Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 2 (of 2) / A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881

Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.
BY W. H. RUSSELL, LL.D. BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
Vol. II.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1882.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.


HESPEROTHEN.
Deming—The Mirage—Ruined Cities—American Explorers—Self-Tormentors—Animals and Plants—Yuma—California—Los Angeles—Santa Monica—The Pacific.
May 30th. —At an hour as to which controversy might arise, owing to the changes of time to which we have been subjected, the train, which had pulled up but seldom during the night, stopped at Deming Junction, where the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad connects with the Southern Pacific, on which our cars were to be hauled to San Francisco. Jefferson time and San Francisco time differ two hours, so at one end of the station we scored 6 A.M., and at the other 8 A.M. The sooner one gets away from Deming in any direction the better. A year ago—as is usually the case hereabouts—there was not a trace of a town on the dry ugly plain covered with prickly acacias and Spanish bayonets ; now Deming flourishes in gaming and drinking saloons, express offices, and all the horrors of enterprise in the West. The look-out revealed a few tents, wooden shanties, a station, at which workmen were running up a frame-house, ground littered with preserved provision tins, broken crockery, adobes and refuse of all sorts. At the door of one hut, swarming with flies, swung half a carcase of beef; two women were washing, pale-faced, but not uncheerful creatures, who had not a good opinion of Deming and its population. They carry out a dead man a day, or used to, said one informant. The lady washerwomen did not quite corroborate the figure; but, remarked the chattier of the two, there was a considerable shewtin' about last night! To the observation of one of the party that he was going to have a look about, the other lady made reply, I guess if you dew it will be 'hands up' for ten cents with you. On the platform was a United States marshal, with a revolver stuck in his belt, but his duties were considered to be punitive rather than preventive. Here Mr. Chase and Mr. Hawley left us to return to Topeka. At the abschiednehmen Sir H. Green was affected by a proof of interest in his welfare of a touching character and very full of local colour; one of our friends beckoned to him, took him aside, and pulling out a revolver ( It is hands up! thought Sir Henry), fully loaded, pressed it on his acceptance in the kindest manner as a useful compagnon de voyage . As we were not to stay at Deming, the self-sacrifice was not consummated.