glancing down on the track, instead of solid earth, I saw the ground,
through the open timbers of the trestle-bridge, at least sixty feet
below me! The timber road was only the width of the single iron track;
so that any one looking out of the side carriage-windows would see
sixty feet down into space. The beams on which the trestle-bridge is
supported, are, in some cases, rested on stone; but oftener they are
not. It is not easy to describe the sensation first felt on rattling
over one of these trembling viaducts, with a lovely view down some
mountain gorge, and then, perhaps, suddenly plunging into a dark
cutting on the other side of the trestle. But use is everything; and
before long I got quite accustomed to the sensation of looking down
through the open woodwork of the line on to broken ground and mountain
torrents rushing a hundred feet or more below me.

We left Sacramento at 2 P.M., and evening was coming on as we got into
the mountains. Still, long before sunset we saw many traces of large
"placers," where whole sides of the hills had been dug out and washed
away in the search for gold; the water being brought over the
hill-tops by various ingenious methods. Sometimes, too, we came upon
signs of active mining, in the water-courses led across valleys at
levels above us, consisting of wooden troughs supported on trestles
similar to those we are so frequently crossing. In one place I saw a
party of men busily at work along the mountain side, preparatory to
letting the water in upon the auriferous ground they were exploring.

I stood for more than two hours on the platform at the rear of the
train, never tired of watching the wonderful scenery that continually
receded from my gaze,--sometimes the track suddenly disappearing as we
rounded a curve; and then looking ahead, I would find that an entirely
new prospect was opening into view.

Never shall I forget the lovely scene that evening, when the golden
sun was setting far away on the Pacific coast. The great red orb sank
slowly behind a low hill at the end of the valley which stretched away
on our right far beneath us. The pine-trees shone red in the departing
sunlight for a short time; then the warm, dusky glimmer gradually
faded away on the horizon, and all was over. The scene now looked more
dreary, the mountains more rugged, and everything more desolate than
before.

Up we rushed, still ascending the mountain slopes, winding in and
out--higher and higher-