WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
195
less expense than on any other route which has been designated or thought'of. We have heard of sandy deserts there imposing insuperable obstacles. Is there any route suggested that interposes no ob- stacles to the accomplishment of the work? None that I have heard of. It is remarkably singular that the obstacle which is regarded as insuperable, this dreary, sandy desert, this Arabian waste, as it has been termed, in which steam-cars and caravans are to be overwhelmed, is not actually known on that route at all. We have now a regular mail communication between El Paso and the Pacific ocean. If there are no facilities for a railroad on that route, how is it possible that mail-coaches could run regularly over it without impediment? That fact affords a practical refuta- tion of this assumption, which is unfounded in fact.· Why need this interpose an objection so as to rule out from the general provisions of this bill a section of country that possesses equal, if not greater advantages than any other for this work? By the route which I have suggested you are afforded through the Mississippi river, from the point where the Red river empties into it, egress to the Atlantic and the Gulf. From that point, too, you can communicate with the South when you cannot from St. Louis, because the ice-bound condition of the Mississippi at that point precludes navigation, and you are totally dependant on transportation by cars from St. Louis. The mouth of the Red river is never obstructed by ice, nor does it ever offer any ob- struction at any point.on the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio river. From the mouth of the Ohio you can communicate with the North and East; and from Memphis and Vicksburg with the whole South. At the terminus of this route, you have all the facilities of water transportation which, in point of cheap- ness, very far surpasses railroad transportation. But, sir, if you terminate the road at St. Louis, where the river is ice-bound at this time of the year, and where commerce must of necessity be arrested, how will the people of the Gulf or of the lower part of the Mississippi have communication with it? Must you trans- port articles to some point south of the Ohio river, and thence radiate through the whole southern country? Is that the way? Sir, you have the opportunity of accommodating all by locating the terminus at the mouth of the Red river, and there the whole commercial world is open to you; all the facilities that arise from railroad and water transportation are afforded to every section of the country north of it; but if you bring the road to St. Louis,
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