding us a
courteous adieu, mounted his horse and rode away.
After breakfast I found a number of Kaw Indians on the plaza of the
fort. Having become the possessor of an Indian whip studded with brass
nails, and picked up a few words of that noble dialect of the Dakota, the
Kaw language, I resolved to try the effect of a frank and genial style of
boon fellowship upon the Red Man. It affords me gratification to state
that the social experiment was eminently successful. Approaching them,

69
I flourished my whip and repeated its name in Kaw, which is “B'meerga-
shee.”
Kaws. (Evidently interested, with an intense grunt.) “ Ugh."
Self. (Joyously.) B'meergashee, b’meergashee!”
Kaws. (More interested.) “ Ugh Ugh."
Self. (Pointing to a pony) “ Shoonga "
Kaws. (Evidently becoming excited at the wondrous stranger) “ Ugh-
shoonga. "
Self. (Pointing to noble Indian.) “You, Kawº”
Kaw. (Smiles delighted and assents.) “Um, me Kaw.”
Self. (Pointing to second noble Indian.) “Ugh, you Kaw "
(Second noble Indian, radiant with pleasure.) “Um, me Kaw.”
Self (Drawn up in a stately and commanding position, borrowed from
Mr. Forrest's Metamora, and passing the palm of the right hand over the
face and pointing to heart.)—“ME Kaw "
(Here the drama terminates by the Indian crowd making a grand rush,
and exclaiming, gaily and proudly, “Him Kaw too—Ugh, ugh um.”
The stranger narrowly escapes an embrace, but not much shaking of
hands, and is formally recognized as a member of the Kaw nation, in
good standing.)
By this time the Tribune and Young Gideon, with others, attracted by
this extraordinary spectacle, had come up, and instantly proposed to appro-
priately celebrate my reception and continue the service by singing “Hoo,
hoo, hoo! the Muscolgee!” which was done instanter, the effect being
greatly aided by my red fellow-countrymen, who received this exquisite
lyric with real delight. This part of the ceremony concluded, my friends
purchased of the Kaws their bºmeergashees, or whips. But I found that
they were not devoid of suspicion, for either expressed by a sign his
desire to confer with me privately. I turned aside when each showed
me the dollar bill which he had received, and intimated, as only an
Indian of plains can, with an expressive gesture, his desire to know if it
was good. I nodded assent, and said:
“WASHTAw.”
This is my one Sioux word—it means “good”—my Kaws understood it,
and repeated Washtaw with a happy smile. But the significant two-eyed
wink and confidential nod with which my newly fraternized compatriots
intimated to me that they had made rather a good thing with their whips
on the Giaours, and Goyim, and Gorgios of my fellow travelers, from whom
I was politely excepted—on the ground of a certain odd sort of free-
masonry, which I have more than once tested among good fellows of
many grades—was exquisite. “Arºnt we all Framazouns 2 said the

70
Arnaout to the Englishman. I had seen that wink of old in the eyes of
Spaniards who might have sat to Quevedo.
I think it was Brigham, our driver, (but am not sure,) who afterwards
said that he never heard before of any white man's putting himself on a
level with a Kaw, and he did not wonder they were delighted to get a party
with a clean shirt on as fellow-citizen, for it was the first time anything of
the kind had ever been in the nation. This may all be very true and
very fine—mais que woulez vous?—I had no choice of tribes, and every-
body knows that it is indispensable that every tourist on the frontier should
be adopted into at least one. Witness Albert Pike—but I need not cite
examples. Moreover, it is evident that the Kaws must have come from
the Crows—and the Crows, as Jim Beckwourth’s book testifies, (and
who could ask higher authority,) are a very noble race. A propos of
Beckwourth, ex-chief of the Crows, I have the following story:
Shortly after Beckwourth’s autobiography had appeared, a miner in
California, who could not read, commissioned a friend, who was equally
ignorant, to buy the work for him in San Francisco.
The book was demanded, but by some mistake the purchaser received
instead a Bible, with which he went his way rejoicing back to the mines.
In the evening a third party, who could read, was commissioned to set
forth a chapter to his friends. He opened the book at random, and
falling by chance upon the history of Samson, read aloud the story of the
foxes and the fire-brands. When it was at an end, one of his auditors
exclaimed, abruptly:
“That's one of Jim Beckwourth’s d-d lies, exactly: it sounds just like
him. There aint another man in the country that would have the cheek
to tell such a story of himself.”
For the benefit of philologists, I give here a short vocabulary of the
Kaw language. I am indebted for it to the kindness of several friends of
science—to all of whom I avail myself of this opportunity to return my
sincere thanks, as follows:
To Mr. H. L. Jones, of Salina, and may his shadow never be less
To a young Indian lady on horseback, from whom I purchased a whip.
and who, with delicate and touching gratitude at my liberality, offered to
throw in her pappoose—the memory of her politeness will long remain as
a twinkling light in the past.
To another young Indian lady, who was so kind as to correct my pro-
nunciation of several words when I did not grunt sufficiently. Long may
she wavel -
To an old live Indian, who looked like a dilapidated run-away tobacconist-
sign—the recollection of his unblemished cordiality will not soon be
forgotten -
71
The words are as follows:
Girl............................................. Shimmy Shindy.
Fire-water ... ... Pejene’h.
Fire............. ... Peje. ,
--------------------------------------- Non’nee.
--------------------- -------------- Haw’ee mpossa?
------- ------------ ------------------------ A receptacle. Fullness.
...Full water. Over-flowing river.
... Ch'i, or sometimes chee.
... Moccasabi.
... Halesha.
...Not a tunga.
... Junga.
----------------------------------------- Jewjeh.
------------------------------------------- Mohe, or Mohi.
------------------------------------ Mohe tunga.
--------------............................. Wah'biska.
--------------------------------------------- Wakoota.
------------------------------------------ Wahpya
Woman. ....................................... Wahko
Like God........ ............................ Wahkonda koosega.
Bad.............. ... . . ...... Pºhjé.
Money........................... .............. Mozuska.
Half...... ... Okuska. -
Dollar........................................... Bloga
Where are you going?..................... Hoangi je ?
Sugar............................................Shawni.
Black............................................ Sabé
Molasses......................................... Sabé shawni.
Buffalo Bull. .................................Shedunga.
Buffalo Cow................ ...Shemunga.
Common Cattle.............................. Cheska.
Nose............................................ Hin
As an instance of great philological acuteness, I may cite the observa-
tion of Epistemon, who remarked of the Kaw word for girl, that he knew
by its very sound it had something feminine in it. And here endeth ye
book of ye Kaws—of whom it was dreadfully said by Captain Colton, of
Panola, that they had been the Kaws of mirth to us all—which took the hat.
It was claimed that the dinner of the day before had been a remarkably
“square” meal, inasmuch as it consisted of equilateral and equiangular
biscuit and nothing else, moistened with somewhat of Chartreuse—that
blanche or golden liqueur made by the disciples of San Bruno, at Magna
Cartusia. There is a single sentence which has for years risen from time
to time in my memory anent this good thing, which is here not inappro-






