Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XXVI

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PAR­TY TRAV­EL BY THE PA­CIF­IC RAIL­ROAD

“From ocean to ocean”--so say the Amer­icans; and these four words com­pose the gen­er­al des­ig­na­tion of the “great trunk line” which cross­es the en­tire width of the Unit­ed States. The Pa­cif­ic Rail­road is, how­ev­er, re­al­ly di­vid­ed in­to two dis­tinct lines: the Cen­tral Pa­cif­ic, be­tween San Fran­cis­co and Og­den, and the Union Pa­cif­ic, be­tween Og­den and Om­aha. Five main lines con­nect Om­aha with New York.

New York and San Fran­cis­co are thus unit­ed by an un­in­ter­rupt­ed met­al rib­bon, which mea­sures no less than three thou­sand sev­en hun­dred and eighty-​six miles. Be­tween Om­aha and the Pa­cif­ic the rail­way cross­es a ter­ri­to­ry which is still in­fest­ed by In­di­ans and wild beasts, and a large tract which the Mor­mons, af­ter they were driv­en from Illi­nois in 1845, be­gan to colonise.

The jour­ney from New York to San Fran­cis­co con­sumed, for­mer­ly, un­der the most favourable con­di­tions, at least six months. It is now ac­com­plished in sev­en days.

It was in 1862 that, in spite of the South­ern Mem­bers of Congress, who wished a more souther­ly route, it was de­cid­ed to lay the road be­tween the forty-​first and forty-​sec­ond par­al­lels. Pres­ident Lin­coln him­self fixed the end of the line at Om­aha, in Ne­bras­ka. The work was at once com­menced, and pur­sued with true Amer­ican en­er­gy; nor did the ra­pid­ity with which it went on in­ju­ri­ous­ly af­fect its good ex­ecu­tion. The road grew, on the prairies, a mile and a half a day. A lo­co­mo­tive, run­ning on the rails laid down the evening be­fore, brought the rails to be laid on the mor­row, and ad­vanced up­on them as fast as they were put in po­si­tion.

The Pa­cif­ic Rail­road is joined by sev­er­al branch­es in Iowa, Kansas, Col­orado, and Ore­gon. On leav­ing Om­aha, it pass­es along the left bank of the Plat­te Riv­er as far as the junc­tion of its north­ern branch, fol­lows its south­ern branch, cross­es the Laramie ter­ri­to­ry and the Wah­satch Moun­tains, turns the Great Salt Lake, and reach­es Salt Lake City, the Mor­mon cap­ital, plunges in­to the Tu­il­la Val­ley, across the Amer­ican Desert, Cedar and Hum­boldt Moun­tains, the Sier­ra Neva­da, and de­scends, via Sacra­men­to, to the Pa­cif­ic--its grade, even on the Rocky Moun­tains, nev­er ex­ceed­ing one hun­dred and twelve feet to the mile.

Such was the road to be tra­versed in sev­en days, which would en­able Phileas Fogg--at least, so he hoped--to take the At­lantic steam­er at New York on the 11th for Liv­er­pool.

The car which he oc­cu­pied was a sort of long om­nibus on eight wheels, and with no com­part­ments in the in­te­ri­or. It was sup­plied with two rows of seats, per­pen­dic­ular to the di­rec­tion of the train on ei­ther side of an aisle which con­duct­ed to the front and rear plat­forms. These plat­forms were found through­out the train, and the pas­sen­gers were able to pass from one end of the train to the oth­er. It was sup­plied with sa­loon cars, bal­cony cars, restau­rants, and smok­ing-​cars; the­atre cars alone were want­ing, and they will have these some day.

Book and news deal­ers, sell­ers of ed­ibles, drink­ables, and cigars, who seemed to have plen­ty of cus­tomers, were con­tin­ual­ly cir­cu­lat­ing in the aisles.

The train left Oak­land sta­tion at six o'clock. It was al­ready night, cold and cheer­less, the heav­ens be­ing over­cast with clouds which seemed to threat­en snow. The train did not pro­ceed rapid­ly; count­ing the stop­pages, it did not run more than twen­ty miles an hour, which was a suf­fi­cient speed, how­ev­er, to en­able it to reach Om­aha with­in its des­ig­nat­ed time.

