The Truth About America

by Edward Money

Now the oddest part of the whole affair is that he did manage to do this. If any one looks at a map of the States, he will see that the direct and consequently the shortest route from New York to California is viâ the Central Pacific Railway to San Francisco. The distance thus is about 3000 miles. By the route he sent me, and all the aspirants to become land-holders in the Antelope Valley, viz. viâ New Orleans and the Southern Pacific railroad, the distance is, say, 4500 miles. Thus, 1500 miles out of the way! I did not realize when he offered me tickets by that southern line how much longer it was. Still a glance at the map showed me it was longer, and I objected. "Yes, it is longer," he replied, "but I can get you tickets cheaper that way, and you will be far more comfortable." I assented. But I am surprised he succeeded with the others, as I am now that he did so with me—that none of the many, more suspicious than I am, did not fathom his object. But so it was. All who went to the happy valley travelled over that route, 1500 miles out of the way!

Besides the extra distance, and consequent extra expense, there was another very serious disadvantage in summer (the time I did the journey) to the line he recommended. It is much farther south, and in consequence a great deal hotter. I suffered not a little therefrom. Others did the same, and as they dropped in by twos and threes, exhausted by the heat, and joined the exasperated and despairing prior arrivals in the valley, they cursed, in no measured terms, the man who had so deceived them. In two words, the Antelope Valley is a howling desert. Not a blade of grass, not a green tree, no trees at all. In this it is a perfect contrast to the swampy "Eden," so well described by Dickens in "Martin Chuzzlewit," but as regards the impossibility of making it a home, the two are alike. More on this head when we get there.

I am not one of those to whom "money is no object;" quite the reverse, and more especially had I to study economy when I left for America. I therefore took second-class tickets from the said agent for the whole line from New York to San Francisco. The Antelope Valley is, by the route I was to travel, some 300 miles nearer, but I thought it better to go to the capital of California first, and get what I might want. He assured me I should have every comfort in the said second class, and the amount I paid him for the tickets, considering the enormous distance (I forget the sum), was not great. He told me I should not get a regular bed as in a Pullman car, but that if I took a small mattress and blankets, I should find room to lie down and sleep. The tickets he gave me were to be exchanged at New York for a rail-book, with coupons in it to carry me over the different lines.

When leaving New York I went to the office to have this done, but only on the morning of the day I was to leave. I then found to my astonishment there was no second class, only first and emigrant class, and that my tickets were really only good for the latter. On further inquiry, I ascertained that between New York and New Orleans (the first part of the journey, taking about two days and nights), no sleeping space whatever was provided in the emigrant cars, and consequently that I should have to sit up on the seat the whole of the forty-eight hours, but that from New Orleans to San Francisco, the said emigrant cars were built on an improved plan, the seats pulling out and forming bed-spaces, and that therefore the hardship on that, by far the longer part of the journey, four days and five nights, would not be so great. "But," I said, "I paid for second-class tickets, and emigrant class is third." "Very sorry," replied the rail official, "but there is no second, and you will see that the sum paid and marked on your London paper indicates emigrant rates." This was true, and I had no redress. I then observed, which I had not before, that on the tickets I purchased in London, "Second Class" was only written in ink on the side. I felt I had been deceived, but that no other course now lay open except to accept the said emigrant tickets, or pay the difference and go first. I decided eventually to do the latter as far as New Orleans, and after that, as there would then be sleeping space, to travel in the emigrant cars. I therefore paid the difference (it was considerable), and left the office with first-class tickets to New Orleans, and emigrant class beyond.

