Books with author Russell W Flint

After passing Lordsburgh, a desolate spot in the desert, there appeared a beautiful mirage. The sand became a sheet of water, waveless and mirror-like, and in it we saw reflected in trenchant outline the mountain range beyond. "It must be water! it is water!" exclaimed an unbelieving director. And, lo! as he spoke the "dust devils" rose and danced along the face of the sea; in another minute the vision was gone; the dazzling sand, white, blank and dull, mocked our senses. This was near Stein's Pass, up which the train of nine carriages was climbing—"the heaviest train that has gone over yet," said the triumphant conductor. "But we thought we'd try it." Each waggon weighed 30 tons. The Pass is three miles long, and we were working at a grade of 74 feet with a 19-inch cylinder engine.Between Pyramid Station and San Simon (stant nomina umbrarum—the names of mere shadows of stations) the western border of New Mexico is crossed, and we enter the great Territory of Arizona, which lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.It is bounded by New Mexico on the east, by Mexico on the south, by Utah and Nevada on the north and north-west, and by California in continuation of the western boundary. It is as large as New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware together. Whom it belonged to first, so far as occupation constitutes possession, I know not; but the Spaniards owned and neglected it for more than three centuries before the Americans possessed it. In 1848 and 1853 the regions now forming Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada were ceded by the descendants of the Spanish conquerors to the conquering Anglo-American. It would need weeks of assiduous travel to explore the portion of Arizona where the most interesting ruins in America, the cities of the Zoltecs or the Aztecs—for the experts differ respecting their origin—are to be found. The weight of authority and of recent investigation leads one to believe that the Aztecs were not the builders of these ruined cities. Humboldt, indeed, believed that they were; but, as Mr. Hinton remarks, in his capital little handbook, which I recommend to prospectors, emigrants, tourists, and travellers, "to suppose such an utter abandonment of settled habitations, it will be necessary to suppose some strange impelling reasons, either in climate or other causes, that must have amounted to a catastrophe. An hypothesis which would leave a whole race able to conquer an empire, and to preserve power enough to abandon without destruction their old homes, implies conditions and forces without a known historical parallel." The conclusion that many native cities were flourishing when the Spaniards arrived in America may, perhaps, be questioned. There is a distinctive character about them, differing from that of the Mississippi mounds, the Central American pyramids, or the ruined cities of Yucatan.

On the 16th of April last, in pursuance of an arrangement to that effect which was entered into some months earlier with the Duke of Sutherland, a small party of gentlemen and one lady left Liverpool in the Cunard Company's steamer "Gallia," with the object of making a tour in the United States. Previous to their departure, Mr. Henry Crosfield, the Auditor of the London and North-Western Railway Company, had been in communication with friends in America, and had in concert with them sketched out a general scheme to enable the visitors to traverse the Atlantic States, to extend their journey westwards and to obtain the best possible view of the country in the limited space of time at their disposal. Although all were "on pleasure bent," those of the tourists who had interests in railways on this side of the world were naturally anxious to study the modes of management which were practised on the principal lines as closely as such a hurried journey would allow them; but the main object of the travellers was "to see the States"—to behold with their own eyes the natural features of the vast continent which is exercising a rapidly increasing influence on Great Britain and Europe itself, and to view the manners and customs of the great nation which even in its present enormous development gives only the indications of a lusty youth, promising a manhood of irresistible vigour and strength in time to come if the body politic fulfils its early hope. To be sure, the inspection could not be very close, minute, or protracted. Shooting flying is not an art given to all people, and the contemplation of man at a hotel or in a street, as one looks around in the dining-room or out of a railway train, does not afford satisfactory foundation for solid knowledge or comfortable conviction. But we had to do the best we could. There were for most of us the attractions in the journey which novelty possesses. There were pleasures in anticipation in the sight of the wonderful cities which man has made and of the grand natural spectacles which God has created, and these pleasures were, I may say now, enjoyed most fully. For my own part, having no railway interests except those I share with so many others in being carried safely, swiftly, and cheaply, by the lines to which I entrust myself for conveyance, and having formerly been in the United States, my chief desire was to revive, if not the pleasures of memory, at least the recollections of a country in which I had spent many months of the deepest interest and excitement, and where I made friends whose affection and support were of invaluable assistance and comfort to me when I much needed them at a period of terrible trial. I was also eager to observe what changes had been effected since the close of the Civil War, of one great incident of which I had an unfortunate experience, and to revisit scenes the chief features of which had not been effaced from my recollection by the lapse of nigh twenty years. The expedition was undertaken under excellent auspices. From all quarters of the United States, as soon as our intention was made known, there had come not only expressions of satisfaction and offers of assistance, but an actual competition in good offices, and amid the friendly requests of the great Railway Corporations on the other side of the Atlantic that the visitors would avail themselves of the resources of their Companies the only difficulty lay in the choice of contending routes. Tenders of palace cars and special trains, of receptions and banquets, poured in on all sides; but the programme for our journey was drawn up with a due regard to the number of hours at the disposal of the travellers, and ere they set out from England, the very day of their return from New York had been determined.

Captain Jackman is a veteran sailor of "The Lovelace" returning to England after a long voyage to the East Indies. Ada Conway is the beautiful daughter of an esteemed British Royal Navy Commander.After a chance encounter inside an abandoned smuggler's tunnel known as "The Devil's Walk", these two characters embark on a forbidden love affair beneath the cavernous seaside cliffs. However, the existence of the relationship between this unlikely pairing is threatened by the social conventions of Victorian England as Ava struggles to satisfy the wishes and expectations of her traditional upper-class parents.Within this classic nautical tale from William Clark Russel unfolds a romantic adventure complicated by secrets of a bountiful treasure and ambitious pirates seeking to steal a fortune by any means neccessary. Captain Jackman and Ava are determined to overcome the obstacles to their love and desires at all costs.