Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years
History
Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years
Railroads
“Those who had not his courage and strength were compelled to endure the
cars. Americans are not folks to whine about a trouble; they succeed so
often that their faith is strong. Though the most luxurious of people,
the men—and the women too—can bear reverses nobly. But they never dream
of Oriental submissiveness. They struggle hard to rise, and make the
best of things till a change comes. So with those in the cars. They
soon found amusements; they chatted and laughed, played games and sang;
the best jokes were recollected and repeated, and the liveliest tales
were told; charades were acted; a judge and jury scene afforded much
amusement; lectures were given to approving assemblies. The Sundays were
decently observed, and services were held morning and evening; reading
was dispensed with, and the sermons were extempore perforce.
“The worst part of their sufferings came when for forty-eight hours they
were under a snow-shed without light, and with the stoves empty. As, for
the maintenance of warmth, every crevice in the cars was stopped, the
misery of close and unwholesome atmosphere was added to their sorrows.
The writer, as an old traveller, has had some experience of odd sleeping
dens, and has been obliged at times to inhale a pestiferous air, though
he has never endured so much from this discomfort as in his winter
passage on the Pacific Railway. For hours in the long nights, as well as
in the day, he preferred standing outside on the platform, with the
thermometer from fifteen to twenty-five below zero, rather than encounter
the foul atmosphere and stifling heat within.
“Meanwhile the brave Chinamen were summoned to the rescue. They are
capital fellows to withstand the cold, and work with a will to clear a
passage. For a distance of two hundred miles the blockade existed, and
several trains were thus caught on the way. Eight hundred freight wagons
were detained at Cheyenne. At one period the cold was 30° below zero.
The worst part of the road was toward Sherman, 8,252 feet above the sea.
Wyoming and West Nebraska were the coldest regions.
“In this great blockade, strange to say, the mortality was but small.
Three died during the imprisonment, and two in consequence of cold. But
an interesting compensation was made, for five births took place in this
season of trial. The principal sufferers were those in the second-class
carriages. Room, however, was made for the more delicate in the already
crowded first-class cars.”
A SELL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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