Crossing the Hudson river to Jersey City in one of the magnificent ferries described, we started from the terminal station there. By the bye, the word station is not used in the States; dēpot, pronounced as written, does duty for it. I was surprised how, in many ways, the language used in America differs from our English. I will give a few examples: A cock is a rooster—biscuits, crackers—deficiency, shortage—put in prison, jailed—drapery, dry goods—cabman, hackman—horses' reins, lines—sleepers under rails, tyes—guard, conductor—cabin, state room—engine-driver, engineer—funnel, smoke-stack—engine, locomotive—to post, to mail—sending by rail, to ship—clergyman, minister—to harness, to hitch—to think, to guess—to do, to fix—to carry on any business, to run—barmaid, bar-tender—public house, saloon—many, quite a few—and pages might be so filled. Doubtless the language, the idioms vary more and more yearly, and probably the pronunciation also. You do meet Americans, travelled ones, who have no nasal twang, but otherwise the nationality, partly by that, partly by the way occasional words are pronounced, is easily recognized. Some of the Americans seem to forget that England was the birthplace of the English language. One said to me, when pronunciation was one day the subject under discussion between us, "Very true, we do pronounce many words differently, and I can always recognize your countrymen by the British accent they use when speaking our language." I laughed, and remarked that unless I mistook, we had spoken it before Americans existed. He did not answer; it seemed to strike him as a new view of the subject, and he ruminated!

Running south from New York, the country we passed through until night fell was very beautiful. That, and some I saw near Lake Erie months later, was the most charming pastoral country I beheld in the States. It was quite equal to anything in England, which is so rich in pastoral scenery. One charm in American travel is, that, in traversing that mighty continent, you see scenery equal to, and like, the best that any country on earth produces. While executing the enormous distances on American rail lines, you lie down at night, the last of the twilight having shown you rural scenes—peaceful villages, ivy-clad churches, browsing cattle, waggon teams and green fields. You awake in a desert—a real desert like the great African ones. Far as the eye can reach, for hours and hours as the train rolls on, sand and nothing else. Not a house, not an inhabitant, no water anywhere. You close your eyes that night on the arid waste, and lo! next morning you are in Swiss scenery. Great fir-clad mountains, capped with snow, border the rail, a precipice is below, and you shudder as you realize how near you are to the edge. A mountain stream, with numerous cascades, accompanies you for miles. Domestic animals are confined to a small breed of horses and goats, but if lucky you may see a large stag, or a grizzly bear, and possibly have a shot at the latter. Before evening all changes again. Vast and interminable plains of grass, with an occasional sluggish stream. Cattle by the thousand in great flocks, sometimes grazing peacefully, sometimes driven by wild-looking cowboys on wiry horses with the high-peaked Mexican saddles and long whips. Here again you may travel for hours and see no habitation. Trees, too, there are none. It seems to be a country designed by nature for cattle only, and such is indeed the use it is put to.

The enormous cattle-ranches we read of exist here. The life of the owners or managers is a very Robinson Crusoe kind of existence. Miles probably from any rail, and miles also from their nearest neighbours, the solitude is extreme. Women delight them not, for there are none. An occasional newspaper finds its way there, but complete ignorance of the affairs in the outer world is the rule. A ranch-man's library is very limited, so not much can he do in the way of reading. He lives in a log-hut he has probably built himself, and he or his companion, if he has one, cook their simple fare. They have beef ad libitum, milk by the pail, they can wallow in cream, and consume any amount of butter. Tea and coffee too they have—sad the day they run out—and possibly a bottle or two of spirits, but the last they are very sparing of, for such is not easily obtained, and they are a sober race. Two iron beds, which either of them gives up willingly to a friend and makes his own on the floor (hospitality is a law with them), a table or two, three or four chairs, shelves and pegs to put and hang everything on, and this is all the furniture in the hut. But, except at night, they are seldom indoors. Riding many miles after stray cattle, milking, butter-making, rearing crops for cattle food in the winter. There is plenty of occupation and they work well.

The cattle on such ranches stay out the year round. On the largest the owner often knows not how many there are. Occasionally they are driven into corrals (wooden enclosures), and counted, while the young stock are then branded. The life is necessarily wild, rough, and solitary. The ranch-owner, like Robinson Crusoe, is lord of all he surveys for many miles round. His work is not hard, his gun, his rod, his horses are his amusements, but domestic happiness, the charm of "home" is not his. Think you he is to be envied or pitied?