72
priate. “La grande Chartreuse is situated in a picturesque but wild
and desolate region, on the summit of a steep rock, at an elevation
of about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea.” And from the summit of
that steep rock, far across the sea and the plains unto young Gideon and
to us, had come the Carthusian liquor confected de ſidelibus fratribus,
by the jolly monks, for the delectation of all good fellows, in partibus
infidelium, far away among the heathen. They took the votum castitatis
et paupertatis—the vow of old bachelor-hood and of impecuniosity—
that they might devote themselves to distilling a celestial cordial, a
divine chasse café which inspires the heart as though Cupid had been
melted in the cup, and gives the drinker the feeling that he owns the
Fifth Avenue and all its cross streets, has a large interest in the mint, is
nearly related to William B. Astor, and first cousin to Spinner and the
greenbacks. Selah .
As we returned, however, our meals grew not only superficially squarer,
but also gained in depth. Thus at Abelene, where Mr. Jones sports a
barrel of full-sized whisky, and is the mayor of a private prairie-dog
village, our dinner was described, by the elder Gideon, as resembling an
average-shaped section of a bar of soap. How we improved on this will
appear as we “craw fish,” or go backward to the East.
I can recall nothing of special interest that day, beyond our meeting on
the road a joyous duck of a bridge-tender, who was a character indeed.
He was immensely—in fact about four-thirds drunk, but exuberant with
eccentric fun. His first greeting was to offer me, as a free gift of friend-
ship, a black and tan terrier pup, worth at least fifty dollars—a “dorg,”
as he declared, all grit and game—not to be persuaded to yelp by any
punishment. Then he swore—shade of Ernulphus how he did swear –
not in wrath, but on general principles. The speech of the Oxford
graduate in Firmilian, was as nothing before the pleonasms of profanity
poured forth in the sheer joy of his heart by this broad-brimmed frontiers-
man—ending in a stupendous anecdote which outshone the rosiest light in
the Moyen de Parvenir. Even Brigham was effectually quenched for a
brief space by this astounding diabolist and damnitarian. I do not think
he said anything to Billy, the mule, for as much as five minutes. As
we rode away, I looked behind; and the broad face over the broad
shoulders, wrapped in a blue army-overcoat, was beaming with a broad
smile like a prairie sun-rise—and that immense and silent smile of victory
shone after us without motion—the small long eyes leering in still triumph
—until all became an indigo speck in the distance.
They have a strange way out West of talking without preliminary
salutations. It was about this spot that Brigham began, without as much
as “how do you do?” to talk in Spanish to a dark-skinned greaser in a

73
broad hat, who came running forth with an Indian-Mexican boy from a
house—all in the “utmost-stranger” manner. As he drove away,
Brigham drily remarked :
“I spent a first-rate time all one winter with that man at his ranche. ”
Truly, this is a queer world, with queer fellows in it, and they have
discovered among them queer ways to puzzle us.
L E T T E R F O U R T E E N T H .
ST. LOUIs, Nov. 19, 1866.
“When the Missourians murdered our brothers and burned our homes,
we resolved to take our revenge by turning them into good Radicals. And
we have done it.”
Such was the comment of a sound-hearted intelligent man, whom we
met on the road after the late Western elections. It is impossible to
describe the intense delight, the earnest enthusiasm with which this
tremendous triumph of Republican principles was received in Kansas.
“Rebellion in Missouri,” said Mr. Copley, “was scotched in the war,
but in this election it was killed.” And in its death industrial progress
received fresh life. In fact, there was not a State in the Union in which
the poisonous fungus of rebel Copperhead Conservatism was so vilely
misplaced as in Missouri. I scarce know why it is, but there is some-
thing in Missouri—in its very soil and material features—which attracted
my love and excited, as in Kansas, the liveliest interest in its prosperity.
Indeed that man must be a poor, narrow-minded creature, who does not
feel a nameless inspiration of love and sympathy at the very name of the
West. There was a time when Italy, Germany and France each seemed
to me in turn to be the broad Mecca towards which I should wander, and
having seen, desire to travel no more. I saw them—but in riper years,
after them all, there grew up a deeper longing to see and know the West.
Other countries spoke only of the Past—but here in the West lies the
stupendous Future, now rapidly rising into overwhelming power.
That Missouri, with its wonderful resources, its fine climate, its
exquisitely beautiful scenery should have ever been poisoned by slavery,

74
or have been supposed to be destined to be swayed by the contemptible.
narrow-minded provincialism of Southern oligarchs, is monstrous. Right
in the line of freedom, between the East and West, the manifest
destiny of its people is to be as free and intelligent as the best on earth.
This feeling has in fact penetrated the heart of every one who knows
the glorious State, and even those who, by force of habit, still rank with
the Copperheads, admit that the result of the late elections will be to
stimulate industrial progress. When will the whole country learn and
feel that the policy of the Republican or “Radical” party is an
industrial policy in its fullest, noblest, and most practical sense?
As no undertaking of the present is more intimately connected with
this vast industrial policy, founded on free labor and equal rights, than
the Pacific Railroad, I have thought it expedient to give, in this connection,
a brief history of that portion which I have most carefully examined, and
for which I am indebted to an able article by a correspondent of the
Missouri Democrat. We are told in the Life of George Stevenson, that
a friend of that great engineer once told him that by his railroads he had
struck a death-blow to aristocracy. It will be found in time that this
great road, connecting the East and West, is one of the most fatal blows
ever struck in America at that vile and insiduous form of aristocracy,
the heresy of States-rights.
In 1855 the Legislature of Kansas incorporated the Leavenworth,
Pawnee and Western Railroad, authorizing it to build a road from Leaven-
worth via Pawnee to Fort Riley, with the privilege of extending it
westward. Subsequently, Congress, July, 1862, incorporated the “Union
Pacific Railroad,” authorizing it to pass from the one hundredth meridian
west longitude, between the valleys of the Republican and Platte Rivers,
in Nebraska, to the western boundary of Nevada, there to meet the Cen-
tral Pacific Road of California, and also to build a road to connect with
this on the hundredth meridian, thence to run to some point in the west
of Iowa; the same act also authorizing the Kansas Road to extend its
line westward till it met the Union Pacific on the one hundredth meridian,
but restrained by the same southern boundary of the valley of the
Platte.
This act gave to each road 6,400 acres of land to every mile of road
completed, and also provided for the issue, as fast as every forty miles
were finished, of Government bonds, payable thirty years from date.
bearing six per cent. interest, and payable in treasury notes or other legal
tender money, which bonds were made pso facto a first mortgage on the
road.
In February, 1864, the present Company obtained control of the
enterprise under its present name. The organizers of the new Company,
75
to whom we owe the fact that it did not perish at the outset, were John
J. Perry, still President, Robt. E. Carr, C. S. Greeley, S. M. Edgell,
Giles F. Filley, Adolphus Meier, Thos. L. Price, O. D. Filley and James
Archer, all of whom are still largely interested in the work. After
their accession to the management, the Company was relieved from the
obligation to connect at the hundredth meridian. The companies were
also authorized to issue their own bonds, similar in amount and consider-
ations with those of the Government previously granted, which, however,
should be a first lien, prior even to that of the Government, on the road
This amendatory act also doubled the land grants, giving 12,000 acres of
land to every mile of road actually completed.
According to later legislation, (July 26, 1866,) the Company receive
for every mile of road 12,800 acres of land on the road, $16,000 United
States six per cent. thirty-years bonds, and issue their own similar
bonds which have a first lien on the road to the same amount—interest
payable in gold. They are authorized to construct the route by the
Smoky Hill River Valley, to any point west within a meridian of
fifty miles west of Denver, where, at the farthest, they must unite with
the Union Pacific. Denver will undoubtedly, however, be the point of
junction. The Company, by this change, have saved one hundred and
thirty-four miles in the distance from Riley to Denver, and gained a
much better route.
The Delaware Reserve, ceded to the Union Pacific Railway, E. D., at
$1.25 per acre, contains 233,966 acres, some of which has since been sold
at an average of $7.77 per acre, and the remainder (the best land in
America) will readily bring as much or more to-day. The Pottawottamie
Reserve comprised 425,000 acres, which now commands three dollars an
acre profit.
Of the present condition of the Company, the Pittsburg Gazette says
that no railroad in America is in a better condition financially than theirs.
They received for every mile of road finished, 12,800 acres of land, and
$16,000 in United States six per cent, thirty years bonds, and have also
the privilege of issuing their own bonds for a like amount. Every one
of those bonds thus far issued have been taken up by the stockholders
individually, so that not a dollar has been thrown as yet upon the
market. Neither has any of the “paid-up cash capital stock” of
$4,800,000 been sold to the public. No longer a mere branch, this road
is now essentially the main central line of the great inter-oceanie Pacific
Railway.
The Union Pacific Railway commences at Wyandotte, on the west
bank of the Missouri, and on the north bank of the Kansas, at its mouth,

