In the compulsory solitude of travel a man is thrown back upon himself:  at any rate, I am, and with waning courage and a growing regret I sank into a corner of my seat by the window, and glowered at the interminable slices of landscape that slid past me on both sides of the rocking train.  Have you ever noted the refrain of the flying wheels as they hurry from town to town?  There is a sharp shriek from the locomotive, and a groan from one end of the train to the other, as if every screw were rheumatic and nothing but a miracle held it in its place.  Then the song begins, very slowly at first, and in the old familiar strain:  “Ko—­ka—­chi—­lunk, ko—­ka—­chilunk, koka—­chilunk, kokachilunk,” repeated again and again, varied only when the short rails are crossed, where it adds a few extra syllables in this style:  “Kokachilunk—­chilunk, chilunk,” growing faster and faster every moment until the utmost speed is attained:  it then soars into this impressive refrain:  “Lickity-cut, lickity-cut, lickity-cut, lickity-cut,” repeated as often and as rapidly as possible.  All the world goes by in two dizzy landscapes, yet the song is unvaried until you approach a town with a straggling and unfinished edge, where the houses are waltzing about as if they had not yet decided upon any permanent location.  Here you slacken speed and drop into a third movement, as monotonous as the others and far more drowsy, for it suggests all that is soothing and nerve-relaxing and sleep-begetting.  It is “Killi-kinick, killi—­kinick, killi—­kin—­nick; eh! ah! bang!” A long groan from the wheels, a deep sigh from the locomotive, and you are stockstill at some inland hamlet that knows no emotion greater than that occasioned by your arrival.

To this dull accompaniment I climbed out of the golden lowlands, the basins of the San Joaquin and the Sacramento, into the silver mountains where the full moon was just rising.  The train seemed to soar through space; we passed from cliff to cliff, above dark ravines, on bridges like spider-webs; we whirled around sharp corners as if we had started for some planet, but thought better of it and clung to earth, with our hair on end and half the breath out of our bodies.  We were continually ascending; the locomotive panted hideously; every throb of the powerful machine sent a shudder through the whole length of the train.

Again and again we paused:  it seemed that we could not go farther without rest.  Sometimes we hung on the edge of a chasm in whose fathomless shadow were buried a forest and a stream, both of which sent upward to us a fragrant and melodious greeting; sometimes we rested under a mighty mountain, whose adamantine brow scowled upon us, and we were glad when we once more resumed the toilsome ascent of the Sierras and escaped unharmed from that giant’s lair.