Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water / The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

When the storm cleared we found ourselves in the fertile little valley of the Platte River, the narrow stream winding and circling among green meadow-land, the banks fringed with waving grass and rushes; a scene of quiet beauty.

That night we longed to see a prairie fire, but I suppose such good fortune rarely happens to any traveller. It must be an awful but marvellously grand scene. The heavens and the horizon are first seen like a furnace, and then the long line of flame, banked up with dark smoke clouds, comes sweeping on its resistless course. The wonderful thing is how they are ever checked, but most of these prairie fires are said to burn themselves out. And when they approach within two or three miles' range of the settler's ranch a counter fire is started, which eats up all before it, and, joining with the greater fire, leaves it nothing to feed upon. The flames will often travel twenty miles an hour, and leap angrily into the air to a height of fifteen feet. Sometimes they are started by the careless dropping of a match, or some ashes shaken from a pipe, but more often from the spark of a locomotive. It touches the grass, dry as tinder, and the breeze fans into life the little flame destined so soon to burn millions of acres. There is a very curious feature in connection with these prairie fires. So long as they rage, nothing but tufted or prairie-grass will grow; but so soon as they cease, trees, shrubs, and bushes of all sorts spring up spontaneously—in fact it ceases to be prairie. "It is an ill-wind which blows nobody good," for the next year the grass comes darker and richer than ever, and strange as it seems, this burnt-up grass is the finest feeding pasture in the world for cattle and horses. With this unfulfilled wish we lay down to sleep peacefully.

At three in the morning, we were awoke with a dreadful shock, under which the car shivered and upheaved. We heard the crash of falling china, and seemed to feel the furious application of the air brakes, which brought us to a dead stop.

In the awful stillness that succeeded, the conductor rushed through the cars and begged us to "keep still." Every head was protruded from between the curtains, and there were frightened exclamations to be heard from all sides. The suspense that ensued was terrible.

Too soon the truth came. There was our engine smashed to pieces off the line, the tender high in the air, telescoping the luggage van. Ten feet off was another engine of another passenger train. It was eastward-bound, and therefore on the main track, waiting for us, the westward train, to pass on to the siding. The signal, a covered head-light, had gone out; the fireman moving to replace it, accidentally waved a lighted lantern, which the driver of our train took as a signal that the east-bound train had gone into the siding instead, and, at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, we continued running into the stationary passenger-train! The drivers and firemen of both engines saved themselves by jumping off, and we all had a providential escape from what might have proved a terrible accident. We were forty miles from a village, and eighty from a town and any surgical aid. A messenger was sent to walk to the nearest telegraph station, six miles away, and nothing remained to us but to wait. We looked out on the silent prairie, the stars solemnly keeping watch in the deep blue vault of heaven, thinking of the strange situation, till dawn broke and the sun rose. Then we could penetrate to the scene of the disaster. There was much débris scattered about the track, and the broken engines lay on the ground facing each other. The corpses of some murdered fowls were inside the luggage van, and, suspended in mid-air, I saw at once my new saratoga, a last American acquisition. The remainder of the baggage was more or less injured, and two trunks were completely wrecked, and their contents strewn on the ground. We were resigned, and prepared to spend the day on the prairie, when, sooner than we thought possible by the earliest calculation, two relief engines arrived, and drew off each train. The eastward-bound was first sent on its way rejoicing, and we followed. The black porter had been very much to the fore about seven o'clock, providing breakfast for all, as those bringing provisions had calculated on arriving at Denver in the early morning. "Guess I'se best man on the car this morning," he said, with a grin, showing his white teeth. For the remainder of the journey we suffered dreadfully from the heat, and the sand penetrated into every crevice and corner. How we strained our aching eyes over that burnt, parched plain, in search of the vestige of a shadow, or any green thing to give relief! At last we did see something, a mirage it almost seemed for the first moment, of dark blue mountains, with dazzling crowns of snow. They were the glorious range of "the Rockies" bounding the horizon, and Denver lay at their feet.

As we got out on the platform it seemed almost as if the atmosphere inside the car were preferable to that outside, so sultry and oppressive as it was; the heated pavement burnt the soles of our feet, and the trees near the station were drooping and white with dust. However, we took a more cheerful view after we had changed our dusty garments and been refreshed with a bath—thought it, in fact, almost worth while having felt so hot and weary, to be now so bright and fresh, and ready for a drive in the cool of the evening. As we passed through those quiet, orderly streets, it was very difficult to realize that Denver sprang into existence with the discovery of the gold diggings, and twenty years ago was peopled entirely by the lawless roughs brought thither by the gold fever. They are being gradually superseded by a quiet, industrious population, centring here from the country districts. Though often even now you look into the face of many a man following some menial occupation, who shows traces of not being "to the manner born," but who, in the search for sudden wealth at the diggings, has left the little he had below ground, and thankfully turned to any kind of work to earn a bare livelihood.

We passed a fine house, with the proprietor sitting in the garden, our driver pointed to him, "That 'ere man this time last year was a beggar, to-day he is one of the richest men in Denver." In five weeks he had made one million and a half of dollars at the diggings. The man spoke bitterly, and we more than suspected he too had had his turn of ill luck at them; and the like story might be told of most of its inhabitants. There are a few streets, and the remainder of the town consists of pretty little villas and cottages, each standing in a garden, kept fresh and green by the unlimited use of water. They have an ingenious contrivance for watering, consisting of a pipe attached to the hose, with a top perforated with holes, that turning with the action of the water scatters forth a shower of spray, and is left always playing upon the grass. Life is carried on to a great extent out of doors, people working, meeting and receiving guests in the verandahs. The houses are kept dark and cool by shutters, and the fine wire doors are an absolutely necessary precaution against the plague of flies.

Denver has not yet reached that stage in its development when it can have any public buildings of interest, but they are moving in that direction, as is shown by the fine City Hall they are just finishing erecting on the hill.

We had the disagreeable business to be gone through of going down to the station late in the evening, to receive the wreck of our luggage brought on from the scene of the morning's accident by the next passenger train. My Saratoga was levered down with some difficulty, and, with great care exercised in the removal, happily lasted till it reached the hotel. C.'s hat-box and its contents were reduced to an unrecognizable mass, and the remainder of the baggage was more or less torn, and with locks broken. I must say we thought the company behaved exceedingly well, as without demur they gave us damages to the amount of 35 dollars; but we afterwards learnt the reason, which was that if further injuries were discovered no further compensation could be claimed.