76
where the Missouri Pacific Railroad terminates by uniting with it. Kan-
sas City is on the south side of both the Missouri and the Kansas.
Wyandotte to Lawrence, ................. .............. .....................
Lawrence to Topeka,........ .....................................
Topeka to Manhattan,...... ... .
Manhattan to Junction City, thr
which point the road is now finished and in operation, *.... 20
138 “
From Junction City to Denver,........................................ ...... 463 *
Total distance from Wyandotte or Kansas City to Denver, ........... 601 *
“To this we must add the branch road of thirty-three miles, from
Lawrence to Leavenworth, which was built and is owned by this Com-
pany, and which, added to the part of the main line already finished and
in operation, makes a total of one hundred and seventy-one miles of
finished road. Thus the road has already two termini of its own on the
Missouri River, one at Wyandotte and Kansas City, the other at Leaven-
worth.”
Such is, in brief, a summary of the history of the Pacific Railway,
Eastern Division. In view of the immense influence which it is destined
to exert upon the industrial and social interests of the United States, I
cannot say that a single one of these items has appeared to me as a dry
detail. Those who impress them faithfully upon the memory will find,
in the course of time, that the knowledge will be of great importance in
comprehending the future development of our country.
I have previously alluded to the energetic enterprise which character-
izes the Far West. I wish I could give some idea of the incredible
vitality, and buoyancy of spirits which seemed to characterize the men
with whom I everywhere conversed. There is no slowness, no apathy
among these pioneers. Every one sees fortune and position before him
as the inevitable result of industry, and there is, of course, a due appre-
ciation of the grand republican principle of the harmony of interests.
In such a state of society, so tremendous in its strength and activity, the
Old World, old-fogy life of Europe and even of our own Atlantic cities,
seems feeble and paltry. One longs to gather up an army of the fine
young men among us, who are wasting their energies in merely polishing
themselves away to nothing, when they might, in the West, be acquiring
that greatness and strength which is a thousand times more desirable.
On November 14th we arrived, with a hurrah of joy, at Fort Riley, and
were without delay inducted into comfortable quarters, with a bed for
every Gideonite of us all, in the comfortable house which had been occu-
* Since the above was written, the road has been extended thirty miles beyond Junction
City.


77
pied by General Custer on our first visit. Let him who has been horsed
in stables, and muled in sheds, and jackassed in the open air for sun-dried
days and shiver-all nights, learn what the luxury is to simply sleep in a
decent house,
“And–blessed condition –feel genteel.”
And it cannot be denied that under the demulcent and regenerating
influences of soap and towels, a clean large room wherein to hold Social
Hall, easy chairs and a large open fire, we expanded greatly. And thus
revived we sat like phoenixes around its blaze in the darkening room, and
purred like a party of lions. You have heard a lion pure-havn't you,
reader? If not, follow a menagarie about for a month until you get the
opportunity, and you will never talk about a cat's purr more. The com-
fortable purr of a happy lion in easy circumstances, is something to be
saved up in memory as an interest-paying investment. Such is the purr
of a common lion in a cage after a banquet of beef-what must it be in
the wilderness, after he has triumphantly eloped with some lamb of an
Arab princess whom he has, for safe keeping, securely packed in his trunk.
Bless us! a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing
So we purred—and made a blessed call of happy memory on two mem-
bers of the band, whom you, O reader, have not as yet seen, inasmuch as
their office is that of being its invisible Madonne or guardian angels.
There the Gideonites, like jolly foolish beings, sung all their ballads, and
told all about their buffalo-hunting, and what a glorious set the officers
were at Ellsworth, and how the Kaw chief had a pappoose offered him as a
gift—and how the Colonel shot the mephitic pussy-cat—and what a good
story-teller Saint Lewis had been—and how Dr. L. C. (not Lower Case,
but Le Conte) had astonished the natives, by finding shark's teeth, high
and dry, among the rocks—and how Y. and Dot and Young Gideon had
a sweet ride in a long storm, and how Gideon, ye elder, our jovial and
brave patriarch, had found that town lots in Solomon city had risen from
twenty-five to seventy-five dollars in a week, and how the gentle Tribune
was suspected of a design to purchase Pottawottamie lands for the pur-
pose of raising strawberry plants for premiums, and how the jolly Miller,
having found that Indian word painted on a tank, had read it, Pot o'
water me! and how the captain of Panola rode so well that Brigham at
once saw by his style that he must have been an old horse-thief—and all
the other gossip of the journey. It may be all stale beer now, this gossip
in print; but it was lively enough for the jolly, careless souls when it first
popped, and we were sorry enough when the party came to a head and
exploded.
It was at Riley, and in the same company (blessed be its memory!)
that I heard a Bavarian soldier play on the cithern. Listening to his

78
sweetly touched Laendler and Tyroler waltzes, with their merry sad ſodel
refrains, there rose within my memory another golden time, long years
ago in Munich, and among the old Bavarian mountains by silver lakes
among the silent pines—the spires of Hohenlinden far away—and there
the cithern sounded too among just such genial, pleasant friends as these,
and where are they all now, and where are the dreams, and the music,
and the laughter?—mais ou sont les neiges d'antan 2
“Echo will fling the question back,
O'er silent lake and streamlet lone,
All earthly beauty fades away;
Where are the snows of winter flown 2 *
“That was the only question or thing that ever troubled Francois
Willon,” says Father Rabelais. It need not trouble us, or any man who
has seen the waves of ocean rise and fall.
The next morning we cooked—that is to say, John, the steward,
cooked—our last open-air breakfast for us on the railroad, behind the car.
In a few minutes the buffalo-steaks were broiled, the coffee hot and nice,
and the hungry Gideonites sat here and there with tin-cups and plates–
(our glass and porcelain had all been smashed long ago)—taking their
last feed of the meat which they had killed. The whistle blew—the
train started—we again resumed our wonted seats in our old home, and
began the homeward half of the round trip of three thousand miles in one
conveyance. -
On we went all that day, passing through Topeka, Lecompton, Law-
rence, and other towns whose names recall the days when Kansas was
undergoing her fire-baptism, and was truly the dark and bloody ground of
America. Now when all is smiling with prosperity—when vigorous and
manly honesty has gained the upper hand, and banished the foul and
venomous monster of slavery and southern villainy, it seems hard to
realize that boys under their majority can remember the time when, as
Governor Shannon remarked, “The roads were literally strewn with dead
bodies.” “At that time,” (1856) as Dr. John H. Gihon has expressed
it in his excellent work, “Geary and Kansas,” (which has been a
valuable companion in this journey,) “civil war raged in all the populous
districts; women and children had fled from the Territory; the roads
were impassable; no man's life was safe; and every person, when he lay
down to rest at night, bolted and barred his doors, and fell asleep, grasp-
ing firmly his pistol, gun, or knife.”
Thus at Leavenworth, on August 17, 1856, a border ruffian named
Fugert, one of Atchison's men, bet a comrade six dollars against a pair
of boots that he would go out and in less than two hours bring in the
scalp of an Abolitionist. He went out, shot a gentleman named Hoppe

