British -- United States -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Married women -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction
The moment we finished our food we drew up at our destination, and in
this wilderness there was a telegraph station and a few shanties, but it
could all be lit by electric light! The most strong, paintless, hardy
looking automobiles were awaiting us, into which we climbed, a
very close pack. The maids and valets had all been left behind at
Osages--think of asking Agnès to really rough it, even if there had been
room! So we had all to attend to the luggage, and were only allowed a
teeny hand bag each, with a nighty and comb and brush in it. Our hair
and faces were already grey with dust, and all sense of appearance had
been forgotten.
I sat between Lola and Nelson, with the little Vinerhorn and the
secretary in front of us, while the Senator was next our chauffeur, whom
they addressed as "Bob"--a friend, not an employé. The rest of the party
squashed into the other motors and so we started, ours leading over a
track, not a road; the sage brush had been removed, that was all, and
there were deep ruts to guide us. We flew along with a brilliant blue
sky overhead, high hills which presently grew mountainous on either
side, and what seemed an endless sea of greenish drab scrub before. Once
or twice we passed tired, weary-looking men plodding on foot, and I did
wish we could have picked them up and helped them along; but there was
not an inch of room. The ruts were so extremely deep that I certainly
should have been pitched out but that Nelson held me tight. Mr.
Vinerhorn frowned so when he held Lola, too, that he was obliged to
leave her alone, and I am sure she must have had a most uncomfortable
journey. I suppose this little Randolph has picked up that selfish
jealous trait in England with his clothes, only thinking of _his_
emotions, not his wife's comfort, quite unlike kind Americans. After
about an hour we began to go up the steepest hills on the winding track,
and got among pine trees and great boulders, up and up until the air
grew quite chill; and then as we turned a sharp corner the most unique
scene met our view. I told you before I can't describe scenery, Mamma,
but I must try this, because it was so wonderful, and reminded me of the
pictures in Paradise Lost illustrated by Doré, when the Devil looks down
on that weird world.
A grey-sand, flat place far below us, about fifty miles across,
surrounded by mountains turning blue in their shadows in the afternoon
light--it might have been a supremely vast Circus Maximus or giants'
race course, and there was the giant towering above the rest, with a
snow cap on his head, peeping from between the lower mountains. It
seemed it could not be possible we could descend to there, but we did,
the track getting more primitive as we went on, and once on the edge of
a precipice we met a waggon and team of eight mules driven by a Mexican
with a cracking whip, and getting past might have tried your nerves, but
no one notices such things in a country of this sort!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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