Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/586

578, and most perfect climate. But if we linger too long in Border land we shall not penetrate the region beyond. A day of delight I spent in San Antonio, and then, as I had returned this distance northward merely to make connection with another portion of Old Mexico, I took train westward for Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras.

Two vast systems, the Gould, or "Missouri Pacific," coming down from Saint Louis, and the Huntington-Pierce combination, the connecting link in the lengthy chain between San Francisco and New Orleans, meet here and cross. The "Sunset Route"—as this eastern division of the southern transcontinental line is called—owes its existence and success to the indomitable pluck, faith, and energy of Col. T. W. Pierce, of Massachusetts, who long ago, when railroads were almost unknown in Texas, projected the "Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio" road, from the Gulf of Mexico to the great plains, stretching away, vast and unknown, in the direction of the Western Ocean. Mile by mile, almost foot by foot, struggling against difficulties almost insuperable, this road was steadily pushed forward, until it at last reached San Antonio, and its engineers were received with ovations by the delighted inhabitants. Thence it sped westward into the region of sunset, taking its course through a fertile belt of counties; and perhaps might not have stopped this side of the Pacific itself, had not expediency suggested a halt. Eastward, feeling its way cautiously at first, but later progressing by impetuous leaps, another road was aiming to cross the vast Texan prairies. Another man, world-renowned for sagacity and bold emprise, C. P. Huntington, the Railroad King of California, had his eye upon this same territory. The result was a compromise, and the "Southern Pacific" completed the connections which made the Crescent City a neighbor to the Golden Gate. This gigantic enterprise, by which the East and West were united by a perennial route with a summer climate, was only perfected, and the last spike driven, four months previous to my journey over it. Yet here I was, rolling smoothly along, without jolt or jar, over a road perfect in every appointment, and in a train