In the
former, as you know, the railway is haughty, exclusive, and
aristocratic. It scorns all fellowship with common roads, and dashes
on, either under or over the houses, with arbitrary indifference. In
America, it generally condescends to pass along the public streets to
the very centre of the city, the engine being taken off or put to in
the suburbs, and its place _intra muros_, if I may so say, supplied by
horses. In leaving Baltimore, the engine was attached _before_ we got
quite out of the city; and we were going for some time along the common
road, meeting in one place a horse and cart, in another a man on
horseback, in another a pair of oxen fastened to each other, and so on.
Dangerous enough, apparently! yet railway accidents are much less
frequent in America than in England. It is, besides, an immense saving
of capital.
In our progress, we had to cross several arms of the Chesapeak Bay.
These arms were from one to two miles wide, and the railway is carried
over them upon posts driven into the ground. It seemed like crossing
the sea in a railway carriage. At Havre de Grace we had to cross the
Susquehannah River.
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