Many Villages Are Spread Around, And Many A Charming Town Excites The Wish To Travel Through At A Slower Pace.

We passed Schepenstadt, Jersheim, and Wegersleben, which latter town already belongs to Prussia.

In Ashersleben and in Magdeburg we changed carriages. Near Salze we saw some fine buildings which belong to the extensive saltworks existing here. Jernaudau is a colony of Moravians. I should have wished to visit the town of Kotten, - for nothing can be more charming than the situation of the town in the midst of fragrant gardens, - but we unfortunately only stopped there a few minutes. The town of Dessau is also surrounded by pretty scenery: several bridges cross the various arms of the Elbe; that over the river itself rests on solid stone columns. Of Wittenberg we only saw house tops and church-steeples; the same of Juterbog, which looks as if it were newly built. Near Lukewalde the regions of sand begin, and the uniformity is only broken by a little ridge of wooded hills near Trebbin; but when these are past, the railway passes on to Berlin through a melancholy, unmitigated desert of sand.

I had travelled from six o'clock this morning until seven in the evening, over a distance of about two hundred and twenty miles, during which time we had frequently changed carriages.

The number of passengers we had taken up on the road was very great, on account of the Leipzic fairs; sometimes the train had thirty-five to forty carriages, three locomotives, and seven to eight hundred passengers; and yet the greatest order had prevailed. It is a great convenience that one can take a ticket from Lehrte to Berlin, although the railway passes through so many different states, because then one needs not look after the luggage or any thing else. The officials on the railway are all very civil. As soon as the train stopped, the guards announced with a loud voice the time allowed, however long or short it might be; so that the passengers could act accordingly, and take refreshments in the neighbouring hotels. The arrangements for alighting are very convenient: the carriages run into deep rails at the stations, so that the ground is level with the carriages, and the entrance and exit easy. The carriages are like broad coaches; two seats ran breadthwise across them, with a large door at each side. The first and second class contain eight persons in each division, the third class ten. The carriages are all numbered, so that every passenger can easily find his seat.

By these simple arrangements the traveller may descend and walk about a little, even though the train should only stop two minutes, or even purchase some refreshments, without any confusion or crowding.

These conveniences are, of course, impossible when the carriages have the length of a house, and contain sixty or seventy persons within locked doors, and where the doors are opened by the guards, who only call out the name of the station without announcing how long the stay is.

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