oals, which are its
oats, were under the bench, and there was a small glass tube
affixed to the boiler, with water in it, which indicates by its
fullness or emptiness when the creature wants water, which is
immediately conveyed to it from its reservoirs. There is a chimney
to the stove, but as they burn coke there is none of the dreadful
black smoke which accompanies the progress of a steam vessel. This
snorting little animal, which I felt rather inclined to pat, was
then harnessed to our carriage, and, Mr. Stephenson having taken me
on the bench of the engine with him, we started at about ten miles
an hour. The steam-horse being ill adapted for going up and down
hill, the road was kept at a certain level, and appeared sometimes
to sink below the surface of the earth, and sometimes to rise above
it. Almost at starting it was cut through the solid rock, which
formed a wall on either side of it, about sixty feet high. You
can't imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus,
without any visible cause of progress other than the magical
machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying
pace, between these rocky walls, which are already clothed with
moss and ferns and grasses; and when I reflected that these great
masses of stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage thus far
below the surface of the earth, I felt as if no fairy tale was ever
half so wonderful as what I saw. Bridges were thrown from side to
side across the top of these cliffs, and the people looking down
upon us from them seemed like pigmies standing in the sky. I must
be more concise, though, or I shall want room. We were to go only
fifteen miles, that distance being sufficient to show the speed of
the engine, and to take us on to the most beautiful and wonderful
object on the road. After proceeding through this rocky defile, we
presently found ourselves raised upon embankments ten or twelve
feet high; we then came to a moss, or swamp, of considerable
extent, on which no human foot could tread without sinking, and yet
it bore the road which bore us. This had been the great
stumbling-block in the minds of the committee of the House of
Commons; but Mr. Stephenson has succeeded in overcoming it. A
foundation of hurdles, or, as he called it, basket-work, was thrown