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A Tramp Across the Continent QUOTES

A Tramp Across the Continent QUOTES

1 " Not far back into the foothills from Colorado Springs begins the Garden of the Gods — a wonderland fitly named. Here, walled in by rock-bound peaks, is a wild glen of 2000 acres, and in it, amid the murmuring pines, a hundred colossal towers and castles, pinnacles and battlements hewn by time from the deep red sandstone. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

2 " Walking and I were on good terms now, and every day scored from thirty to forty miles; but that spurt from Ellsworth to Ellis was the longest day's walk I ever made. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

3 " Here I got rid of one of the most troublesome parts of my load — trading my venerable and battered Winchester rifle for a splendid new Colt's six-shooter with all its trappings — a perfect weapon which has since seen me through many a "close call." The exchange was a most welcome relief, and as for effectiveness, I soon got so handy with the new arm that there was no need for the rifle. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

4 " The labors of Father Junipero Serra and other Franciscans on the coast, nearly a couple of centuries later, were heroic, but in no way comparable to the incredible achievements of the devoted frailes who penetrated and subdued the incomparable deserts of the Southwest with their ferocious savage tribes. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

5 " When I pulled off my shoes from tired feet that night, I had walked since leaving Cincinnati in my roundabout course a fraction over 3507 miles. I had been out one hundred and forty-three days, and had crossed eight States and Territories, nearly all of them along their greatest length. My arm had knitted perfectly, and in a few days more was out of its bandages. It was a good job of amateur surgery, and is fully as straight and as strong as its mate. The longest and happiest "tramp" ever made for pure pleasure was over; and at nine o'clock next morning I was in the harness, as city editor of the Los Angeles Daily Times. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

6 " Here also I killed my first centipede — a hideous fellow, six inches long, a quarter of an inch across the back, and with about a hundred bow-legs, each tipped with a black fang. Let one walk across your hand undisturbed, and he leaves a highly inflamed red track. Hit him during that march, and he will sink those hundred fangs into your flesh, and it will rot away and drop from the bones. Rattlesnakes and huge, hairy "bush-spiders" are also common enough; "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent

7 " Are there not railroads and Pullmans enough, that you must walk? That is what a great many of my friends said when they learned of my determination to travel from Ohio to California on foot; and very likely it is the question that will first come to your mind in reading of the longest walk for pure pleasure that is on record. "

― Charles F. Lummis , A Tramp Across the Continent