drooping wings. I might escape trusting humanity and steal away
betimes, but these airy messengers waylaid me and chirped a sarcastic
adieu from every field we crossed.

In the compulsory solitude of travel a man is thrown back upon
himself: at any rate, I am, and with waning courage and a growing
regret I sank into a corner of my seat by the window, and glowered at
the interminable slices of landscape that slid past me on both sides
of the rocking train. Have you ever noted the refrain of the flying
wheels as they hurry from town to town? There is a sharp shriek from
the locomotive, and a groan from one end of the train to the other, as
if every screw were rheumatic and nothing but a miracle held it in its
place. Then the song begins, very slowly at first, and in the old
familiar strain: "Ko--ka--chi--lunk, ko--ka--chilunk, koka--chilunk,
kokachilunk," repeated again and again, varied only when the short
rails are crossed, where it adds a few extra syllables in this style:
"Kokachilunk--chilunk, chilunk," growing faster and faster every
moment until the utmost speed is attained: it then soars into this
impressive refrain: "Lickity-cut, lickity-cut, lickity-cut,
lickity-cut," repeated as often and as rapidly as possible. All the
world goes by in two dizzy landscapes, yet the song is unvaried until
you approach a town with a straggling and unfinished edge, where the
houses are waltzing about as if they had not yet decided upon any
permanent location. Here you slacken speed and drop into a third
movement, as monotonous as the others and far more drowsy, for it
suggests all that is soothing and nerve-relaxing and sleep-begetting.
It is "Killi-kinick, killi--kinick, killi--kin--nick; eh! ah! bang!" A
long groan from the wheels, a deep sigh from the locomotive, and you
are stockstill at some inland hamlet that knows no emotion greater
than that occasioned by your arrival.

To this dull accompaniment I climbed out of the golden lowlands, the
basins of the San Joaquin and the Sacramento, into the silver
mountains where the full moon was just rising. The train seemed to
soar through space; we passed from cliff to cliff, above dark ravines,
on bridges like spider-webs; we whirled around sharp corners as if we
had started for some planet, but thought better of it and clung to
earth, with our hair on end and half the breath out of our bodies. We
were continually ascending; the locomotive panted hideously; every
throb of the pow