CHAPTER XIV. 
THE RETURN JOURNEY vid SALT LAKE. 
Leave San Francisco.— Ascending the Sierra Nevada on the Central Pacific] 
Railroad.—Sledging across the Mountains.—Virginia City.— 
Passenger.—Staging across the Desert.—How we crossed an “ Alkali 
flat.” —Austin.—The Mormons.—Polygamy.—Will they migrate or wi 
they remain ?—The Anti-polygamy Party.—Mr. Dilke on Mormonism. 
The Electric Telegraph in the Desert.—Cross the Black Hills.—Cheyenné. 
—Drive to Denyer.—Enormous herds of Antelope and Buffalo.—Fo f 
Wallace again, ‘ 
Lats on the afternoon of February 21st I started from Sat 
Francisco, and took the river boat for Sacramento, where. 
next morning I was joined by Palmer and Colton. We leit 
the State capital enveloped in steaming drizzle, and were glal_ 
to exchange the sultry oppression of the coast for the snow: | 
flakes and bracing air of the Sierra Nevada. We were told 
by the “conductor” of our train, as we left the depdt of i 
Central Pacific of California, that the mountains commenced 
two miles east of Sacramento. It is necessary to be told this 
fact, for to all appearance the country is a dead level, and the 
only way of accounting for it is, that so the government has } 
decided. q 
The line does however ascend, though gradually, for sixty 
miles, at which point we entered the snows at an elevation 
of 2,700 feet, and very soon the mountain scenery became 
Alpine in its character, and snow-clad giants appeared and 
disappeared amongst the clouds and drifting snow-flakes. 
The train twined in and out amongst the mountains like a 
_ Serpent ; sometimes clinging closely to the edge of a eg 
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