saloon, with sofas, arm-chairs, mirrors, and washing-rooms-besides the inevitable spittoons. At the ends of these cars are a few small rooms holding two passengers each, for those who wish to be quite private.

Besides these, there are the sleeping cars for night journeys, the drawing-room cars being often convertible thereinto. In these, you can have a comfortable sleeping berth for two dollars, larger than those on board a steamer, with clean sheets, pillows and blankets, and curtains all round, in which you can sleep comfortably enough and can even have your boots blacked in the morning! There are also dining cars on some of the long lines, in which you can dine well and as moderately as at an hotel.

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These Pullman or Wagner cars are run by their own proprietors on the lines, for the sake of the extra payments made by those who desire the extra accommodation, and which are collected by the conductors of the cars. The railway company charges nothing for the haulage, as of course the presence of such cars is an inducement to travellers to use the lines; the system appears to work well.

Another special feature of of American railway travelling is their ticket system. You

can buy your ticket, as with us if you choose, at the station before starting, but you can also buy it at any of the general ticket offices, of which there are several in every town, and one at each of the large hotels, and you can purchase it there at exactly the same price as at the station, and a week beforehand if you like. The comfort of this arrangement is indescribable, and why on earth our conservative railway companies do not adopt it, except on special occasions, such as the Derby or Ascot cup days, no reasonable being can understand. The tickets for long journeys are issued in coupons, and you can break your journey where you choose.

The American ticket system would be specially useful in India, as it would protect the natives from imposition by the subordinate railway officials, who, there is good reason to believe, often defraud travellers in the hurry and confusion which always prevail at a large railway station under the present system, previous to a train starting. But I should like to see an attempt at some uniform classification of fares on the principle of the penny postage; by which tickets might be bought by the dozen, (if necessary), to be used on any railway, at any time, for any

distance, not exceeding, (say) 100 miles. And if the mileage classification corresponded to a particular coloured ticket for every 100 miles, great simplicity would be attained, and perhaps as much uniformity as could be expected in our long Indian distances at present. In England, where the distances are short, I believe if the railways were all brought under Government control, we might safely establish a uniform rate of say one shilling per Journey, provided only that the lines could carry the traffic.

Equally good are the American luggage arrangements; by the bye, luggage is always called 'baggage,' and a station is always a 'depôt.' You take your boxes to the baggage room at the depôt, mention its destination, and a brass label with a number on it is forthwith strapped on each piece of baggage, duplicate labels being handed to you. On arrival at your destination, you can claim can claim your baggage yourself if you wish, by producing the brass checks, or you can make these over to the hotel porter or to the agent of one of the express companies, who is waiting at the station, and he will procure it for you and forward it without further trouble. If you wish to stop at any intermediate station, you

can let the baggage go on if you like; it will be safely cared for in the baggage room, and the company is responsible so long as you retain the brass checks.

There is great competition amongst the rival lines for carrying passengers, and special time tables are to be had gratis at all the hotels and ticket offices, issued by the various companies, with a map of the railway, (occasionally distorted to show that their line is the shortest), and often with lithographs of the scenery along the road. One I have by me of the Union Pacific line shows the train charging through a herd of bison on the prairies, while the travellers are knocking them over with revolvers from the windows of the cars!

The locomotives are very shiny and glittering, and are provided with a bell which is sounded all the time that they are running through a town, as the trains often do, or over the level crossings of roads, which are seldom protected by gates, but merely by a notice board, with 'Look out for the Locomotive '-painted thereon.

One feature of an American train consists in the boys who traverse the whole of the cars at intervals with stores of books, papers,

fruit and lollipops for sale, whereof the main stock is kept in the baggage waggon.

The general rate of travelling is slower than with us, from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour including stoppages. The cost is two to three cents per mile, except on the Pacific Railway, which being the only one yet completed across the Continent, charges higher fares. This line runs from Omaha 400 miles west of Chicago, on the Missouri, across the States of Nebraska and Wyoming, in the latter of which it crosses the Rocky Mountains, the highest station on the line, and indeed in the world, being Sherman, which is 8,235 feet above the sea-level. After descending to the plains, it passes within thirty-six miles of Salt Lake City, the home of the Mormons, with which it is connected by a branch, and then crosses the States of Nevada and California to San Francisco, passing over the range of the Sierra Nevadas by an extensive series of tunnels, high trestle bridges, snow-galleries and other engineering works, through some of the finest scenery in the world. The summit level of this portion is 7,041 feet above the sea, the track going west descending 6,000 feet in seventy-five miles, and that