The
weather is so hot, that as yesterday, at St. Paul's, where we also
had to spend a whole day, we have never summoned up courage to go
beyond the door.
It was suggested we might take the tram and go up
into the City; but E - - has a notion that one city is much like
another, particularly on a hot day.
It is curious how Americans live in hotels; there are several
families in this, and if my letter is not very intelligible you
must forgive me, as I am writing in the grand corridor to try and
catch the slight draughts of air blowing through, at the same time
that half a dozen children are playing up and down.
The scenery yesterday from St. Paul's all along the banks of the
Missouri was very pretty. We both of us sat outside the Pullman as
long as daylight lasted, feasting our eyes oh the water, trees,
etc. The height and luxuriance of the latter seemed quite
incomprehensible after the total absence of forest scenery for so
many months. It is pretty round here; and by the time we get to
the Rocky Mountains we shall have got beyond the stage of thinking
a hillock a mountain, and fairish-sized trees not so wonderful
after all; but at the present moment we are in that pleasing
state, ready to admire anything and everything. We hope to get to
Denver on Saturday night, and rest there Sunday and part of
Monday, and we also hope to get to Church there. Mike offered to
drive us into Warren last Sunday; but as the service was a Swedish
Presbyterian, we didn't think we should be much edified.
* * * * *
DENVER, August 2lst.
We arrived here Saturday evening, very tired and not at all sorry
to exchange the Pullman for a comfortable room and bed, which we
had telegraphed for, and therefore not, like so many of our
fellow-passengers, obliged to seek shelter elsewhere. The
Pullman's are most comfortable, and for a long journey like ours
nothing could be so good; but I am glad that in England we don't
have either these or the ordinary American car in general use. The
publicity is so odious, and one does get bored by the passengers
constantly wandering up and down the train, and the boys who pass
and repass every ten minutes selling books, newspapers, cigars,
candy, and the unripest of fruit, which they are always pressing
you to buy; to say nothing of chewing, spitting Americans one has
to countenance all day long. The last four-and-twenty hours of our
journey have been very tiring. The scenery has been so monotonous;
endless long undulating plains like the waves of the sea, covered
with grass quite dried up, a few flowers, and a bee-shaped cactus.
The heat was very oppressive, a hot sirocco, wind blowing which;
obliged us to keep our windows shut on account of the fine
alkaline dust.
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