CHAPTER XXVI.
OMAHA TO CHICAGO.
Omaha Terminus—Cross the Missouri—Council Bluffs—The Forest—Cross the Mississippi—The Cultivated Prairie—The Farmsteads and Villages—Approach to Chicago—The City of Chicago—Enterprise of its Men—The Water Tunnels under Lake Michigan—Tunnels under the River Chicago—Union of Lake Michigan with the Mississippi—Description of the Streets and Buildings of Chicago—Pigs and Corn—The Avenue—Sleighing—Theatres and Churches.
I have not much to tell about Omaha, for I did not make any long stay in the place, being anxious to get on and finish my journey. It was now my fifth day in the train, having come a distance of 1912 miles from San Francisco; and I had still another twenty-four hours' travel before me to Chicago. There was nothing to detain me in Omaha. It is like all places suddenly made by railway, full of bustle and business, but by no means picturesque. How can it be? The city is only seventeen years old. Its principal buildings are manufactories, breweries, warehouses, and hotels.
Omaha has been made by the fact of its having been fixed upon as the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad, and by its convenient position on the great Missouri river. It occupies a sloping upland on the right bank, about fifty feet above the level of the stream; and behind it stretches the great Prairie country we have just traversed. On the opposite bank of the Missouri stands Council Bluffs, from which various railroad lines diverge north, south, and east, to all parts of the Union. It is probable, therefore, that before many years have passed, big though Omaha may now be—and it already contains 20,000 inhabitants—the advantages of its position will tend greatly to swell its population, and perhaps to render it in course of time one of the biggest cities of the West.
Having arranged to proceed onwards to Chicago by the North-Western line, I gave up my baggage in exchange for the usual check, and took my place in the train. We rolled down a steepish incline, on to the "mighty Missouri," which we crossed upon a bridge of boats. I should not have known that I was upon a deep and rapid river, but for the huge flat-bottomed boats that I saw lying frozen in along the banks. It was easy to mistake the enormous breadth of ice for a wide field covered with snow. As we proceeded across we met numbers of sledges, coaches, and omnibuses driving over the ice along a track made in the deep snow not far from our bridge.
After passing through Council Bluffs, we soon lost sight of the town and its suburbs, and were again in the country. But how different the prospect from the car window, compared with the bare and unsettled prairies which we had traversed for so many hundred miles west of Omaha! Now, thick woods extend on both sides of the track, with an occasional cleared space for a township, where we stop to take up and set down passengers. But I shall not proceed further with my description of winter scenery as viewed from a passing railway train. Indeed, I fear that my descriptions heretofore, though rapid, must be felt somewhat monotonous, for which I crave the reader's forgiveness.