79
in his carriage, scalped him while yet alive, and putting the bloody
trophy upon a pole, paraded it through the streets of Leavenworth, amid
the plaudits of the militia and divers “Southern gentlemen” there
present. Of the other sickening outrages and horrors of every kind
which were committed even within twenty-four hours of this event, Dr.
Gihon's book gives full account, and they are indeed equal to anything
told of the vilest Indian deeds. And the tales are all true. I inquired
of many persons who were in Kansas in the old dismal days, and they all
bore witness to the truth of Dr. Gihon's and others’ accounts. Such
was the effort made by the South to crush out a free Northern settlement
by sheer arrogance and the strong hand—and such, looking at the present
condition of this glorious State, has been the result. Truly the devil
does God’s work, whether he will or no.
Lecompton derives its name from the “indolent and sluggish ’’ Judge
Lecompte, one of the old pro-slavery judicial curses of Kansas, of whom
it is said that he adjourned the spring term of his court to plant his
potatoes; the summer term to hoe his potatoes; the fall term to dig his
potatoes, and the winter term because he had to be at home to sell his
potatoes. His whole disreputable and corrupt career has been made
infamously historical in the annals of Kansas. It was at Lecompton that
the free-soil men, maddened by unprovoked outrages, retaliated by cap-
turing Colonel Titus—the man who described himself as a “hell-hound,”
and who when pursued hid himself under the floor, and yelped for terror
like a puppy when captured. -
Next beyond, on this side of Lecompton, lies Lawrence, where murder,
outrage and robbery of every kind were committed on May 21st, 1856–
where kegs of gunpowder were placed against burning buildings, and
cannon used—where women were savagely outraged, and every horror
incident to the sack of cities perpetrated—all under the guise of law. For
all this, too, there came a day of reckoning, and its marks may be seen
broad and wide over the South. They made the great mistake, incident
to too many of the “chivalry '' of all ages, of believing that to be
unscrupulous and satanic is the short cut to success. Such was the bold
measure of firing on Sumpter which cost a war. Such was the fatal
victory of Bull Run which killed slavery. Such was the “retaliation "
of Chambersburg boasted of by General Early; and such was the deceit-
ful and deadly resuscitation of Southern hopes of political supremacy by
Andrew Johnson, which has killed them apparently root and branch. It
was unscrupulous and satanic to attempt the coup d'état of putting van-
quished traitors directly over the heads of loyal victors, and to turn out
maimed soldiers from office to make room for rebels—and the children of
evil chuckled greatly. Heaven keep all good men from such successes!

80
Against his own will Andrew Johnson has been one of the most effectual
means of crushing out the embers of that treason which he did his best to
feed into fresh flames. Strange that any man who had lived through the
late war could be so utterly ignorant of the temper and iron will of the
American people of the North. -
We arrived that evening (November 15) at Wyandotte, where we were
at once installed as guests of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, at the
Union Railroad Hotel. The supper prepared for us here was a vast
advance in squareness—embracing griddle cakes, (by particular request of
the Panolian,) broiled chicken—but I will cut the story short by giving
the creed of the landlords of that hotel, as set forth in the Parable of
the Loaves and Fishes, which I found printed as follows upon the backs
of their cards : -
“Now it came to pass in the reign of Andy the Second, that the strife for railroads
waxed warm in the West, and the people had every motive but a loco-motive for pushing
on the good work. But, lo and behold, there came wise men from the East, and there was
a great change in the land—verily much change. Tracks were made along the highways
and by-ways, and the iron-horse snorted among the elders, and railed through the valleys
of “bleeding Kansas.' And at a place where many roads do congregate there was built a
Feast House, where the hungry and thirsty are taken in. And the keepers of the house
are men of great genius and deep penetration. They run not after the flesh-pots of Egypt,
but turn their eyes toward the stalls of butchers, and hucksters, and fishmongers, so that
the tables of that house are called good. Now the people of the city should go therein;
and those that come from afar, that their days may be pleasant in the land of the Wyan-
dottes.”
I find among my notes “good dinner and mince-pie at Topeka.” At
present this has a carnal, puerile appearance. Then, we were coming,
hungry and starved like wolves, from the plains, and every pie—particu-
larly mince-pie—looked as large and beautiful as the blessed sun himself!
You bet we were gallant trencher-men and valiant conquerors of ham and
hot corn-bread in those times. You bet—that we charged boldly on the
preserves, and made the caitiff pickles flee for their lives, while the fried
potatoes cried aloud for mercy. But specially fierce were we at Abalene,
where a burly round of boiled beef dared to stand up against us and bid
us defiance. In a trice Captain Colton had his trusty blade through the
varlet's midriff (you bet!)—in a second the fierce Tribune had sabred his
flank. Heavens, how they fenced away at him and chopped at him, till
only a ghostly bone remained You bet /
Colonel J. E. Jacobs, at Wyandotte, added his kind cares and attentions
to those of our regular colonel (Charles B. Lamborn,) to make us
comfortable. I regret, by the way, that my memory does not retain the
names of several gentlemen connected with the road, who from Wyan-
dotte onward, were extremely attentive and polite. Chief indeed, among
these is General W. W. Wright, who at all times, made his influence and

81
ability of the utmost service to us in every way. At nine o'clock we
left, in our car, after it was placed on a new truck to suit the guage
of the Missouri Pacific railway, crossed to Kansas City, and having retired
early, rolled away over Missouri all night long. I very much enjoyed
our sleeping car that night—it was so much like home. With my
characteristic accuracy, I forgot to mention that Tuesday night, November
13, was passed at the town of Salina, where, thanks to the hospitality of
Mr. H. L. Jones, (an old friend whom I had never met before,) we were
allowed to sleep in the court-house, above his store, unto which end the
glorious Jones contributed good brown blankets ad libitum. This was
the last place, however, where we were regularly floored.
On Friday, November 16, awakening on the road, the first object I
beheld was the splendid Capitol building of Jefferson City. Here we were
marched by somebody, (the Colonel, I believe,) to a hostelrie, where a
breakfast was served which approached a perfect cube, or was at least
wonderfully near thereunto. Hunger and Famine !—how we pitched
into it! What piles of fair young biscuit were attacked—what glorious
sheets of rosy brown ham were slashed asunder—what a ravaging of tender
beefsteak and gentle, savory chops was there And how they kept
bringing them I once, in my student days at Paris, saw a play in which
the Devil's daughter, Flamine, having been sent to a fashionable boarding-
school, causes a fountain of dainties of all kinds to play up from the
ground, so that there was an up-flying and down-falling of apples, cakes,
sugar-plums, saucissons, candied fruits, and the like, until the curtain fell
—and it seemed to me that the good folks where we fed must have had
some such ſet to supply such an infinite quantity of fresh, hot victuals as
they brought to us-particularly to the Captain –that jolly, hungry boy!
Then we rode on all day over Missouri. One of our stopping places
was at Herrman, a German place with a German name and German people,
engaged in the very German business of wine raising. I could see the
wingerts or vineyards on the hills, looking as Rhiney and winey as in the
old fatherland. Walking a little about, I heard the children talking
Suabian and Pfelzisch–Janz Deutsch und ganz natuerlich. Here the
Colonel invested in several bottles—some of them containing a Virginia
Seedling wine, which, in Missouri at least, has exactly the flavor of a thin
Burgundy, and which doubtless might be improved to a very fine potable.
The imperial Missouri Catawba is the best Catawba wine made in America.
The following items from a late number of De Bow's Review are worth
reading in this connection; -
“ Unless the prophecies of scientific men are false, and the obvious intentions of Nature
are thwarted, Missouri is destined to be the Vineland of America. There has been no
elaborate investigation since the geological survey of Professor Swallow; but the
6

