LETTER No. XVI.
We leave Cheyenne—Arrival at Omaha—The barber's shop—Narrow escape from having my head shaved—Arrival at Chicago—Niagara Falls.
New York, Nov., 1885.
I have already told you that I am not writing a book of travels, but merely recording my impressions by the way; these have already occupied far more space than I had ever contemplated, and as we are now approaching the more beaten tracks of civilization, I will hasten on to a conclusion.
We left Cheyenne on Friday morning at 10.30, and after a continuous run of 516 miles, we "stopped off" at Omaha for a few hours at 10.30 on Saturday morning. Omaha is a great rambling city of 60,000 inhabitants on the western bank of the Missouri. Council Bluffs is an equally flourishing city on the eastern bank.
My chief recollection of Omaha is the barber's shop whither I went to get shaved. I had tried to shave myself in the train, but had contrived instead to gash my cheek sufficiently to cause much bloodshed. When the barber had finished shaving me, I asked him just to trim my hair the least bit in the world. He was an hour and a quarter over the job, and as I had been travelling continuously for twenty-four hours with little or no sleep, I fell asleep under his hands. Luckily, I was woke up by an unusual tickling at the back of my head; he was lathering me there, and I am quite sure he meant to shave the whole of my head.
"Confound it," I shouted; "what are you doing?"