precipice 2,500 feet in depth, it
is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of holding the breath and
shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears were reserved for the crossing
of a trestle bridge over a very deep chasm, which is itself approached
by a sharp curve. This bridge appeared to be overlapped by the cars so
as to produce the effect of looking down directly into a wild gulch,
with a torrent raging along it at an immense depth below.

Shivering in the keen, frosty air near the summit pass of the Sierras,
we entered the "snow-sheds," wooden galleries, which for about fifty
miles shut out all the splendid views of the region, as given in
dioramas, not even allowing a glimpse of "the Gem of the Sierras," the
lovely Donner Lake. One of these sheds is twenty-seven miles long. In
a few hours the mercury had fallen from 103 degrees to 29 degrees, and
we had ascended 6,987 feet in 105 miles! After passing through the
sheds, we had several grand views of a pine forest on fire before
reaching Truckee at 11 P.M. having traveled 258 miles. Truckee, the
center of the "lumbering region" of the Sierras, is usually spoken of
as "a rough mountain town," and Mr. W. had told me that all the roughs
of the district congregated there, that there were nightly pistol
affrays in bar-rooms, etc., but as he admitted that a lady was sure of
respect, and Mr. G. strongly advised me to stay and see the lakes, I
got out, much dazed, and very stupid with sleep, envying the people in
the sleeping car, who were already unconscious on their luxurious
couches. The cars drew up in a street--if street that could be called
which was only a wide, cleared space, intersected by rails, with here
and there a stump, and great piles of sawn logs bulking big in the
moonlight, and a number of irregular clap-board, steep-roofed houses,
many of them with open fronts, glaring with light and crowded with men.
We had pulled up at the door of a rough Western hotel, with a partially
open front, being a bar-room crowded with men drinking and smoking, and
the space between it and the cars was a moving mass of loafers and
passengers. On the tracks, engines, tolling heavy bells, were mightily
moving, the glare from their cyclopean eyes dulling the light of a
forest which was burning fitfully on a mountain side; and on open
spaces great fires of pine logs were burning cheerily, with groups of
men round them. A band was playing noisily, and the unholy sound of
tom-t