or "sections" for sleeping; during the day-time these form seats, and are
occupied by such as care to take them in the ordinary manner of railroad
cars. At night, however, the whole car undergoes a complete
transformation. A negro attendant commences to make down the beds. This
operation is performed by drawing out, after the manner of telescopes,
portions of the car heretofore looked upon as immoveable; from various
receptacles thus rendered visible he extracts large store of blankets,
mattresses, bolsters, pillows, sheets, all which he arranges after the
usual method of such articles. His work is done speedily and without
noise or bustle, and in a very short time the interior of the car
presents the spectacle of a long, dimly lighted passage, having on either
side the striped damask curtains which partly shroud the berths behind
them. Into these berths the passengers soon withdraw themselves, and all
goes quietly till morning-unless, indeed, some stray turning bridge has
been left turned over one of the numerous creeks that underlie the track,
or the loud whistle of "brakes down" is the short prelude to one of the
many disasters of American railroad travel. There are many varieties of
the sleeping-car, but the principle and mode of procedure are identical
in each. Some of those constructed by Messrs. Pullman and Wagner are as
gorgeously decorated as gilding, plating, velvet, and damask can make
them. The former gentleman is likely to live long after his death in the
title of his cars. One takes a Pullman (of course, only a share of a
Pullman) as one takes a Hansom. Pullman and sleeping-car have become
synonymous terms likely to last the wear of time. Travelling from sunrise
to sunset through a country which offers but few changes to the eye, and
at a rate which in the remoter districts seldom exceeds twenty miles an
hour, is doubtless a very tiresome occupation; still it has much to
relieve the tedium of what under the English system of railroad travel
would be almost insupportable. The fact of easy communication being
maintained between the different cars renders the passage from one car to