While travelling across the Rockies and the desert to San Francisco and back, our course of life was pretty uniform, and one day followed another with almost perfect resemblance in the mode of existence and in all things except the scenery and the country through which we were passing. First, in the early morning came one of the attendants to our bedside with a cup of coffee, and then the curtains of the little cubicle were thrown aside and you looked out on either plain, or mountain, or river, or col; and on the faces of early risers at doors or windows as the train passed through some rising town. At one end of the saloon there was a bath-room, and from the tank there was always to be obtained sufficient water for the purpose of an early dip, which was enjoyed as occasion offered in turn by the party. Then a cigarette. Then we dropped in as people do at a country house, into the sitting-room, and exchanged ideas as to the progress made during the night, and the stoppages, wondered where we were, and had a little conversation with the conductor or Arthur as to the place where we could stop or get the papers--and so got over the morning till 9 o'clock, when breakfast was announced, consisting of fish, poultry, meat, fruit (I had nearly said flowers, for there was always a bouquet on the table), tea, coffee, and cold dishes, with abundance of milk and butter. Where the fish came from and how they were kept fresh was matter of wonder, for the instances were very rare in which there was any indication that it had not quite recently come out of the sea or the river. The supply of ice was liberal and unfailing, and whenever we stopped at any considerable station the whole disposable strength of the attendants in the train was employed in grappling with large blocks of it and stowing it away in the ice reservoir, in which were the larder and the cellar for such wines as needed cooling, and for the vegetables and meat, of which there were great stores constantly laid in. Then after breakfast there was reading or sight-seeing, investigating the line, examining the maps, receiving visits and returning them in other parts of the train, till in the very hot days it was necessary, after expelling the flies, which were troublesome on occasion, to draw the dust-blinds and the curtains of the carriages, to mitigate the fierceness of the sun. It was objected occasionally that by this process we deprived ourselves of the opportunity of what was called "seeing the country," but after all a glance now and then is quite sufficient to reveal the general character of the districts through which the train is running; and the most diligent and painstaking observer cannot keep his eyes fixed steadily for a day on the external aspects of the region through which he is travelling. I should be sorry to declare that every one was wide awake all the time of the forenoon and up to the period of lunch, which too often exceeded