82
familiarity of the facts, which his researches developed, does not diminish their truth-
fulness. It is estimated that there are in Southern Missouri fifteen million acres adapted
to the culture of the grape. This land is situated one thousand feet above the level of
the ocean. Nature has in many localities moulded the surface into terraces, as if on pur-
pose to facilitate the labors of the wine-dresser. The composition of the soil is remarkably
like that of Germany and France. Chemical analysis shows that the soil abounds in
lime, soda, potash, magnesia and phosphoric acid, and these are the principal ingredients
which enter into the structure of the vine. The soil is dry and light, the air equable and
comparatively vaporless, the water abundant and pure. These are the identical conditions
under which the luscious vintages of the old world obtain perfection. * * * *
If we may be guided in our estimate by European statistics, the vinelands of Missouri are
able to afford a pleasant and remunerative occupation to a population treble (that given
by) the present census of the State, and to yield at least 1,000,000,000 (gallons) of wine.”
That evening we reached St. Louis. And here begins the last and, to
some of us, the most brilliant and thrilling act of the great drama of
Kansas ho! or Three Thousand Miles in a Railroad Car. O my Gideon-
ites already from afar off. I see the end of this gay, wild camaraderie, this
dip into a new student life with its merry rioting and storms of laughter,
wine, song and uproar! From afar, though as yet darkly, I see Philiste-
rium and common life awaiting us. But we are still on the grand route,
and till we leave it, this agate point of opal hue shall still be busy. St.
Louis in our next letter.
L ET T E R F D F T E E N T H .
St. Louis, Nov. 19th, 1866.
“Much tobacco much tobacco ''
Thereby hangs a tale.
One day when Lieut. S. A. Browne, of Fort Ellsworth, was on a hunt,
he thought he saw a buffalo partly hidden behind some weeds or bush-
Therefore he raised his rifle and fired—but the buffalo proved to be an
Indian on a black horse. And the noble savage, seeing, as he thought, a
chance for black mail, rushed down at the Lieutenant, and cried aloud-
“Much tobacco much tobacco ''
This puts me in mind of another incident, which I tell to prevent any
other oral or printed version thereof from gaining credence.
When we wished to ride from Junction City to Riley on our return,
we ran, carrying our blankets, to overtake the wagon. But Brigham, the
driver, supposing we had found conveyance otherwise, was rushing away
at full speed far along on the road, and being to the windward, could not
hear our cries.

83
The Colonel called aloud. No effect.
The elder Gideon shouted. Nº stop.
The Kaw Chief roared. Brigham did not hear it.
Young Gideon let off his rifle. It was a Lee carbine, and made about
as much noise as a soft percussion cap in a two-ten-cylinder Hoe press-
room. -
“I’ll stop the wagon l’’ cried the Kaw Chief. [The Tribune calls him
Meister Karl, “Give me a gun . "
“Yon won't fire at it !” quoth Gideon.
“Is there a ball in it?” replied the Kaw. “All right. If anybody
will insure the horses, I’ll insure the driver.”
Saying this he drew a bead on the fast-vanishing ambulance, now some
three hundred yards distant, and let drive. He was certain that he could
repeat the William Tell experiment, and just let Brigham hear the whiz
of the bullet without winging him. That was the idea. He succeeded
admirably. The bullet went through the cover of the ambulance. But
he did not know that his best friend of the Tribune was in the wagon, or
that the bullet went within four inches of extinguishing that particularly
good fellow.
When Brigham heard the ball go ping he thought he was at the
other end of the road, and that the Indians were firing. Therefore he
drove double time till out of reach, and then held up and halted—probably
to take measure for a large and heavy swear.
As they approached the wagon, the Kaw remarked:
“Now I shouldn't wonder if Brigham had his knife out, and if so,
there'll be some fancy work—you bet.” And approaching, he cried out
in Spanish:
“Brigham–es (a navaja o la mano 2''
* La mano.” -
It was the hand of amity and not the knife that time; for there sat
Brigham, radiant with the joy of a practical joker after his own heart.
Like unto a Philadelphian (let us say he of Facts and Fancies) who has
just heard a glorious pun, the Santa Fé frontiersman was inspired with
the intensest sense of delight at the event. But he spoke only at intervals,
in his own dry, inimitable manner, as follows: -
Brigham. “When I found out they where white men, I knew darned
well who fired that shot.” - -
Kaw Chief “Brigham, you know that I have sworn to shoot an
Indian before I left this country, and you come nearer to being one than
any body else I’ve met.”
Brigham, “You’ve heard arrows whistle around your head, havn't
you? I have. They whistle a darned sight more than bullets. I've

84
heard 'em—often, and bullets too. But I never knew a man to stop a
wagon before by firing at the driver.”
Then, after a pause, he added:
“I wish, voto & Dios that there was a rock or something in the road–
I’d upset this crowd mighty soon.” (He'd have done it, too; you bet.)
Now the Kaw, moved to great liking of Brigham, when he parted from
him made him a present of a stiletto. And when the Tribune heard this
he was wroth, and exclaimed, “Behold I, too, was in the ambulance,
and came nearer being wiped out than Brigham; and yet thou never
gavest me a stiletto where with I might rejoice and make merry among my
friends, while this prodigal has got a first-rate one.”
To which the Kaw replied : “Son Tribune—what dost thou expect,
any how !"
And he answering, cried aloud, “ Much tobacco / much tobacco."
This is the story of the Indian, and the Officer, and the Brigham, and
the Buffalo, and the Tribune—which the latter told after its own fashion.
“When we parted with our driver at the Fort, that afternoon,” said that
newspaper, “he parted with Meister Karl in the most affectionate manner,
that gentleman having evidently raised himself enormously in Brigham's
esteem by nearly killing his bosom friend. I fancied too that Brigham
was rather provoked with me, for blunting the point of the joke by
surviving.”
It was on the evening of Friday, November 16, that we arrived at St.
Louis, and were at once taken to that magnificent hotel, the Lindell
House, where we were installed (no, that word recalls the stable)—I
should say in-bedded—in rooms which, after our late experiences, seemed
more gorgeous and stately than all the palaces of Europe could show.
For the benefit of those of after generations who may go on pilgrimages
to visit the spots consecrated by our presence, and for the aid of the
authors who may write Rambles in the Footsteps of the Rail Wayfarers,
I would state that Captain Colton and myself were quartered in Number
Twelve, and Colonel Lamborn came in with a great party to visit us and
be merry, making our room the Social Hall.
(It happened once by mere chance that we three had, during the war,
been obliged to room together at the first hotel in Louisville. Afterwards,
by as unexpected fortune, we came into the Planters', at Leavenworth.
Now it was Lindell which received us. When the Captain and I were at
Louisville, it was after a wilder and stranger journey down in guerilla
land, away in Tennessee, than was even this three-thousand-mile trip in a
railroad car. Those were gay days, “in between the war.”)
And then after a grand bath and delightful manipulations under the
barber's hands, and a general revival, came a special supper. Here was

85
squareness indeed, Briskly, and bravely and beautifully did we feed ;
merrily ran the waiters round, polite were the landlords. Handsome,
stylish women swept past us to their wonted seats at their tea-tables;
little gentlemen with curly heads parted in the middle trotted after them.
Gas chandeliers lighted us, although the espirit de camp fire was still as
brilliant as ever. The transition from the wilderness and the railroad car
was stupendous. And we ate and the waiters ran, and Y, and Dot served
up old adventures with new jokes, and we arose and smoked—and there
was a grand conventicle in Number Twelve, to which came many of the
men of St. Louis. Here, too, General Palmer, of glorious memory,
rejoined us, and with him the never-tiring General W. W. Wright—who
had, from the beginning, been doing us “a heap of good,” on the rail-
roads. That evening we were taken over the Lindell House, and
inspected its many comforts and elegancies. Take it altogether, this house
has no superior in America. We also visited another hotel, but little
inferior to it. Verily, verily, St. Louis is a place
After a solid night's rest we passed the morning of the next day
variously. Some of us were introduced to Missouri wines at the head-
quarters, and we finally united at a superb lunch, given to our party at
the first French restaurateur's of the city. Squarer and squarer, said I,
at the game, and white, crisp, sweet celery, and all the other “little par-
ticulars,” of which the great Blot himself would have approved. Here
the members of Gideon's band relaxed from their usual high-toned aus-
terity of manner and severe dignity, and became moderately joyous, and,
in the words of an unrefined author, “carried on pretty considerably
darned jolly.” The writer confesses to have eaten of angelic larded part-
ridges and celestial grouse and petites patés and seraphic &clairs, until his
heart sang within him, and all grew divine over a café noir and a cigar.
Here in this rosy beatific vision I heard the insatiate Archer rising and
falling like a ship on the stormy waves of his own voice—I saw the Tri-
bune serenely puffing his cigar—I heard the Palmer speak from time to
time, judiciously and apt, (when he makes a fool of himself heaven and
earth will pass away, and cave in ;) but mingled with it was a dim con-
sciousness that it would all soon be at an end, and that though we were a
thousand miles away, the Kansas trip was slowly fading.
We were called on in a hurry to bolt, for we were invited, one and all,
to a croquet party at a hospitable and elegant mansion some miles from
the city. Up we started and ran, gaining the cars solely by the courtesy
of the conductor, who waited—1 am ashamed to say how long—for us.
I believe the people of St. Louis would have sprinkled the roads before
us with cologne and rose-water if it wºuld have done us any good. As it
was, they sprinkled some of the party pretty well with Imperial Catawba,

