sweet. On a single track, sometimes carried on a narrow ledge
excavated from the mountain side by men lowered from the top in
baskets, overhanging ravines from 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep, the
monster train SNAKED its way upwards, stopping sometimes in front
of a few frame houses, at others where nothing was to be seen but
a log cabin with a few Chinamen hanging about it, but where
trails on the sides of the ravines pointed to a gold country
above and below. So sharp and frequent are the curves on some
parts of the ascent, that on looking out of the window one could
seldom see more than a part of the train at once. At Cape Horn,
where the track curves round the ledge of a precipice 2,500 feet
in depth, it is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of
holding the breath and shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears
were reserved for the crossing of a trestle bridge over a very
deep chasm, which is itself approached by a sharp curve. This
bridge appeared to be overlapped by the cars so as to produce the
effect of looking down directly into a wild gulch, with a torrent
raging along it at an immense depth below.

Shivering in the keen, frosty air near the summit pass of the
Sierras, we entered the "snow-sheds," wooden galleries, which for
about fifty miles shut out all the splendid views of the region,
as given in dioramas, not even allowing a glimpse of "the Gem of
the Sierras," the lovely Donner Lake. One of these sheds is
twenty-seven miles long. In a few hours the mercury had fallen
from 103 degrees to 29 degrees, and we had ascended 6,987 feet in
105 miles! After passing through the sheds, we had several grand
views of a pine forest on fire before reaching Truckee at 11 P.M.
having traveled 258 miles. Truckee, the center of the "lumbering
region" of the Sierras, is usually spoken of as "a rough mountain