Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/118

Rh where water is not to be found for twenty, thirty or forty miles, but in whose “Valle de los Angelos,” the heat of the tropics ripens tropical fruits; finally, by California, with its gold-bearing rivers, its Rocky Mountains full of gold, its many extraordinary natural productions, its Sierra Nevada with eternal snows, its great Salt-Lake, on the borders of which the Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, have established themselves in an extensive valley, the fertility of which, and the delicious climate of which, are said to rival those of Caucasus and Peru—and where equally, within these regions, exist all the natural requisites for the development of a perfected humanity. California, the greatest of all the States of the New World, a new world yet to be discovered, full of beautiful sights and pictures of horror; where the people from the East and the West pour in, seeking for the Gold of Ophir! California, which for its eastern boundary has the wild steppe-land of Nebraska, the hunting-ground of the wild Indian tribes, and on the other side the Pacific Ocean—that great Pacific Ocean, whose waves are said to strike with such regular pulsation against the shore, and with such mighty power, that its thundering sound is heard to a great distance, and the air and the leaves of the trees tremble far inland. Behold,—all this and still more such—as the prospects opened by Panama and the regions of Central America, where the people of the United States are now digging canals and laying down railroads to unite the oceans,—all this is a new and invigorating spectacle, and it is presented in the Congress of the United States. In the discussions, on the contrary, I see nothing new. I see in them the same bitterness and injustice between political parties as in the kingdoms of Europe; the same distrust of each other's honesty of purpose; the same passions, great and small; and in debate the same determination to carry their point, to have their rights, cost what it will; the same misunderstanding and personality,