The railway is now going to cross several deep gullies on wooden trestle-bridges. These bridges appear frail and weak for the purpose, the valleys being deep, and the trains so heavy. They creak and groan ominously as the train passes on them. Water-butts and a watcher are stationed on them, in case of fire from a spark of the engine. The Stony Creek Bridge, over a sleep V-shaped valley, is one of the loftiest railway bridges in the world; hundreds of square yards of timber were used in its construction, and it rests on three piers, 295 feet above the ravine. We have enchanting peeps up these bright green gullies, with their noisy rills jumping and scrambling down anyhow, so long as they reach the bottom of the valley, and we rush to one side of the car to be pleased by this, and then to the other, to be frightened by gazing into space.
Roger's Pass, the culminating beauty of the Selkirks--named after the engineer--is approaching. There are two mountains, Mount Macdonald and Mount Hermit, but they are so mighty, that if you have not seen them you have no chance of picturing them to yourself. To give you some idea of their colossal proportions, Mount Macdonald is one mile and a quarter in a vertical line above the railway. The bottom is a stone's throw from the car. Mount Hermit is equal in size on the other side. These mountains were united, but some great convulsion of nature has split them apart. This is a moment in your existence, and you would give much to prolong it; the scene is indescribable. The other mountains of this pass are covered with snow, and seven or eight thousand feet above us are many glistening glaciers, pure as crystal.
It is sad that this part of the line is spoilt by the snow-sheds, constructed of massive timber, and into which we are shot and blinded with smoke and coal grit, emerging frequently to get glimpses of these wonderful mountains, with their pale-blue and green glaciers hanging above us,--glimpses which are imprinted on the memory for long, as we shoot into another of these exasperating snow-sheds. It is ungrateful to grumble at them, for the difficulties of this part of the line, with snow in winter, are enormous, and we must always bear in mind that were it not for the enterprise of the Company we should not at this moment be sitting comfortably in a car, passing through the finest scenery in the world. There may be grander, but it has yet to be discovered.