d bursting with
health, begged it might be closed as "It was so cold:" the thermometer,
I am sure, was ranging, within the car, from ninety to a hundred
degrees. He then tried to hector and bully, and finding that of no use,
he appealed to the guard. I claimed my right, and further pleaded the
necessity of fresh air, not merely for comfort, but for very life. As my
friend expressed the same sentiments, the cantankerous Hector was left
to sulk; and I must own to a malicious satisfaction, when, soon after,
two ladies came in, and seating themselves on the bench abreast of mine,
opened their window, and placed Hector in a thorough draught, which,
while gall and wormwood to him, was balm of Gilead to me. As I freely
criticise American habits, &c., during my travels, it is but just I
should state, that Hector was the only one of his countrymen I ever met
who was wilfully offensive and seemed to wish to insult.

The engineering on this road was so contrived, that we had to go through
an operation, which to me was quite novel--viz., being dragged by wire
ropes up one of the Alleghany hills, and eased down the other side. The
extreme height is sixteen hundred feet; and it is accomplished by five
different stationary engines, each placed on a separate inclined plane,
the highest of which is two thousand six hundred feet above the level of
the sea. The want of proper arrangement and sufficient hands made this a
most dilatory and tedious operation. Upon asking why so 'cute and
go-ahead a people had tolerated such bad engineering originally, and
such dilatory arrangements up to the present hour, I was answered, "Oh,
sir, that's easily explained; it is a government road and a monopoly,
but another road is nearly completed, by which all this will be avoided;
and, as it is in the hands of a company, there will be no delay
then."--How curious it is, the way governments mess such things when
they undertake them! I could not help thinking of the difference between
our own government mails from Marseilles to Malta, &c., and the glorious
steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, that carry on the same
mails from Malta.--But to return from my digression.

I was astonished to see a thing like a piece of a canal-boat descending
one of these inclined planes on a truck; nor was my astonishment
diminished when I found that it really was part of a canal-boat, and
that the remaining portions were following in the rear. The boats are
made,