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Show 108 WESTERN WILDS. downward to the green bottom, where the trees shrink to mere shrubs, and the Chinamen working at the lumber seem like pig-mies; a little further down the gorge the wagon bridge hundreds of feet above the bottom appears like a faint white band, and still further the sight is lost in a blue mist. The railroad track is ex- CAPE HORN. cavated along the sides and around the head of this gorge, wr here, in aboriginal days, the Indians had not even a foot- path, as the first descent from the head of the chasm is six hundred feet, nearly perpendicular. When the road- bed was constructed, the men who made the first excavation were secured by ropes let down from a higher point. The climate changes with every hour's descent. The red earth, resinous pines, and yellow grass show that we are on the Pacific Coast ; but the view is wonderfully relieved by the pines, and the red branches and pale green leaves of the manzanita. Settlements thicken ; gardens, fields, and orchards appear. Down at last on the California side of the Sierras, we emerge from the foot- hills upon a rather level plain dotted with live oaks, with occasionally a cul-tivated field. Crossing this plain and the American River, we leave the cars and walk amid the neat squares and well- watered grass plats of the State capital. A week in Sacramento taught me one important fact: that Call- |
