OMAHA, Saturday, October 19.
All aboard for "Frisco!"
A train of three Pullmans, all well filled - but what is this shift made for, at the last moment, when we thought we were off? Another car to be attached, carrying to the Pacific coast Rarus and Sweetzer, the fastest trotter and pacer, respectively, in the world. How we advance! Shades of Flora Temple and "2.40 on the plank road!" That was the cry when first I took to horses - that is, to owning them. At a much earlier age I was stealing a ride on every thing within reach that had four legs and could go. One takes to horseflesh by inheritance. Rarus now goes in 2.13-1/4, and Ten Broeck beats Lexington's best time many seconds. I saw him do it. And so in this fast age, second by second, we gain upon old Father Time. Even since this was written more than another second has been knocked off. America leads the world in trotters, and will probable do so in running horses as well, when we begin to develop them in earnest. Our soft roads are favorable for speed; the English roads would ruin a fast horse.
We traverse all day a vast prairie watered by the Platte. Nothing could be finer: such fields of corn standing ungathered, such herds of cattle grazing at will! It is a superb day, and the russet-brown mantle in which Nature arrays herself in the autumn never showed to better advantage; but in all directions we see the prairies on fire. Farmers burn them over as the easiest mode of getting rid of the rank weeds and undergrowth; but it seems a dangerous practice. They plough a strip twenty to thirty feet in width around their houses, barns, hay-stacks, etc., and depend upon the flames not overleaping this barrier.
Third night out, and we are less fatigued than at the beginning. The first night upon a sleeping-car is the most fatiguing. Each successive one is less wearisome, and ere the fifth or sixth comes you really rest well. So much for custom!
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