IN THE SIEREA NEVADA. 27 



when awoke and told of his narrow escape. All this bears a strong resemblance to digres- 

 sion, so let us return to our subject " dead heads." Examples of this tribe have boasted 

 that they have travelled all over the States for nothing. Good-natured guards always 

 "conductors" in America will often wink at his presence, but more rigid officials have been 

 kiaown to stop the train outside a long tunnel, or on one side of a dangerous open 

 trestle-work bridge, and peremptorily tell the vagrant to " get ! " He has often worked 

 his way clear across the American continent. Turned off one train, kicked off another, left 

 in the snow half-way between far distant stations, charitably allowed a short ride on an 

 open freight car, walking where he may not ride, stealing where it is easier than begging, 

 and vice versa, he has at last arrived in California, where, to do a glorious country and a- 

 generous people justice, not even a tramp is allowed to starve. After all, does not the 

 vagabond deserve something for his enterprise ? Perhaps in that land, now far more of 

 corn and hops and wine than of gold, he may, under more auspicious circumstances, become 

 a better and more prosperous man. 



Few tourists or travellers of leisure will fail to pay a flying visit to the grand and 

 beautiful lakes and tarns lying among the eternal snows of the Sierra Nevada 

 mountains, which separate the Silver from the Golden State, and are crossed by the 

 Pacific Railway at an elevation of 7,042 feet above the sea level. From the Summit and 

 Truckee stations there are all necessary facilities for reaching Donner, Tahoe, and other 

 lakes, and for a stay among some of the grandest scenery in the world. The space 

 occupied by this chapter would not describe in the barest details the grand mountain 

 peaks, in one case rising to an altitude of 14,500 feet ; the forests of magnificent trees ; 

 the quieter valleys " in verdure clad ;" the waterfalls and cataracts and torrents of this 

 Alpine region, which is within half a day's journey of San Francisco, and but three 

 or four hours from districts which for eight months of the year have the temperature of 

 Southern Italy. Sufficiently good coaches convey you to leading points, where there are 

 comfortable inns, or, in the summer months, travellers can do a little tent-life and open- 

 air camping with advantage, the climate among the mountains being pure, bracing, and yet 

 warm. On the leading lakes there are boats to be had, and on one or two there are small 

 steamers plying regularly. Fishing and hunting can be indulged in to the heart's content. 

 The Sierra mountain trout is unsurpassed anywhere ; while the sportsman can bag anything 

 from a Californian quail to a grizzly bear the latter, more especially, if he can. At 

 most of the ordinary places of resort he will get the morning papers of San Francisco the 

 same day, while Truckee boasts of a journal of its own, published, be it observed, 7,000 

 feet up the mountains \* 



One of the writer's recollections of the Sierra region is not so pleasant, but then it 

 was under its winter aspect. He had been warned on leaving San Francisco that the 

 railway might be "snowed up/' as it was in 1871-2, when for several weeks there was a 

 blockade, and he was recommended to go to New York via Panama. That voyage he had 

 once made, and, besides, had a desire to see the continent in winter, when the journey 



* The highest newspaper offices in the United States, and, it is hardly to be doubted, in the world, are in 

 Colorado. Georgetown, 8,452 feet elevation, has one; Central City, has two dailies, published at 8,300 feet 

 above the sea level. 



