oke of the
locomotive had a greyish aspect.

At eight o'clock a steward entered the car and announced that the time
for going to bed had arrived; and in a few minutes the car was
transformed into a dormitory. The backs of the seats were thrown back,
bedsteads carefully packed were rolled out by an ingenious system,
berths were suddenly improvised, and each traveller had soon at his
disposition a comfortable bed, protected from curious eyes by thick
curtains. The sheets were clean and the pillows soft. It only
remained to go to bed and sleep which everybody did--while the train
sped on across the State of California.

The country between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly.
The Central Pacific, taking Sacramento for its starting-point, extends
eastward to meet the road from Omaha. The line from San Francisco to
Sacramento runs in a north-easterly direction, along the American
River, which empties into San Pablo Bay. The one hundred and twenty
miles between these cities were accomplished in six hours, and towards
midnight, while fast asleep, the travellers passed through Sacramento;
so that they saw nothing of that important place, the seat of the State
government, with its fine quays, its broad streets, its noble hotels,
squares, and churches.

The train, on leaving Sacramento, and passing the junction, Roclin,
Auburn, and Colfax, entered the range of the Sierra Nevada. 'Cisco was
reached at seven in the morning; and an hour later the dormitory was
transformed into an ordinary car, and the travellers could observe the
picturesque beauties of the mountain region through which they were
steaming. The railway track wound in and out among the passes, now
approaching the mountain-sides, now suspended over precipices, avoiding
abrupt angles by bold curves, plunging into narrow defiles, which
seemed to have no outlet. The locomotive, its great funnel emitting a
weird light, with its sharp bell, and its cow-catcher extended like a
spur, mingled its shrieks and bellowings with the noise of torrents and
cascades, and twined its smoke among the branches of the gigantic pines.

There were few or no bridges or tunnels on the route. The railway
turned around the sides of the mountains, and did not attempt to
violate nature by taking the shortest cut from one point to another.

The train entered the State of Nevada through the Carson Valley about
nine o'clock, going always northeasterly; and at midday reached R