soon be at Humboldt,
where there will be twenty minutes' stoppage for breakfast. I find
that we are now 422 miles on our way, and that during the night we
have crossed the great sage-covered Nevada Desert, on which so many
travellers left their bones to bleach in the days of the overland
journey to California, but which is now so rapidly and safely
traversed by means of this railway. The train draws up at Humboldt at
seven in the morning; and on descending, I find a large,
well-appointed refreshment room, with the tables ready laid; and a
tempting array of hot tea and coffee, bacon, steaks, eggs, and other
eatables. "I guess" I had my full dollar's worth out of that Humboldt
establishment--a "regular square meal," to quote the language of the
conductor.

We mount again, and are off across the high plains. The sage-brush is
the only vegetation to be seen, interspersed here and there with large
beds of alkali, on which not even sage-brush will grow. The sage
country extends from Wadsworth to Battle Mount Station, a distance of
about two hundred miles. Only occasionally, by the river-sides, near
the station, small patches of cultivated land are to be seen; but,
generally speaking, the country is barren, and will ever remain so. We
are still nearly 5000 feet above the level of the sea. There is no
longer any snow on the ground alongside us, but the mountains within
sight are all covered. Though the day is bright and sunshiny, and the
inside of the car warm, with the stove always full of blazing wood or
coke, the air outside is cold, sharp, and nipping.

At Battle Mount--so called because of a severe engagement which
occurred here some years since between the Indians and the white
settlers--the plains begin to narrow, and the mountains to close in
again upon the track. Here I saw for the first time a number of
Shoshonie Indians--the original natives of the country--their faces
painted red, and their coarse black hair hanging down over their
shoulders. Their squaws, who carried their papooses in shawls slung
over their backs, came alongside the train to beg money from the
passengers. The Indian men seemed to be of a very low type--not for a
moment to be compared with the splendid Maoris of New Zealand. The
only fine tribe of Indians left, are said to be the Sioux; and these
are fast dying out. In the struggle of races for life, savages nowhere
seem to have the slightest chance when they come in contact with what
are calle