86
which answered just as well. On we rolled, and at last reached our
“place of destination.” -
Sometimes I feel sorry that I cannot kill Jenkins—beginning with the
original and progressing in atrocity of homicide as I reach his American
imitators and imitator—or small potator—esses. For it is they who have
rendered it impossible or respectable to return public thanks in print for
private hospitalities, or to show any gratitude for anything except a cor-
poration dinner. By slabbering every lady and gentleman with fulsome
praise and hackneyed quotation, these miserable scullions of fashion—(Oh,
Venus ()—have effectually drawn a ditch between the public and anything
like those courteous and proper sketches of realinner life which were once
so common. Therefore, ye Gideonites, I cannot tell the world nor reveal
to you that golden evening—the silver voices and bright eyes—known to
you of old at lively Leavenworth. Neither must 1 speak of sweet singing,
such as some have known in dreams and few in reality—or of brilliant
and spirituelle conversation—or a supper where cubed perfection was
surrounded by every social enchantment. Accursed be Jenkins, anathema
maranatha be he that he has made it impossible for me to blow on the party
who constituted this St. Louis Paradise, and apotheosized the Gideonites
in coºlis.
To play at croquet with a mallet and then at croquette with a fork is
good business—(in Philadelphia they play at croquette and coquette both
at once over the supper-table, as I have seen.) And to this dream, too,
there was an ending. Blow, ye winds, blow, and drive hearts before you
like autumn leaves—the endless vanishing winds-bride of Northern fable,
who flies before the wild hunter of the breeze.
The Captain and I lay each in our comfortable beds that night, and
smoked a Cabanas, and talked the evening over, with a litany of blessings
on the Pacific railway people, from the President down to the last man,
for their superb style of entertainments and general courtesy. And so we
fell asleep.
The next day, St. Lewis took Y and Dot and I and young Gideon Mc-
Cook of the Fighters (a good lot, those same McCooks) out to see Shaw's
garden. We saw it—it is immense. The Conſero department alone
would make any gardener pine with envy, and the Caeti actually seem
stuck up with self-conscious pride at their own ugliness and thornitude.
Here-I must mention it—we received the hospitalities of the mansion,
among which was some hock of 46, “such as we read of" in German song
—the real - -
Vinum Rhenense, decus et gloria mense.
It was raining, and so Y, and Dot and I drew the wolfskin over us,
and St. Lewis laid on the leather, and we went it. Our pace was a

87
tolerably fast one. Ere long we brought up at another splendid mansion.
Bright shone the fires within through the misty twilight-brilliant the
lights—and we entered to converse with ladies whose faces and words were
exquisitely winsome. Here we had Moselle wine which tasted like
melted angels mixed with bottled sunshine. For Moselle is the real
golden wine of the gods.
‘Viminum Moslanum fuit omne tempore samum.”
I whispered that to the Tribune as he “lipped a glass,” for he is a
good Latinist, and knows what “ede, bibe, lude” means as well as any
other man. Now he who understands those three words may find out
from the first of them where it was we got this Moselle and made this
silver-toned call. “And it was the first commandment in the Bible—Ede.
eat '''
The next day was to all of us I think—the pleasantest of this whole
pleasant journey.
On that memorable morning, the gentlemen of St. Louis who were
most nearly interested in the Union Pacific Railway, E. D., with the
insatiate and excellent Archer as provider and caterer general, organized
a colossal pic-nic. This was on Monday, the 19th of November. Two
passenger cars and a locomotive were to convey us, with a joyous band of
lady friends, to Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob, some ninety miles distant.
“It is seldom,” says the ever-accurate Copley, in speaking of the pic-nic,
“that so intelligent and genial a party ever get together.” Wellhast thou
spoken, O son of Pittsburg . Through sunshiny, bushy little valleys,
past Carondelet went our train. Knowest thou Carondelet, O reader?
It was named in days of old Vuide Poche—such a starveling, poverty-
stricken place as it used to be—you never ! The St. Louis people called
it Empty Pocket, in scorn, and the Vuide Poches, who bought their bread
at Louis, retorted by calling their neighbors Pains Courts, or Short Loaves,
and much other gossip, now buried with the ancient rivalry between
Providence and Newport, Rhode Island.
How that morning flew by how genial words and earnest feelings,
and laughter and confidences, and friendly raillery and all social joys,
went on in those cars! This was the goldenest day of all. All the old
friends—and such glorious new ones. And it was all going to pass away
so soon—so soon “into the glowing West.” -
So this is Iron Mountain. Some people are disappointed when they see
it. I once knew a man who was “disappointed” when he saw Venice,
and also another when he made the acquaintance of that transcendental
dramatic incredibility, Madame (To be sure, she slapped his mouth
at the first interview, which may have had something to do with it.) But
assure you, reader, that Iron Mountain is very wholesale. There you

SS
see over five hundred acres of a single mass of solid iron—hardly an ore.
A piece of it is like cast-iron to look at, and apparently as heavy. Listen
to my friend : “The road over which we walked was iron; the loose
pebbles with which the surface of the mountain is plentifully covered,
are all iron. A light soil, bearing some trees and bushes, covers the hill.
But in many places enormous moss-covered blocks of ore jut above the
surface. In one of the mines in which the men were working, we saw a
solid and almost perpendicular face of ore sixty feet high.” Spenser, I
think, has the strange picture of an enchanted cavern, all of solid iron,
with iron rocks and hollows, and the Norse mythology has a road of iron,
and both are paralleled here in Missouri.
Here in the furnace, red hot streams of melting dross ran by and
around the two ladies who had come with Y. and Dot and myself, to view
the wonders, reminding one of the molten rivers of the classic Hades,
and the intensely lightning lava flood which I have seen pouring down
Vesuvius. Sometimes a long-unthought-of impression, as it really was,
(not as we imperfectly remember and half-create it.) will flash up strangely
and almost terribly out of the dark past. And so, as that fiery dross burst
up and ran by, there came back to me a sunny morning long years ago,
on the summit of the volcano of Naples, when I stood among iron-looking
lava and buried my staff in the liquid fire. The scoria or slag of this
furnace is a singular, light grey refuse, very much resembling in color a
certain slimy scum which house-wives remove from quinces or some such
fruit when preserving. The workmen dipped it up for us, when it granu-
lated of itself, apparently, into large balls of any size, which in an instant
cooled and might be taken in the hand. Then we returned to the cars
amid a shower of puns and small adventures—how one young lady nearly
fell down a hill and was sadly disarranged. I confess to have felt
bitterly agonized at seeing a meat glove on a small and dainty hand
fairly smeared and streaming with irony mud. We tried to clean it—
alas! in this world, aliquid semper hoerebit—“something is always sure
to stick.” - -
I was enormously hungry that morning, and think that I must have
finally settled an entire covey of tender partridges, with an occasional
grouse. As for the stock of wine–heavens' how that Archer had piled
it in There was more than we could eat; and yet somebody declared
that the champagne was just in the proportion of Falstaff's sack to his
pen n'orth of bread. Never did I see such an army of baskets My Lord
Gargantua himself could not have complained of short commons on that
pic-nic. Now I understood what was meant by being “on a train.”
So on we came to Pilot Knob. This, too, is an iron mountain, but
crowned with strange broken crags and wild rocks, crusted together like

