The scenery of the upper Platte is constantly changing, the river
presenting more the appearance of a genuine mountain stream.
Its banks are here and there heavily fringed with timber, rich grass
grows luxuriantly in the flat bottoms, and the dark bluffs which
bound them form a beautiful background, interspersed occasionally
by snow-capped peaks.
In little more than the third of a century the vast area of desert-waste
comprising the valley of the Platte, and beyond, has been transmuted
by that most effective of civilizers the railroad, into great states.
On the terra incognita there have appeared large cities and towns,
whose genesis is a marvel in the history of nations. Peace has
spread her white wings over the bloody sands of the trail, whose
sublime silence but a short time since was so often broken by the
diabolical whoop of the savage, as he wretched the reeking scalp from
the head of his enemy. Where it required many weeks of dangerous,
tedious travel to cross the weary pathway to the mountains, now, in
all the luxuriance of modern American railway service, the traveller
is whirled along at the rate of fifty miles all hour, and where it
required many days for the transmission of news, the events of the
whole civilized world, as they hourly occur, are flashed from ocean
to ocean in a few seconds.
The islands, bluffs, and isolated peaks of the trail have clustering
around them many thrilling legends, stories, and events; some of them
reaching far backward into the dim light of tradition; others having
happened within the memory of men now living.
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