74 NEW TEACKS IN NOETH AMEEICA. 



harness, with outstretched necks, and white with dust, plnnged 

 en masse straight down a hank 3 or 4 feet deep, and himed 

 their heads in the water. The rapid current carried some of 

 them off their legs, but they did not care for that, and 

 scrambled ashore where best they could. Their tliirst quenched, 

 and their bodies refreshed, they set to work at the grass. 

 Slowly and steadily they ^^ crowded it down,'' as our teamsters 

 remarked, niitil their sides bulged out to sueli a degree that it 

 was evident they couki hokl no more. 



It was delightful to see a broad stately river again, with 

 its family of trees and waving rushes ; and to hear the birds, 

 the insects, and all the little sounds of life that you scarcely 

 notice when you live amongst them, but which you miss so 

 much in the desert; and these seventy- two miles we had 

 just passed over were not only practically a desert, but by no 

 means a good desert for railway purposes. The course we 

 had taken was, so to speak, against the grain of the land; 

 every undulation crossed our line almost at right angles, and 

 would have, " on location," to be cut through. The highest 

 of these undulations, that is, the dividing ridge between the 

 Arkansas and Smoky rivers, was 4,028 feet above the sea ; 

 we crossed it sixteen miles from the Arkansas, and fifty-six 

 from the Smoky Eiver. 



The Arkansas, at the point where we met it, flowed at an 

 elevation of 3,593 feet above the sea. It is a fine broad 



stream, with a very rapid current, varying in depth from 10 

 feet to an inch or two, containing the usual snags, shoals, and 

 quicksands of a Western river, and having an average fall of 

 7-5 feet per mile. The waters are muddy, but sweet to the 

 taste; the banks consist of the rich loam of the bottom- 

 lands, and are always falling away into the stream, at one 

 side or the other, as the river changes its bed. On which- 



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