svi INTEODTJCTION-. 



all tlie vacancies but one had been filled up. A pliotograplier 

 alone was wanted ; and as no idle man conld be allowed 

 amongst tlie party, I accepted tlie office with, I mnst confess, 

 considerable diffidence, as- only a fortnight remained before 

 starting to learn an art with which I was then quite 

 unacquainted. After we had been in the field but a short 

 time, the return home of the physician of the expedition left 

 that post open to me. It proved to be almost a sinecure, for 

 the healthy life we led- in such a glorious climate was far 

 better than physic. Thus it happened that, taking no part 

 in the actual surveys, I was able to move hither and thither, 

 to travel sometimes with one party, sometimes with another, 

 and to take long journeys indejDendently through regions 

 hitherto almost unknown, but which, from their position, 

 were of great importance to those interested in the success of 

 the trans-continental railway. 



The distance I travelled beyond the pale of civilisation 

 and railways was about 5,000 miles ; this distance, however, 

 was but a fraction of the combined lengths of route siu^veyed 

 and examined by the separate parties. I now proceed to give 

 an outline of these routes. 



From St. Louis, the starting-point, we went by rail to 

 Salina (Kansas), the terminal depot at that time of tke 

 Kansas Pacific Railway. At this point, 471 miles west 

 the Mississippi, we exchanged the locomotive for the mvL^ 

 train, and marched due west over a sea of grass for 21 

 miles to Tort Wallace, a military post on the borders of th' 

 State of Colorado. 



On this vast plain the buffalo are still very abundani 

 After a delay of a fortnight at Fort Wallace, caused b, 

 the hostility of the plain Indians, we commenced om- surve 

 at that point, and proceeded in a south-westerly directio 



