assed
unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was
permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent
the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and
I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I
was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the
second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into
another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself
that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four
English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were
going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required
to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at
Fontainbleau, and so we moved off.

The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more
expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into
apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight
persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal
length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two
passengers, one-half must inevitably ride backward. I believe the
second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their
acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet
some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are
apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My
companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate
smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them,
then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon
near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the
atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and
went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules
posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or
decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women
are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by
the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it.

The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level
region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a
range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and
sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is ne