toward the wilderness from which we had emerged. What! was that
it--that vision of transfiguration--that illumined Zion radiant with
splendor? Across the river, lighted by the evening's after-glow of
fire, rose a celestial city, with towers, spires, and battlements
glittering as if sheathed in burnished gold. Sunshine and distance
had dispelled all traces of the region's barrenness, and for a few
memorable moments, while we watched it breathlessly, its sparkling
bastions seemed to beckon us alluringly to its magnificence; then,
fading like an exquisite mirage created by the genii of the desert,
it swiftly sank into the desolation from which the sun had summoned
it, to crown it briefly with supernal glory. Turning at last from its
cold immobility to the activity around us, I saw some representatives
of the fallen race of California, as Indian bucks and squaws came
from their squalid hovels to sell the trifling products of their
industry, and stare at what to them is a perpetual miracle,--the
passing train. Five races met upon that railroad platform, and
together illustrated the history of the country. First, in respect to
time, was the poor Indian, slovenly, painted and degraded, yet
characterized by a kind of bovine melancholy on the faces of the men,
and a trace of animal beauty in the forms of the young squaws.
Teasing and jesting with the latter were the negro porters of the
train, who, though their ancestors were as little civilized as those
of the Indians, have risen to a level only to be appreciated by
comparing the African and the Indian side by side. There, also, was
the Mexican, the lord of all this region in his earlier and better
days, but now a penniless degenerate of Old Castile. Among them stood
the masterful Anglo-Saxon, whose energy has pushed aside the
Spaniard, civilized the Negro, developed half a continent, built this
amazing path of steel through fifteen hundred miles of desert, and
who is king where-ever he goes. While I surveyed these specimens of
humanity and compared them, one with another, there suddenly appeared
among them a fifth figure,--that of Sing Lee, formerly a subject of
the oldest government on earth, and still a representative of the
four hundred millions swarming in the Flowery Kingdom. Strangely
enough, of all these different racial types, the Mongol seemed the
most self-satisfied. The Yankee was continually bustling about,
feeding passengers, transporting trunks, or hammering car-w