Anyhow, We Have
Had A Very Pleasant Insight Into The Home Life Of America, Which
Differs In Small Ways A Good Deal From Ours, And In Character,
Habits, And Everything There Is A Widish Gulf Between The Two
Races.
Our train here was a splendid one, stopping only about sixteen
times, and doing the nine hundred miles in thirty-six hours.
We
had a section in the Pullman, which makes a double seat facing
each other by day, and at night the two seats are converted into a
bed, with the second bed pulled down from the roof, on which
mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a
projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so
that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We had also a
dining-car on, where every luxury of the season, to strawberries
and cream, were served by the blackest of niggers in the whitest
of garments, for the sum of a dollar a head per meal.
Only fancy our delight, after leaving Harrisburgh about 3 o'clock
in the afternoon, to find friends in the train, people from an
adjoining county in England who knew all our friends, and with
whom we had much in common. I need hardly tell you that we did
"chin" it until our ways parted at this station, they going to the
Grand Pacific, we to the Treemont which had been recommended to us
as being a quieter hotel for ladies alone.
Men make these hotels their club, where they smoke and lounge all
day; but as there is a second door for ladies, one is not bothered
in any way unless you want to go to the office for information.
We are astonished at the enormous piles of buildings in this city;
land, one would think, must be cheap. All the shops cover an
equally large area, though, in many, several offices are on one
floor. It is too marvellous to think, when one looks at this
place, that three and a half square miles in the centre of the
town, which is now in regular handsome broad streets, the fire of
eleven years ago should have so completely burnt everything to the
ground, though now not a vestige of the conflagration is left. The
houses have even had time to get quite blackened with the smoke of
the soft coal they use, which is found in great quantities all
through Pennsylvania; the mines and furnaces we passed on our way
up.
The country the whole way was very pretty. We crossed the
Susquehana river, which is grand in width and scenery, and started
the Juanita through a chain of mountains turning in and out with
every bend of the river, so that one felt always on the slant and
could generally see either end of the train. Unfortunately it
poured with rain the whole way, so any distant views or tops of
mountains were invisible. Some of the country is like England,
undulating, rolling, well-cultivated fields, enclosed with
pailings which overlap each other and would be awkwardish
obstacles in a hunting country; but one misses, like abroad, the
cattle - we saw one or two stray cows, but little else.
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