Little Children
And Tender, Pulpy People, As Well As Storm-Seasoned Explorers, May Now
Go Almost Everywhere In Smooth Comfort,
Cross oceans and deserts
scarce accessible to fishes and birds, and, dragged by steel horses,
go up high mountains, riding
Gloriously beneath starry showers of
sparks, ascending like Elijah in a whirlwind and chariot of fire.
First of the wonders of the great West to be brought within reach of
the tourist were the Yosemite and the Big Trees, on the completion of
the first transcontinental railway; next came the Yellowstone and icy
Alaska, by the northern roads; and last the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, which, naturally the hardest to reach, has now become, by a
branch of the Santa Fe, the most accessible of all.
Of course, with this wonderful extension of steel ways through our
wildness there is loss as well as gain. Nearly all railroads are
bordered by belts of desolation. The finest wilderness perishes as if
stricken with pestilence. Bird and beast people, if not the dryads,
are frightened from the groves. Too often the groves also vanish,
leaving nothing but ashes. Fortunately, nature has a few big places
beyond man's power to spoil - the ocean, the two icy ends of the globe,
and the Grand Canyon.
When I first heard of the Santa Fe trains running to the edge of the
Grand Canyon of Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the
disenchantment likely to follow. But last winter, when I saw those
trains crawling along through the pines of the Coconino Forest and
close up to the brink of the chasm at Bright Angel, I was glad to
discover that in the presence of such stupendous scenery they are
nothing.
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