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Collection: Books and Periodicals
Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)
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Page: of 423
108 IMPRESSIVE SCENERY.
bound for the uttermost parts of the earth, for all we
could see that was to stop them.
To sit behind four horses tearing along a good
road is delightful at any time, but the mere fact of .
such rapid locomotion formed only a small part of
the pleasure of our journey.
' The atmosphere was so soft and balmy that it was .
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a positive enjoyment to feel it brushing over one’s
face like the finest floss silk. The sky was clear and
cloudless, the bright sunshine warmed us up to a
comfortable temperature; and we were travelling
over such an expanse of nature that our progress,
rapid as it was, seemed hardly perceptible, unless
measured by the fast disappearing chimney tops of
the city, or by the occasional clumps of trees we left
behind us. ‘The scene all round us was magnificent,
and impressed one as much with his own insignificance as though he beheld the countries of the earth
from the summit of a high mountain.
Out of sight of land at sea one experiences a certain feeling of isolation : there is nothing to connect
one’s ideas with the habitable globe but the ship on
which one stands ; but there is also nothing to carry
the imagination beyond what one does see, and the
view is limited to a few miles. But here, we were
upon an ocean of grass-covered earth, dotted with
trees, and sparkling in the sunshine with the gorgeous hues of the dense patches of wild flowers ;
while far beyond the horizon of the plains there rose
mountains beyond mountains, all so distinctly seen
as to leave no uncertainty as to the shape or the