KEEPING OUR END UP.

Western Star, Issue 827, 19 March 1884, Page 4

KEEPING OUR END UP.

As last Tuesday’s west-hound train 1 passed Cape Horn, a large party if Englishmen, of lhe“ direct-from-Lun-non ” variety, crowded out on the platform and loudly expressed their dissatisfaction at the scenery, which was “ not at all up to the guide-books, you know, by Jove.” As they returned to their seats to ■ enjoy a jolly good British all-round i grumble, entirely oblivious of the in- | dignant glances of the native pa^sen-j gers, a racek-looking, gentle-voiced journalist from ’Fiisco approached from the other end of the car and volunteered to give the tourists some valuable facts concerning the countrv. In an ingenious an I plaudhle wiy, he answered their questions in a manner that reduced our critics from over-the-poud to a condition of amazement, not to say awe. The next;-morning -the journalist was informed by the porter that a commiitee of gemlern n wished to see him in t’ e baggage car. As he entered the latter, h - found a dozen travellers, all native, and to the manner horn, waiting to receive him. hat in hand. The spokesman advanced and said : “ You are the party who was giving those globe-trotters in the rear sleeper some pointers about the coast, 1 believe?”

“I am, sir,” said the quill-driver, modestly. “Ton told them, I understand,” continued the chairman, that. “ Mount Shasta was 76,000 feet high ?’’ “ The same.” “You divulged the well-known fact that trains on this road were often detained four days by herds of buffalo, and that they frequently have to use a Gatling gun on the cow-catch'r to prevent the locomotive being pushed off the track by grizzly bears ?” “ Yes, sir.” “You further acquainted them with the circumstance that the Digger Indians live to the average of 204, and that the rarification of the air on the plains is such that an ordinary pin looks like i a telegraph pole at a distance of 42 miles ?” : “ I think I wedged that in,” responded the newspaper man. “ Are we informed that they all made a memorandum of your statement that at the Palace Hotel an average of two waiters per day were shot by the guests for bringing cold soup —eh ?” “ They diil.” “ And, finally, we believe that you are the originator of that beautiful—that b-e-a-iitifnl—er—fact regarding that fallen redwood tree up at Mariposa —I mean the hollow rue into which the six-horse stage drives, and comes out of a knot-hole 165 feet further along!” ‘ I told them all about it.” “ Just so | jnaftfn I” said the commit-tee-man, g'as.mg the patriot’s hand and rjrjducing a well-filled buckskin bag, *iand lam instructed by this committee of tour fellow countrymen to present you w’ith this slight token of our appreciation of the noble manner in which you have vindicated the honor of our native land ; God bless you, sir!” —“ Travellers’ Magazine.”