89
-
towers, castles and antique tombs, which had been three-quarters melted,
at doomsday, and then suddenly cooled. It is a grand and strange hill,
rising steeply for nearly six hundred feet; alone in a beautiful country,
a quiet, fertile valley sweeping around like the deep groove which you find
in mossy Etruscan brooches–Pilot Knob being the central boss, and a
far range of mountains which surround the valley rising like the outer
protecting ridge or ring. As we looked far away on stream and forest—
now brown with dead leaves or bare—on farm-house and forge, the view
was one of surpassing loveliness. In this tranquillowland lie two villages,
and far beyond rises Shepherd Mountain, which is a still larger pile of
11'On Ore.
I have been on a pic-nic in merrie England, lang syne by buried Veru-
lamium, near gray St. Alban's Abbey, where I noted to my amazement
that every damsel with us was a beauty—yea, and in other places over this
broad and fair world—but I never was on so mellifluous a rural bender
as this, or one which had so many lovely girls. The road up the moun-
tain was enamelled with them like a garden in spring with flowers—the
brightest eyes flashed like dew-drops, and we Gideonites, like good Chris-
tians, helped them to climb over rocks and stones, gullies and ridges, and
never complained once of the trouble. Y. and Dot certainly did not as
he led a belle Aſiace, onwards and upwards. As for St. Lewis, he was
dans son terrain “on his own farm,” and did not climb at all. Half
way up the mountain I left him seated with three beauties, on my
traveling shawl, among rocks and under trees–tandarade 1–ºmid
broken leaves and grass,” and there they remained, the jolly young birds,
making the hill ring with laughter, until we came down again. Mean-
while, the Archer led the way, or rather a servant, who carried six
tumblers and an enormous garden watering-pot, full of iced punch, with
which he watered the party like flowers; after which came Meister Karl
with a fair friend, known of old in Philadelphia, and by me sowl it was a
mighty purty precession intirely. -
On the summit there was a splendid tableau. The wild rough rocks
were crowded with the festive muslin, the iced punch circulated, but,
Captain, where wert thou on that day? and oh, Tribune, Tribune 1 to
think that thou wert not there “ Pends to brave Crillon—mous avons'
combattu et tu n'y & aſs pas!” For it is a fact that on this, the very
diamond day of our coronet, the noble and joyous Tribune stayed away
As for the Captain, he was on his way down to the plantation on a river
Steamer.
When a melancholy thought crosses my mind I take refuge in statistics;
and the absence of two such excellent companions set my mind to
thinking of the vast trains of travel which had brought us together,

90
and how confoundedly I had neglected my duty by writing about
flirtation, and whisky punches, and lunches, and the deuce knows
what all! Fortunately I was reminded of this by a speech delivered by
our kindest, most genial and gifted friend, the Hon. Henry T. Blow,
who, mindful that this pic-nic was really, under all its flowers, an official
act of courtesy by the Pacific Railroad to certain capitalists and journalists,
made some remarks on the vast industrial resources of Missouri, which
we had that day seen, and which expanded before us. He was followed
by Mr. Walter, of the London Times, who jocularly professing not to
understand this way of our American cousins of mixing up business with
pleasure, created much amusement by declaring that he believed his
friend Mr. Blow's object was to induce him (Walter) to invest in some of
the fine copper and lead mines alluded to-but that he might put his
mind to rest, as he (Walter again) was determined not to be inveigled
into investing a penny. As Mr. Walter's manner is characteristically
and most agreeably English, it is needless to say that this genial reply
was received with storms of cheers, including an occasional cross-shot and
sur-rejoinder from the Archer.
EASTERN CONNECTIONS OF THE PACIFIC RAILWAY.
The greatest development of Missouri—apropos de Blow—is her part
of the Pacific Railroad, which runs from St. Louis to Kansas City. It is
283 miles in length, with ample rolling stock (what should I do in these
working hours without that ever accurate Copley’) and is doing a large
business. Connected with it, and of course with all the Pacific Railway,
is the famed North Missouri Railroad, which leads north from St. Louis,
and crosses the Missouri River at St. Charles, where a bridge will shortly
be erected. In 1858 it was completed to Macon City, on the Hannibal
and St. Joseph Railroad, 170 miles from St. Louis. Its guage, originally
five feet six inches, is being changed to four feet eight-and-a-half, to agree
with other roads. To make this road connect directly with the Union
Pacific Railway, the Company are constructing a branch from Allen, 148
miles from St. Louis, almost due west to the north end of the bridge
contemplated over the Missouri, at Kansas City, which has been surveyed
and located. Thus St. Louis will soon have two independent lines to
Kansas City. “The funds are on hand for building this bridge, the
contract is signed and the papers are recorded.”
The Cameron branch starts from the town of Cameron, on the Hannibal
and St. Joseph Road, 170 miles west of the Mississippi at Quincy, and
runs south-west to Kansas City, 55 miles. Now, the Quincy and Kansas
City Road is really a continuation of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Railroad, one of the best in Illinois. This makes the direct railroad
- 91 -
distance from Chicago to Kansas City exactly 490 miles. This, as the
reader sees, commands all the great Northern lines of railways, even to
the Grand Trunk of Canada. And as for the Pennsylvania, Maryland,
and Central and Southern Ohio and Illinois, they are evidently more
directly connected with the U. P. R. W. E. D., than with any other
Pacific road.
From Kansas City to New York, via Pennsylvania ................. 1,357 miles.
-- -- -- … “ Cameron, Quincy, Chicago,
Pittsburg and Allentown......... ................ ................. 1,389 “
Via Cameron, Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad to Quincy,
Great Western railroad, Fort Wayne and Pittsburg rail-
road, and Pennsylvania railroad, (via Allentown) to New
York.........,..., ----------------------------- ------------ ------------ 1,358 “
To Philadelphia, by each of the above, 76 miles less
From Kansas City to New York, via Chicago, Buffalo, Albany
(New York Central).................................................. 1,470 “
via Dunkirk and the New York and Erie railroad...... ------------- 1,448 “
Whence it appears that the distance between Kansas City and New York
is less through St Louis and Pittsburg and via the Pennsylvania Railroad
by 91 miles than via Chicago and the New York and Erie, and less by
113 miles than by the New York Central. And even by way of Chicago
and Pittsburg, via the Fort Wayne and Chicago route, the distance is
less than via the New York Central by 81 miles. In every respect, by
every road, the Pacific railway lies in the direct route and sight line for
Pennsylvania. Since this series of connections has been understood,
new lines, to be accommodated to it, have been planned in all the
Western States. This will build up a stupendous prosperity for Kansas
City and St. Louis, which will lead even to Philadelphia. The real want
to perfect the whole is to realize General Palmer's great scheme of a
bridge under the Mississippi. This is the present demand, and the
sooner it is completed the better.
West of Kansas City is the Leavenworth branch and the Atchison and
Pike's Peak Railroad running to Manhattan, 118 miles west of Kansas
City, of which 40 miles are already completed. Such is an imperfect
sketch (though true in its great outlines) of the great Pacific Railway,
which correctly understood, means the one great national railroad, to which
all others lead, and of which they are, necessarily, simply branches.
Returning that evening on the cars we had a very genteel time of it,
indeed. Old songs were sung, old stories told, moonlight and dreams and
fair forgotten ſancies came up, mingled with many a rare joke, and we
were what we had been—“what we are away doth fly.” “It is a pity,
says somebody, “that it will soon be all goned away.” And he inquired
if there was anybody present who knew the lyric called “Hans Breitmann's


