350 Beyond tlw. Sierras. 



great city is at hand : and here, at hvst, you are. Your train stops, and you 

 step ofl'on the platform. Here, on the 12th of last January, more than five 

 hundred of us were gathered, to nearly all uf whom the Great West was then 

 a mystery and a dream. And it is still a dream and a mystery. In our 

 brief sojourn and tour beyond the Sierras we have caught no more than 

 passing glimpses of the great natural ]>henomena which abound in that new 

 world uf wonders, or of the vigormis and )iroirressiv(> civilizHiion that is there 

 in process of development. 



This, then, is the end of my poor story. It may interest the reader to 

 know, ere I bid him good-by, th»it wliat I have here written is simply the 

 revival of pleasing recollections. During the whole of our winter suiy be- 

 yond the mountains I made not a single note or memorandum. I have de- 

 picted the scenes and incidents of our Western anabasis merely as they have 

 arisen on the dappled screen of memory. 



I meet on the platform of the Kansas City station no single pilgrim of 

 our former happy company. They are all, all, gone. But with my well- 

 worn traveling hat in hand, I swing it on high and recklessly propose three 

 cheers and a tiger for the success and honor and inefTaceable memories of 

 our journey beyond the snow-crests of the Nevadas and through the flower- 

 scented valleys of California. 



My friends, farewell. 



