Now the oddest part of the whole affair is that he _did_ manage to do this. If any one looks at a map of the States, he will see that the direct and consequently the shortest route from New York to California is _viâ_ the Central Pacific Railway to San Francisco. The distance thus is about 3000 miles. By the route he sent me, and all the aspirants to become land-holders in the Antelope Valley, viz. _viâ_ New Orleans and the Southern Pacific railroad, the distance is, say, 4500 miles. Thus, 1500 miles out of the way! I did not realize when he offered me tickets by that southern line how much longer it was. Still a glance at the map showed me it was longer, and I objected. "Yes, it _is_ longer," he replied, "but I can get you tickets cheaper that way, and you will be far more comfortable." I assented. But I am surprised he succeeded with the others, as I am now that he did so with me--that none of the many, more suspicious than I am, did not fathom his object. But so it was. All who went to the happy valley travelled over that route, 1500 miles out of the way! Besides the extra distance, and consequent extra expense, there was another very serious disadvantage in summer (the time I did the journey) to the line he recommended. It is much farther south, and in consequence a great deal hotter. I suffered not a little therefrom. Others did the same, and as they dropped in by twos and threes, exhausted by the heat, and joined the exasperated and despairing prior arrivals in the valley, they cursed, in no measured terms, the man who had so deceived them. In two words, the Antelope Valley is a howling desert. Not a blade of grass, not a green tree, no trees at all. In this it is a perfect contrast to the swampy "Eden," so well described by Dickens in "Martin Chuzzlewit," but as regards the impossibility of making it a home, the two are alike. More on this head when we get there. I am not one of those to whom "money is no object;" quite the reverse, and more especially had I to study economy when I left for America. I therefore took second-class tickets from the said agent for the whole line from New York to San Francisco. The Antelope Valley is, by the route I was to travel, some 300 miles nearer, but I thought it better to go to the capital of California first, and get what I might want. He assured me I should have every comfort in the said second class, and the amount I paid him for the tickets, considering the enormous distance (I forget the sum), was not great. He told me I should not get a regular bed as in a Pullman car, but that if I took a small mattress and blankets, I should find room to lie down and sleep. The tickets he gave me were to be exchanged at New York for a rail-book, with coupons in it to carry me over the different lines.