- 92
Party.” To which it was replicated that Hans Breitmann himself—the
original Johann—was present incog, and had been traveling as an unseen
ghostly guest all the way from Philadelphia.
“For, invisible to thee,
Breitmann came along with me.”
Here Herr Breitmann, who was lurking in a congenial crowd, arose, (at
least his voice did,) and, by unanimous request, recapitulated the incidents
of his “barty.” And being greatly exhilarated—set up, self-glorified
and delighted, by his reception—the worthy man retired to the depths of
his moral consciousness, and in due time evolved the following:
BREITMANN IN KANSAs.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; he dravel fast und far. He rided shoost drei dousand
miles all in von rail-roat car. He knowed foost-rate how far he goed—he gounted all de
vile, Dere vash shoost von pottle of champagne, dat bopped at efery mile.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; I dell you vot my poy. You bet dey hat a pully dimes
in crossin Illinoy. Dey speaked dere speaks to all de folk a shtandin in de car; den ask
dem in to dake a trink, und corned em gantz und gar.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; by shings dey did it prown. Wen he got into Leafenwort,
he found himself in town. Dey dimed him at de Blanter's House, more goot ash man
could dink; mit avery tings on earth to eat, und dwice as mooch to trink.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; he vent it on de loud. At Ellswort, in de prairie land,
he foundt a pully crowd. He looked for bleedin Kansas, but dat’s “blayed out,” dey
say; de whisky keg's de only dings dat's bleedin' dere to-day.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas, to see vot he could hear. He found soom Deutchers
dat exisdt py makin' lager beer. Says he: “We gehts du All Gesell ?” but no dings
could be heard: dey'd growed so fat in Kansas, dat dey couldn't speak a word.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; py shings I tell you vot. Von day he meet a crisly
bear dat rooshed him down bei Gottſ Boot der Breitman reason mit der bear und bleased
him fery much—for efery wordt de crisly growled was good Bavarian Dutch /
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas: by donder dat is so He ridet out upon de plains
to shase de boofalo. He fired his rifle at de bools und gallop troo de shmoke, und shoomp
de canyons shoost as if der tyfel was a choke
It's hey de trail to Sante Fe; it's ho! agross de plain. It's lope de Rocky Mountain
road, until we toorn again. Und de railroad dravel after us apout as quick as we ; dis
Kansas ish de fastest land ash efer I did see. -
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; he have a pully dime; but tvas in oldt Missouridat
dey rooshed him up sublime. Dey took him to der Bilot Nob, und all de nobs around; dey
spreed him und dey tead him dill dey room him to de ground.
Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas; troo all dis earthly land, a workin out life's mission
here soobyectify und grand. Some beoblesh runs de Beautiful, some works philosophie;
der Breitmann solfe de infinide ash von eternal shpree!
Now, there cometh an end to all things, as Poemander saw from the
starry height, when he pointed to Hermes the flaming road leading to
the downward borne elements of GoD. Rush, rush, rattle, rattle went
the cars, playing a harp and eastanet refrain. Even when we stopped
for that delicious supper at De Soto, the seconds keep dinning along, and

93
the night grew deeper, and we laughed a good time of it. And then
there were songs in the cars—all the old songs I think I ever heard, from
one sweet singer; and some were left at Carondelét, and there the moon
shone brighter than ever, and the shadows fell darker than ever, and we
reached St. Louis.
I believe that Gideon ye Elder and myself, being the most “donce and
canny” men of the party, were the only two that went to bed, that night.
Early—very early in the morning we assembled at breakfast—and that
was about the end. How we went onward, a small party—the Tribune, and
the Doctor, and Browne, Benedict and Copley, and Gideon the elder, and
all there were left of Gideon's band, it boots not to tell. Game were we all
through, and cheerful to the last in our car. Young Gideon left us at
Pittsburg; so did the accurate Copley; the Tribune took the shoot at
Harrisburg, but glorious was Gideon ye elder and game to the end,
drawing the last cork of the last bottle at Manayunk.
We had gone like scholars reading Hebrew lore from right to left across
the broad page of America, when we were westward bound—and now as
we returned, we translated the trip from left to right into a more familiar
home-tongue. Sometimes too it happened that I observed something which
had been whilome “skipped over "like a difficult sentence, the full mean-
ing of which had been mastered at a later day. Such was one of the first
objects which I mentioned in my first letter—I refer to the handsome
edifice belonging to the Pennsylvania Steel Company, near Harrisburg.
And having had it specially self-impressed in my mind to speak in detail
of all industrial enterprises like this—of course I softly neglected to
allude to it.
And yet the enterprise is one which appeals to every patriotic American.
For its object is, as I learn, to make from native ores and minerals, and
by means of native or naturalized skill, those articles of steel which are
now almost exclusively imported from Europe.
The dependence of American Consumers upon England and Prussia for
this class of material is now entire, and should any unforseen event cause
a suspension of intercourse between America and those countries we should
be left almost without any capacity to produce steel for cannon, projec-
tiles and other articles of military necessity, and our roads would be left
with no source from which to obtain tire, rails and similar articles of
steel, for which we now depend upon foreign manufacturers.
The greatest industrial advance of this demi-decade is the substitution
of steel for iron, on railroads or in artillery, and it is with a view to this
that the “Bessemer building” is erected, and I am glad to learn that the
citizens of Harrisburg were so penetrated with the importance of this

94
truly national enterprise, as to present to it the eighty acres of land on
which the buildings stand.
“There 1–there is Fairmount º'
“And here is the depot. Good-bye!”
As Mr. Browne passed with me to the door, I heard an individual in a
soldier coat remark, “I guess them fellowshev been in the Injun country.”
The remark was not unnatural, for Browne bore two wolf-skins and the
hide of a calf-buffalo, while I carried with my Indian blankets, a pair of
buffalo horns, (the buffalo,) a Kaw whip and other trophies of the plains.
And three thousand miles in a railroad car had strengthened and browned
us up, and worn out our haversacks, and I felt altogether as many a man
among my readers has felt when his wanderings on the war path were
over—and Johnny came marching home.
So endeth the gayest diversion which this party ever took a hand in.
And, reader, if the record thereof read somewhat too rosily and ripely,
here and there, then do thou go and do likewise on one rolling pic-nic
across the plains, and then see what you think of it. Valete et plaudite.

95
P O S T S C R. [PT .
While these sheets were going, like apples on their way to cider,
through the press, I received the following note from a friend who was
not the least among those who gave life to our trip to “Riley : ”
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 29, 1866.
DEAR MR. L.;
On the tenth page, seventh line from the bottom, the printer has made you say
“this distance would be went through.” Let her went is of course classical American; but
I think it may be doubted whether “would be went” has yet been adopted into our language,
though I have met with its equivalents occasionally in Western newspapers. Perhaps
you were quoting the Chicago journal verbatim, and in that case quotation marks would
be advisable. -
Yours, truly,
Thou art right, oh, writer, and writest well But if the printer
made me say that, think of what I have made the printer say, and reflect
how terribly the odds are against him. But where that went came from
no man knoweth. Proof readers have queried it, the author hath bewailed
it—and there it remains ! That it was in the original copy is true—but
who wrote the original? Truly was it said of old that litera scripta
manet, “what is written remains.” But there is also another law adage,
for the comfort of blunderers—mala grammatica non vitat chartam
—“bad grammar doth not vitiate the document"—and there with let us
be content. And the king said: “he is a shrewd miller who can take
toll of a bell.” “Yea, Sire,” replied Papagallo, “even from the farina of
the bell-flower, like a true Gristian, doeth he that.”
THE END.
Pan
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