circumstances were such as to warrant composure. To be sure,
somebody said the car was to be left at Jeru; but Jeru was
eight miles away, and any quantity of mischief might be done
before we reached it,--if indeed we were not prevented from
reaching it altogether. It was a mere question of dynamics.
Would dry wood be able to hold its own against a raging fire
for half an hour? Of course the conductor thought it would;
but even conductors are not infallible; and you may imagine how
comfortable it was to sit and know that a fire was in full
blast beneath you, and to look down every few minutes expecting
to see the flames forking up under your feet. I confess I was
not without something like a hope that one tongue of the
devouring element would flare up far enough to give Halicarnassus
a start; but it did not. No casualty occurred. We reached Jeru
in safety; but that does not prove that there was no danger, or
that indifference was anything but the most foolish hardihood.
If our burning car had been in mid-ocean, serenity would have been
sublimity, but to stay in the midst of peril when two steps would
take one out of it is idiocy. And that there was peril is
conclusively shown by the fact that the very next day the Eastern
Railroad Depot took fire and was burned to the ground. I have in
my own mind no doubt that it was a continuation of the same fire,
and if we had stayed in the car much longer, we should have shared
the same fate.

We found Jeru to be a pleasant city, with only one fault: the
inhabitants will crowd into a car before passengers can get
out; consequently the heads of the two columns collide near the
car-door, and there is a general choke. Otherwise Jeru is a
delightful city. It is famous for its beautiful women. Its