Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (top novels to read TXT) 📖

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 northeasterly 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.