-44 Bei/ond the Sierrat<. 



3i\ircity ui umber .ind ui waier-oourses strikes the attention of those wiio 

 liave been iiccustomed to i)lentiful tlistribution of tliese benelits; but the 

 mind iniineilintely reverts from the disiulviuil^i^es just named to the Krand 

 expanse of prairies, still matted with last year's grasses, and sugi^esting a 

 reserve of productive power in comparison with which the puny resources 

 of our smaller fields and pastures in the Middle and Pyistern States .••re as 

 nothing to infinity. Of the regions thus far traversed, the Indian Territory 

 surjjasses in beauty, while Texas excels in the promise of production and 

 wealth. 



.\t F.)rt Worth our trains were whirled onto the tracks of the Tex.i- oc 

 Pacific Iv.iil way. Oar engines set their Titanic eyes toward the sundown, 

 and we were off on our journey along the longer diameter of the Lone Star 

 State. It was from this time forth that new ideas, never to be ell" iced, of the 

 imperial expanse of our western country, of its limitless horizon and bound- 

 less skies, were impressed upon us. No one who, for ten hours t )gether, on 

 the rapidly flying train, sits by the window of the coach and gazes out on 

 the spreading prairies and far-off horizon of the Texan landscapes can ever 

 fori^et the impression of sublimity and infinite extent which they leave upon 

 him. One must needs hear the voice of prophecy and the murmurs of a 

 half-.iudible apocalypse as he views the scene, and dreams of the coming ages. 



A strange experience, however, not wholly agreeable and totally unex- 

 pecteil, awaited our excursionists as they traversed the Texan plains. Men- 

 tion has been made of th it immense snow-storm which bkntered and ro.ired 

 around us on our way from Kansis City to the south. Out of this we 

 emerged in the southern part of the Indian Territory and through the first 

 stages of our Texas pilgrimage. But a low barometer, striking the United 

 States very anomalously about a thou.sand miles west of Manitob.i,at a jilace 

 called Medicine Hat, and sweeping down the Rockies as far as Cheyenne, 

 whence its course was deflected to the east, had, in the mean time, got in its 

 work ; and a ferocious blizzard of cold and snow, howling like a grizzly bear 

 out of the Yuba mountains, cam^ rushing after, striking Texas squarely in 

 the side, and, in a tornado about fifty miles in breadth, swept on to the south, 

 until its boreal mine of icicles and sleet was melted oil' in Mexico. 



Through the pathway of this monster, at right angles, the three s?ctions 

 of our train were obliged to pass. It struck us on the northern side. The heavy 

 Pullman coaches rattled in the blast. The thermometer went down into the 

 cellar. At Abilene a })iece of frozen mercury hanging by the door of the 

 eating-house said something about 10^ bilow zero. But the temperature 

 might well have been borne by people inured to cold had it not been for the 

 accompanying storm. The writer has had the pleasure and excitement of 

 several blasts in his life, but he deliberately declares that of all the bitter, 

 biting tornadoes that ever he was struck withal, the most terrible and mer 

 ciless was that which gnawed his overcoat and bit ofl'his beard on the night 

 of the 14di of January, out on the Texas Pacific. Our people sufl'ered 

 severely. Women cried with the cold, and some of their husbands used 



