One does not linger in bed when passing through a country famous for its scenery. The experienced traveler has learned that the opening hours of the day are those in which his best and clearest impressions are received. He therefore rises betimes to enjoy the cool, dewy freshness of the morning. Now and again a prairie-owl is seen groping its winged way to shelter from the increasing light. He is sure to see plenty of coyotes, gray wolves, and graceful antelopes on the rolling prairies, each of these animals exhibiting in some special and interesting manner its natural proclivities. The prairie-dog nervously diving into and leaping out of its little prairie mound; the wolf bravely facing and glaring at the passing train, though careful to keep at a wholesome distance; and the antelopes in small herds hastening away by graceful bounds over the nearest hills, far too pretty and far too ornamental to shoot, suggesting in form and movements that most picturesque of wild animals, the Tyrolean chamois.
Minnesota presents to the eye of the traveler a grand and impressive country in the form of rolling prairies, diversified by lakes,—of which there are said to be ten thousand in the State,—forests, and inviting valleys, the latter particularly adapted for raising wheat and for dairy farming. Vast fields of ripening cereals are seen stretching for miles on either side of the railroad, without a fence to break their uniformity. This State possesses among other advantages that of a climate particularly dry, invigorating, and healthful. Four hundred miles of our route is through Northern Dakota, where the farming lands are easily tilled, well watered, and wonderfully prolific in crops. The choicest wheat grown in America, known as hard spring wheat, comes from this section, which has been called “the granary of the world.” The gigantic scale on which wheat-raising is here conducted would seem incredible if faithfully described to an old-time New England farmer. The improvement which has been made in machinery connected with sowing, reaping, harvesting, and threshing grain enables one man to do as much in this western country as a dozen men could accomplish twenty-five or thirty years ago. There are wheat farms here embracing twenty thousand acres each, where economy in labor is of the utmost importance, and where the employees are so numerous as to be kept under semi-military organization. The author has seen the big grain-fields of Russian Poland in their prime, but they are as nothing when compared with those of Northern Dakota, nor are the farming facilities which are generally employed throughout Europe nearly equal to those of this country.
At Bismarck, capital of the State, which is a small but energetic and thriving place, the Missouri River is crossed by a magnificent iron bridge, hung high in air, which cost a million dollars. This is the acme of successful engineering, passing our long, heavy train of cars over a track of gleaming rails from shore to shore without the least perceptible tremor, or the deflection of a single inch. The great waterway which it spans measures at this place fully twenty-eight hundred feet from bank to bank, though it is at this point two thousand miles from its confluence with the Mississippi.
The route we are following soon takes us through what are called the Badlands, a most singular region, where subterranean and surface fires are constantly burning, where trees have become petrified, and where the natural blue clay has been converted into terra cotta. This locality, extending for miles and miles, has been called Pyramid Park, on account of its fantastic forms presented in a singular variety of colors, and because of its mounds, domes, pyramids, and rocky towers. These vary as much in height as in form, some measuring ten feet, some two hundred, while all are clad in harlequin costume, black, white, blue, green, and yellow. It is called Badlands in contradistinction to the adjoining country, which is so very fertile, but the district is improved as good grazing ground for many thousands of cattle which supply our Atlantic cities with beef. Some of the best breeds of horses furnished to the Eastern States are raised, fed, and brought into marketable condition on these peculiar lands.
This region forms a sort of tangible hint of what we shall experience still farther on our Wonderland journey in the interesting and unequaled valley of the Yellowstone, where there are abundant evidences of volcanic force and subterranean fires, and where Nature is seen in her most erratic mood.
Just as we pass from Dakota into Montana, a short distance beyond the Little Missouri River, a lofty peak called Sentinel Butte is seen, at an elevation of nearly three thousand feet above sea level. The teeming, vigorous young life of the Northwest is manifest all along the route, with its wonderful energy and its almost incredible rate of progress. We were told that in the State which we had just left three thousand miles of railroad had been built and properly equipped before it contained a single town of more than five hundred inhabitants.
In the State of Montana we find a more hilly country than that through which we have so recently passed, yet it is well adapted to farming and possesses large areas of excellent grazing land. Indeed, there is scarcely any part of this territory, except the mountain ranges, where the climate is not sufficiently mild for cattle to winter out-of-doors. Undoubtedly they will thrive better for being housed at night in the coldest weather here or anywhere, but this is not absolutely necessary. No food is required for them except the native bunch grass, which cures itself, and stands as hay until the succeeding spring. Cattle are very fond of and will quickly fatten upon it. Sheep husbandry is also a great and growing interest here. We observe now and again a thrifty flock, tended by a boy-shepherd accompanied by his dog, recalling similar scenes in Tasmania and on the plains of Russia.
Statistics show that there are over two million acres now under cultivation in Montana, and that the territory is also fabulously rich in minerals. The present output of gold, silver, and copper is at the rate of three million dollars per month, and the yield of the mines is steadily on the increase.
As we hasten on our way, looking on one side far down into sombre depths, and on the other at threatening, overhanging bowlders, or backward at the road-bed cut out of the solid rock which forms the cliff, we wonder at the successful audacity which conceived and built such a difficult highway. We have seen few instances of similar engineering so remarkable as is exhibited at certain points on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Equal difficulties have been overcome on the Zig-zag Railway over the Blue Mountain Range, near Sidney, Australia, and also in Northern India, where the narrow gauge railroad climbs the foothills of the Himalayan Range to Darjeeling, about eight thousand feet above the plains of Hindostan, but in neither of these instances is the work so thorough, or on so gigantic a scale, as where the Northern Pacific crosses the Rocky Mountains.
We are quite conscious of being on an up grade, the large engine panting audibly from its extra exertion, and the train moving forward no faster than one could walk. Presently tall, snow-capped peaks come trooping into view, like mounted Bedouins clad in fleecy white, as the small city of Livingston is reached. This locality is about forty-five hundred feet above the sea. The town is situated in a beautiful valley, with nothing to indicate its altitude except the snow-crowned mountains not far away, standing like frigid sentinels. The observant traveler will also notice a certain rarefied condition of the atmosphere. Here we are about midway between the Great Lakes and the Pacific coast,—between Superior, the largest lake on the globe, and the Pacific, the largest ocean in the world.