Three big overland trains passed through in
either direction, the interim being filled in with the switching of
cars, accompanied apparently with a most unnecessary ringing of bells
and piercing shrieks from whistles. Since our hotel was not more than a
hundred and fifty feet from the main line, with no intervening buildings
to temper the noises, sleep of any consequence was an utter
impossibility.
Few Californians are aware, probably, that a considerable amount of
tobacco is raised in the foothills of the Sierras. At Colfax, I smoked a
very fair cigar made from tobacco grown in the vicinity, and
manufactured in the town.
I think we were both glad to leave Colfax. Apart from a nerve-racking
night, the mere proximity of the railroad with its accompanying
associations served constantly to bring to mind all that I had fled to
the mountains to escape. Yet I cannot bring myself to agree with those
who profess to brand a railroad "a blot on the landscape." The enormous
engines which pull the overland trains up the heavy grades of the Sierra
Nevada impress one by their size, strength and suggestion of reserve
power, as not being out of harmony with the forces of Nature they are
constructed to contend with and overcome.
This thought occurred to us as we watched a passenger train slowly
winding its way around the famous Cape Horn, some four miles from
Colfax. Although several miles in an air line intervened, one seemed to
feel the vibrations in the air caused by the panting monster, while
great jets of steam shot up above the pine trees. I confess to a sense
of elation at the spectacle. Nature in some of her moods seems so
malignant, that I felt proud of this magnificent exhibition of man's
victory over the obstacles she so well knows how to interpose.
The road between Colfax and Grass Valley - the next stopping place on
our itinerary - lay through so lovely a country that we passed through
it as in a dream. Descending into the valley we were joined by several
small boys, attracted, I suppose, by our - to them - unusual costume and
equipment, who plied us with questions. They asked if "we carried a
message for the mayor," and were visibly disappointed when we regretted
we had overlooked that formality. For several minutes they kept us busy
trying to give truthful answers to most unexpected questions. They had
never heard of Tuolumne and wanted to know if it was in California.
Their world, in fact, was bounded by Colfax on the south and Nevada City
on the north.
Grass Valley received its name from the meadow in which the town, for
the most part, is situated.
