nose began to bleed, and other ladies threw themselves down on the seats
and gasped with the gasping train, while a wind as keen as a knife-edge
rioted down the grimy tunnel.

Then, despatching a pilot-engine to clear the way, we began the downward
portion of the journey with every available brake on, and frequent
shrieks, till after some hours we reached the level plain, and later the
city of Denver, where the Man with the Sorrow went his way and left me
to journey on to Omaha alone, after one hasty glance at Denver. The
pulse of that town was too like the rushing mighty wind in the Rocky
Mountain tunnel. It made me tired because complete strangers desired me
to do something to mines which were in mountains, and to purchase
building blocks upon inaccessible cliffs; and once, a woman urged that I
should supply her with strong drinks. I had almost forgotten that such
attacks were possible in any land, for the outward and visible signs of
public morality in American towns are generally safe-guarded. For that I
respect this people. Omaha, Nebraska, was but a halting-place on the
road to Chicago, but it revealed to me horrors that I would not
willingly have missed. The city to casual investigation seemed to be
populated entirely by Germans, Poles, Slavs, Hungarians, Croats,
Magyars, and all the scum of the Eastern European States, but it must
have been laid out by Americans. No other people would cut the traffic
of a main street with two streams of railway lines, each some eight or
nine tracks wide, and cheerfully drive tram-cars across the metals.
Every now and again they have horrible railway-crossing accidents at
Omaha, but nobody seems to think of building an overhead-bridge. That
would interfere with the vested interests of the undertakers.

Be blessed to hear some details of one of that class.

There was a shop the like of which I had never seen before. Its windows
were filled with dress-coats for men, and dresses for women. But the
studs of the shirts were made of stamped cloth upon the shirt front, and
there were no trousers to those coats--nothing but a sweep of cheap
black cloth falling like an abbe's frock. In the doorway sat a young man
reading Pollock's _Course of Time_, and by that I knew that he was an
undertaker. His name was Gring, which is a beautiful name, and I talked
to him on the mysteries of his Craft. He was an enthusiast and an
artist. I told him how corpses were burnt in India. Said he: "We're
v