features.
Without unnecessary delay, therefore, we resumed the march.

It is practically up-hill--"on the collar"--all the way to Colfax, as is
plainly evidenced by the heavy railroad grade. About a mile short of the
town, we made a digression to an Italian vineyard of note. There, at a
long table under a vine-covered trellis that connected the stone cellar
with the dwelling-house, we were served with wine by a young woman
having the true Madonna features of Sunny Italy, her mother, a comely
matron, in the meantime preparing the evening meal, while on the hard
ground encumbered with no superfluous clothing, disported the younger
members of the family. And as I sat and smoked the pipe of peace, I
reflected upon how much better they do these things in Italy--for to all
intents and Purposes, I was in Italy.

Colfax--before the advent of the C. P. R. R. called "Illinois Town"--is
an odd blending of past and present; the solid structures of the mining
days contrasting strangely with the flimsy wooden buildings that seem
to mark a railroad town. We were amazed at the amount of traffic that
occurs in the night. Three big overland trains passed through in either
direction, the interim being filled in with the switching of cars,
accompanied apparently with a most unnecessary ringing of bells and
piercing shrieks from whistles. Since our hotel was not more than a
hundred and fifty feet from the main line, with no intervening
buildings to temper the noises, sleep of any consequence was an utter
impossibility.

Few Californians are aware, probably, that a considerable amount of
tobacco is raised in the foothills of the Sierras. At Colfax, I smoked
a very fair cigar made from tobacco grown in the vicinity, and
manufactured in the town.

I think we were both glad to leave Colfax. Apart from a nerve-racking
night, the mere proximity of the railroad with its accompanying
associations served constantly to bring to mind all that I had fled to
the mountains to escape. Yet I cannot bring myself to agree with those
who profess to brand a railroad "a blot on the landscape." The enormous
engines which pull the overland trains up the heavy grades of the Sierra
Nevada impress one by their size, strength and suggestion of reserve
power, as not being out of harmony with the forces of Nature they are
constructed to contend with and overcome.

This thought occurred to us as we watched a passenger train slowly
winding its way around the famou