My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and continued:
"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvania pumpkin we're having raised specially for the Exposition. That pumpkin will be hollowed out, and 600 people will be able to sit down together at once in its interior."
"Now we'll go to the Transportation Building," said my indefatigable conductor to the driver.
"Bless me!" I thought; "is this a convict prison? Are we to have visitors from Sing Sing, and am I to see some of my friends from Portland and Dartmoor? Will there be a model of the Bastille, and a contingent of escaped refugees from the mines of Siberia? Or is the building an enormous concern for the transport of visitors to and from the Exposition?"
"Say, Mr. Furniss, this is the most original conception in the whole Exposition. You'll see contrasted here every mode of transport, and a complete train, with a display of locomotives never before attempted, will be quite stupendous! To quote the guidebook: 'There will be at least 100 engines exhibited, and placed so as to face each other,' and every day we will have a steam tournament. Guess it will be a case of the survival of the fittest of the engines when they meet! Visitors fond of railway accidents can be despatched with a completeness only to be witnessed in the stock-yards of this great city!"
This ghastly suggestion had the effect of making me feel more comfortable than ever.
We had been some hours driving through this wonderful skeleton city. The last dying rays of the setting sun, sinking behind the sweeping prairies of the far, far West, lit up the horizon with a blood-red glow, and, as the shades of evening began to descend and envelop the embryo Exposition, the driver turned the horses' heads whence we had come—towards the sunset.
The animals snorted, their nostrils inflated, their eyes glistened, and, with tails erect, they tore off straight ahead at a tremendous rate. They couldn't understand why they had been driven aimlessly about all this time; but now they saw the glare, as they thought, of the fire—the glare they had been accustomed to regard as the beacon to guide them to their goal—a goal which had to be reached with lightning speed.
It seemed as if we were flying through a beautiful place destroyed by the ravages of fire, for in the dim evening light the outlined houses gave one the impression that they formed a city dead, not a city newly-born.