En Avant. 245 



language. Numbers of the excursionists lay awake all night in their berths 

 shivering and shuddering. Thus did the writer, \yho, in his desperation, 

 offered the porter of the Anchoria twenty-five cents apiece for every article 

 which he would pile on him during the night. One passenger, putting his 

 hand on his froaen forehead, said he thought he was dead. Another, when 

 a hot box was announced, suggested that it be put in his berth for five min- 

 utes! Another said that he never had until then discovered the advantage 

 of Elijah's going to heaven in a chariot of fire. But the bit'er night went 

 by, and by ten o'clock of the following morning the trains had swept out of 

 the blizzird, the most terrible ever known in Texas, and had found again 

 sunshine and genial air. 



By the time the traveler on his way to the Pacific coast reaches the 

 western parts of Texas he has sufficiently ascended the great plateau to 

 bring him into new classes of phenomena. By this time nature has changed 

 her aspect ; the elevation above the sea has become so great as to give to the 

 atmosphere ttiat shining transparency which he has never seen before. Dis- 

 tant objects begin to draw near, and in the horizon are seen at long inter- 

 vals the first suggestions of the mountains. As a rule, the train skims ever- 

 more the surface of the earth ; there is neither cut nor fill. The sky is a 

 blue canopy overhead, and the earth is an infinite pasture of coarse grass, 

 broken with patches of sand. 



We now pass the tributaries of Red river and the Brazos. If our vision 

 could stretch 150 miles to the north we should see the head-waters of the 

 Canadian. Yonder, far to the south, are the gathering streams of the 

 Colorado. Still farther before us, and at right angles to our course, is the 

 Rio Pecos. Within these wide boundaries I estimate an area of 35,000 

 square miles. It is the Llano E-itacado. As we journey westward the 

 vast plateau lies mostly on our right. Verily it is the Staked Plain— staked 

 by nature with multiplied millions of yucca stems, weird and still on the 

 vast expanse. Hence its name. They are veritable stakes of the desert. 

 Sparsely scattered on the borders, they thicken in the distance and blend in 

 a dark, low wall along the far horizon. 



But let us note with ever-increasing admiration the glory and splendor 

 of this luminous air. There is certainly nothing like it in the world — 

 except, of course, in California. The effect of this atmospheric transparency 

 can not be appreciated or understood save by experience of the senses. 

 When the vision first reaches out through the shining air you siy, " Well !" 

 Your seat-mate says, " Hello!" The lady who sits in the next seat lifts her 

 small kid glove toward the window and smiles. The effect out yonder is 

 nearly like that of a first-class opera-glass, say one of Le Maire's, of Paris. 

 The difference is that when you look through an opera-glass you know you 

 are looking through something, and that there is the illusion of the lenses. 

 But here there is no illusion at all : you just see. The gain in visual distance 

 is just about what you would gain from a good opera-glass. Of course, they 

 tell you all sorts of li— hyperboles about how far it is to this and to that 



