Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/341

 Trains are not wanting at Chicago. Mr. Fogg passed immediately from one to the other. The nimble locomotive of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railway started at full speed, as if it understood that the honorable gentleman "had no time to lose." It traversed Indiana and Ohio, passing by populous cities and over wide expanses of agricultural land, with but few pauses; and, sixteen hours after leaving Chicago, the Ohio was reached.

At thirty-five minutes after nine, on the evening of the 11th, the train entered the great depot at Jersey City, the walls of which are washed by the Hudson river. From this station, the eastern terminus of a railroad system of great magnitude, fifty-one passenger and eighty-one freight trains depart every twenty-four hours, and an equal number arrive. Steamers and sailing vessels lined the miles of docks extending on both sides of the station, and the mighty river was filled with craft of all kinds engaged in the commerce of New York, which rose in front of the travelers as they emerged upon the broad, covered way running in front of the depot, where the gigantic ferryboats of the railroad company receive and land their myriads of travelers, pausing not in their work day or night.

At thirty-five minutes after nine at night, the train stopped in the depot, near the very pier of the Cunard line of steamers, otherwise called The British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.

The China, bound for Liverpool, had left thirty-five minutes before!

China, in leaving, seemed to have carried away with her Phileas Fogg's last hope. In fact, none of the other steamers in the direct service between America and Europe, neither the French Transatlantic steamers, nor the ships of the White Star line, nor those of the Inman Company, nor those of the Hamburg line, nor any others, could serve the gentleman's projects.

The Pereire, of the French Atlantic Company, would not start until the 14th of December. And besides, like those