In the year 1844 when Fremont made his first exploration across the vast prairies, there was not a single line of railway west of the Alleghanies. The discovery of gold in California drew attention to the enormous wealth lying to the Far West, and Congress made a grant for an exploration, which resulted in the commencement of the Central Pacific line, this great junction between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. On the 10th of May, 1869, the lines from the east and west met in the middle of the prairie, and the last tie, a silver one, was laid in commemoration of the event.
All through that night we were passing through the great American Desert of 600 square miles, once the bed of a vast saline lake. The next morning there was still nothing to be seen but mud-dried plains with here and there a little sage brush, the ground being cracked and parched under the burning sun. In some parts there were fields of white alkali, making the lips salt and the eyes smart painfully.
I verily believe nothing could surpass the terrific, fiery heat of that day in the cars; we could not read or talk, but sat with parched lips, panting, the sand floating into the car in a white cloud that soon made us and all around invisible. One poor old woman in the next car nearly died; they fanned her all day, whilst she wailed piteously for one breath of air.
At some of the stations we passed there were groups of the Piute Indians, clothed in striped blankets with bead necklaces, and one mother brought her "papoose" (baby), slung on to her back in a long basket, that had the characteristic features of the race—the pear-shaped eyes and the drawn-down corners of the mouth—ridiculously strongly marked in its wee, brown face. The mother begged for "two bits for the wee papoose."
We had luncheon in the middle of the day at Humboldt, a few green trees about the station forming a very oasis in the desert; the exertion of getting out made us, if possible, a little hotter. We thought then of the awful sufferings endured by the early emigrants, as they toiled day after day over these alkali plains. Along earlier stages of the line the "Old Emigrant Trail" can frequently be seen, with here and there a rude wooden cross marking the lonely grave of some emigrant or freighter, who, overcome by sickness and weariness, lay down and died.
We lived through the long hours of that day as best we could, and about seven o'clock we thought it was perhaps just a little cooler, and the glare of the sun not quite so angry. We tried to ventilate the cars by opening all the windows, and standing outside on the platforms before turning in for the night. It was wonderful how mutual sufferings had brought the passengers together, and how friendly we had all become. One charming American lady, the wife of a clergyman, brought us each a most refreshing cup of "real English tea."
After such a trying day it was particularly aggravating to be entering the magnificent scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, and to be crossing them, during the night.
We were in the beautiful valley of the Sacramento the next morning, among its corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards, catching already glimpses of the blue waters of the Bay of San Francisco, running far inland. We crossed the Carthagena Straits on one of those wonderful steam ferries that are capable of carrying four loaded trains. The train was slowed, run on, and before we knew anything had happened, we were halfway across, and able to get down from the car, and going to the side of the ferry, look down into the muddy waters. The platforms at either end are hydraulically raised or lowered, according to the state of the tide, to the level of the ferry. For many miles we continued skirting the bay, partly crossing it on trestle bridges till we reached Oakland, so called from its beautiful groves of oaks; and which, though separated from San Francisco by the bay, is one of its suburbs. We crossed over from Oakland Ferry, and were at San Francisco, our journey to the Far West—across the continent of America, 4000 miles from ocean to ocean, traversing the ten states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, the territory of Utah Nevada, into California—safely accomplished.