progress of the train. Nothing could be seen from the
windows but an immense white sheet, against which the steam of the
engine looked gray.

At eight o'clock the steward entered and said that bed-time had come.
The backs of the seats were thrown down, bedsteads were pulled out,
and berths improvised in a few moments. By this ingenious system each
passenger was provided with a bed, and protected by curtains from
prying eyes. The sheets were clean, the pillows soft. There was
nothing to do but to go to bed and sleep, which everybody did as if
they were on board ship, while the train rushed on across the State of
California.

The territory between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly,
and the railroad runs in a north-easterly direction along the American
river which falls into the Bay of San Pablo. The hundred and twenty
miles' distance between these cities was accomplished in six hours,
and as it was midnight when they passed through Sacramento, the
travellers could see nothing of the city.

Leaving Sacramento and passing Junction, Rochin, Auburn, and Colfax,
the railroad passes through the Sierra Nevada range, and the train
reached Cisco at seven o'clock. An hour afterwards the sleeping-car
was retransformed to an ordinary carriage, and the passengers were
enabled to look out upon the magnificent scenery of this mountainous
country. The track followed all the caprices of the mountains, at
times suspended over a precipice, boldly rounding angles, penetrating
narrow gorges which had apparently no outlet. The engine, with fire
gleaming from the grate and black smoke issuing from its funnel, the
warning-bell ringing, the "cow-catcher" extending like a spur, mingled
its whistlings and snortings with the roar of torrents and waterfalls,
and twining its black smoke around the stems of the pine-trees. There
are few tunnels or bridges on this portion of the route, for the line
winds round the sides of the mountains and does not penetrate them.

About nine o'clock the train entered the State of Nevada by the Carson
Valley, still proceeding in a north-easterly direction. At midday the
train quitted Reno, where it had stopped twenty minutes for luncheon.

After lunch the passengers took their places in the car again, and
admired the scenery. Sometimes great troops of buffaloes were massed
like an immense moveable dam on the horizon. These immense troops
frequently oppose an impassable barrier to the trains, for they