Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/307

 retained an extreme reserve, ready at the least suspicion to choke his old friend.

An hour after the starting of the train a fine snow commenced to fall, which fortunately could not delay the progress of the train. Through the windows nothing was seen but an immense white sheet, against which the clouds of steam from the locomotive looked grayish.

At eight o'clock a steward entered the car, and announced to the passengers that the hour for retiring had come. This was a sleeping car, which in a few minutes was transformed into a dormitory. The backs of the seats unfolded, beds carefully packed away were unrolled by an ingenious system, berths were improvised in a few moments, and each passenger had soon at his disposal a comfortable bed, which thick curtains protected from all indiscreet looks. The sheets were clean and the pillows soft. Nothing more to be done but to lie down and sleep—which everyone did, as if he had been in the comfortable cabin of a steamer—while the train moved on under full head of steam across the State of California.

In that portion of the country between San Francisco and Sacramento the ground is not very hilly. This portion of the railroad, under the name of the Central Pacific, originally had Sacramento for its starting point, and went towards the east to meet that starting from Omaha. From San Francisco to the capital of California, the line ran directly to the northeast, along American river, which empties into San Pablo Bay. The one hundred and twenty miles included between these two important cities were accomplished in six hours, and towards midnight, while they were getting their first sleep, the travelers passed through Sacramento.

It was seven o'clock in the morning when Cisco Station was passed. An hour afterwards the dormitory had become an ordinary car, and the passengers could get through the windows a glimpse of the picturesque views of this mountainous country. The route of the train followed the windings of the Sierra, here clinging to the sides of the mountains, there suspended above precipices, avoiding sharp angles by bold curves, plunging into narrow gorges from which there seemed to be no exit. The locomotive, flashing fire like a chased animal, its large smoke-pipe throwing