It was a very long succession of uninteresting loamy and fertile
flats, a very easy country for the construction of railways, and
propitious for the laying-down of these direct level lines so dear to
railway companies.

I had no time to get tired of the monotony; for in three hours we
stopped at Kiel, close to the sea.

The luggage being labelled for Copenhagen, we had no occasion to look
after it. Yet the Professor watched every article with jealous
vigilance, until all were safe on board. There they disappeared in
the hold.

My uncle, notwithstanding his hurry, had so well calculated the
relations between the train and the steamer that we had a whole day
to spare. The steamer ELLENORA, did not start until night. Thence
sprang a feverish state of excitement in which the impatient
irascible traveller devoted to perdition the railway directors and
the steamboat companies and the governments which allowed such
intolerable slowness. I was obliged to act chorus to him when he
attacked the captain of the ELLENORA upon this subject. The captain
disposed of us summarily.

At Kiel, as elsewhere, we must do something to while away the time.
What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay within which
nestles the little town, exploring the thick woods which make it look
like a nest embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas,
each provided with a little bathing house, and moving about and
grumbling, at last ten o'clock came.