Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/420

Rh reproving sermon. Everything had stood still; everything stood exactly at the same point, or moved in the same circle.

During my stay in this part of the country it was very cold. The stalks of the potatoes in the potato fields were quite destroyed by frost. The wind was keen and full of a frosty feeling. I never remember in Sweden to have felt it so cold in the month of August.

I went with the O.'s from Lennox to New York, through the beautiful Honsatonia Valley, the wonderfully picturesque, and sometimes splendidly gloomy scenery of which not all the rattle, and the dust, and the smoke of the railway, could prevent me from seeing, though I cannot say enjoying, so much does the mind become confounded by this mode of travelling.

Not far from New York we removed into another train, as long as a long street, and down which we wandered through lines of people, from one carriage to another, before we could find places. This moving street was a train conveying certainly a thousand persons. By this we arrived at New York, nor was I sorry with it, to bid farewell to American railway trains. Excellent as they are in many respects, especially by the convenience they are to all, and by their low prices, equally reasonable to all, they are fatiguing in a high degree. After the first two hours there is an end of all pleasure in travelling, and one sinks into a suffering and stupid state; one feels oneself not a human being, but a portmanteau, and I, for my part, cannot conceive a less beneficial or pleasurable mode of travelling. One cannot enjoy a mouthful of fresh air. If the quantity of smoke and dust could be diminished, it would be a great blessing to the travellers. The European railway trains, of which I have any experience, are all greatly superior to the American in this respect.

At New York I parted with the O.'s. Ah! it was