Around the World in Eighty Days Part 24

Dinner over, the coach which was to convey the pa.s.sengers and their luggage to the station drew up to the door. As he was getting in, Mr. Fogg said to Fix, "You have not seen this Colonel Proctor again?"

"No."

"I will come back to America to find him," said Phileas Fogg calmly. "It would not be right for an Englishman to permit himself to be treated in that way without retaliating."

The detective smiled, but did not reply. It was clear that Mr.

Fogg was one of those Englishmen who, while they do not tolerate dueling at home, fight abroad when their honor is attacked.

At a quarter before six the travelers reached the station, and found the train ready to depart. As he was about to enter it, Mr.

Fogg called a porter, and said to him: "My friend, was there not some trouble today in San Francisco?"

"It was a political meeting, sir," replied the porter.

"But I thought there was a great deal of disturbance in the streets."

"It was only a meeting a.s.sembled for an election."

"The election of a general-in-chief, no doubt?" asked Mr. Fogg.

"No, sir; of a justice of the peace."

Phileas Fogg got into the train, which started off at full speed.

Chapter 26

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 colonize.

The journey from New York to San Francisco took, formerly, under the most favorable conditions, at least six months. It is now accomplished in seven days. In 1862, 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 started at once and pursued with true American energy. The rapidity with which it went on did not 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 the next day, 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 pa.s.ses along the left bank of the Platte Rivet 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 traveled in seven days. It 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, 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 led to the front and rear platforms. These platforms were found throughout the train, and the pa.s.sengers were able to pa.s.s 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 missing, and they will have these some day.

Book and news dealers, sellers of edibles, beverages 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 stops, 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 pa.s.sengers were asleep. Pa.s.separtout 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 Pa.s.separtout 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 did not deter 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 bedtime had arrived. 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 traveler soon had 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. Towards midnight, while fast asleep, the travelers pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble hotels, squares and churches.

The train, on leaving Sacramento, and pa.s.sing 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 travelers could observe the picturesque beauties of the mountain region through which they were steaming. The railway track wound in and out among the pa.s.ses, now approaching the mountainsides, 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 cowcatcher 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. At midday it reached Reno where there was a delay of twenty minutes for breakfast.

From this point the road, running along Humboldt River, pa.s.sed 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.

After breakfast, Mr. Fogg and his companions resumed their places in the car, and observed the varied landscape which unfolded as they pa.s.sed along: the vast prairies, the mountains lining the horizon, and the creeks, with their frothy, foaming streams.

Sometimes a great herd of buffaloes, ma.s.sing together in the distance, seemed like a movable dam. These innumerable mult.i.tudes of beasts often form an insurmountable obstacle to the pa.s.sage of the trains. Thousands of them have been seen pa.s.sing over the track for hours in compact ranks. The locomotive is then forced to stop and wait till the road is once more clear.

This happened to the train in which Mr. Fogg was traveling. About twelve o'clock a troop of ten or twelve thousand head of buffalo covered the track. The locomotive, slackening its speed, tried to clear the way with its cowcatcher; but the ma.s.s 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 travelers 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.

Pa.s.separtout was furious at the delay, and longed to discharge his a.r.s.enal of revolvers upon them.

"What a country!" he cried. "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 program! 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 cowcatcher; 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 pa.s.sing over the rails, while the first had already disappeared below the southern horizon.

It was eight o'clock when the train pa.s.sed 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.

Chapter 27

In Which Pa.s.separtout Undergoes, at a Speed of Twenty Miles an Hour, a Course of Mormon History

During the night of the 5th of December, the train ran south-easterly for about fifty miles; then rose an equal distance in a northeasterly direction, towards the Great Salt Lake.

Pa.s.separtout, about nine o'clock, went out upon the platform to take the air. The weather was cold, the heavens grey, but it was not snowing. The sun's disc, enlarged by the mist, seemed an enormous ring of gold, and Pa.s.separtout was amusing himself by calculating its value in pounds sterling, when he was diverted from this interesting study by a strange-looking person who made his appearance on the platform.

This person, who had taken the train at Elko, was tall and dark, with black moustache, black stockings, a black silk hat, a black waistcoat, black trousers, a white cravat and dogskin gloves. He might have been taken for a clergyman. He went from one end of the train to the other, and affixed to the door of each car a notice written in ma.n.u.script.