There was but lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion in the car, and soon many of the pas­sen­gers were over­come with sleep. Passep­artout found him­self be­side the de­tec­tive; but he did not talk to him. Af­ter re­cent events, their re­la­tions with each oth­er had grown some­what cold; there could no longer be mu­tu­al sym­pa­thy or in­ti­ma­cy be­tween them. Fix's man­ner had not changed; but Passep­artout was very re­served, and ready to stran­gle his for­mer friend on the slight­est provo­ca­tion.

Snow be­gan to fall an hour af­ter they start­ed, a fine snow, how­ev­er, which hap­pi­ly could not ob­struct the train; noth­ing could be seen from the win­dows but a vast, white sheet, against which the smoke 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 Reno, where there was a de­lay of twen­ty min­utes for break­fast.

From this point the road, run­ning along Hum­boldt Riv­er, passed north­ward for sev­er­al miles by its banks; then it turned east­ward, and kept by the riv­er un­til it reached the Hum­boldt Range, near­ly at the ex­treme east­ern lim­it of Neva­da.

Hav­ing break­fast­ed, Mr. Fogg and his com­pan­ions re­sumed their places in the car, and ob­served the var­ied land­scape which un­fold­ed it­self as they passed along the vast prairies, the moun­tains lin­ing the hori­zon, and the creeks, with their frothy, foam­ing streams. Some­times a great herd of buf­faloes, mass­ing to­geth­er in the dis­tance, seemed like a move­able dam. These in­nu­mer­able mul­ti­tudes of ru­mi­nat­ing beasts of­ten form an in­sur­mount­able ob­sta­cle to the pas­sage of the trains; thou­sands of them have been seen pass­ing over the track for hours to­geth­er, in com­pact ranks. The lo­co­mo­tive is then forced to stop and wait till the road is once more clear.

This hap­pened, in­deed, to the train in which Mr. Fogg was trav­el­ling. About twelve o'clock a troop of ten or twelve thou­sand head of buf­fa­lo en­cum­bered the track. The lo­co­mo­tive, slack­en­ing its speed, tried to clear the way with its cow-​catch­er; but the mass of an­imals was too great. The buf­faloes marched along with a tran­quil gait, ut­ter­ing now and then deaf­en­ing bel­low­ings. There was no use of in­ter­rupt­ing them, for, hav­ing tak­en a par­tic­ular di­rec­tion, noth­ing can mod­er­ate and change their course; it is a tor­rent of liv­ing flesh which no dam could con­tain.

The trav­ellers gazed on this cu­ri­ous spec­ta­cle from the plat­forms; but Phileas Fogg, who had the most rea­son of all to be in a hur­ry, re­mained in his seat, and wait­ed philo­soph­ical­ly un­til it should please the buf­faloes to get out of the way.

Passep­artout was fu­ri­ous at the de­lay they oc­ca­sioned, and longed to dis­charge his ar­se­nal of re­volvers up­on them.

“What a coun­try!” cried he. “Mere cat­tle stop the trains, and go by in a pro­ces­sion, just as if they were not im­ped­ing trav­el! Par­bleu! I should like to know if Mr. Fogg fore­saw this mishap in his pro­gramme! And here's an en­gi­neer who doesn't dare to run the lo­co­mo­tive in­to this herd of beasts!”

The en­gi­neer did not try to over­come the ob­sta­cle, and he was wise. He would have crushed the first buf­faloes, no doubt, with the cow-​catch­er; but the lo­co­mo­tive, how­ev­er pow­er­ful, would soon have been checked, the train would in­evitably have been thrown off the track, and would then have been help­less.

The best course was to wait pa­tient­ly, and re­gain the lost time by greater speed when the ob­sta­cle was re­moved. The pro­ces­sion of buf­faloes last­ed three full hours, and it was night be­fore the track was clear. The last ranks of the herd were now pass­ing over the rails, while the first had al­ready dis­ap­peared be­low the south­ern hori­zon.

It was eight o'clock when the train passed through the de­files of the Hum­boldt Range, and half-​past nine when it pen­etrat­ed Utah, the re­gion of the Great Salt Lake, the sin­gu­lar colony of the Mor­mons.