wearisome, especially as it has few features of interest even to a new
observer. At Stafford--no, at Wolverhampton--we diverged to a track
which I have passed over only once before. We stopped an hour and a
quarter at Wolverhampton, and I walked up into the town, which is large
and old,--old, at least, in its plan, or lack of plan,--the streets being
irregular, and straggling over an uneven surface. Like many of the
English towns, it reminds me of Boston, though dingier. The sun was so
hot that I actually sought the shady sides of the streets; and this, of
itself, is one long step towards establishing a resemblance between an
English town and an American one.

English railway carriages seem to me more tiresome than any other; and I
suppose it is owing to the greater motion, arising from their more
elastic springs. A slow train, too, like that which I was now in, is
more tiresome than a quick one, at least to the spirits, whatever it may
be to the body. We loitered along through afternoon and evening,
stopping at every little station, and nowhere getting to the top of our
speed, till at last, in the late dusk, we reached



GLOUCESTER,


and I put up at the Wellington Hotel, which is but a little way from the
station. I took tea and a slice or two of ham in the coffee-room, and
had a little talk with two people there; one of whom, on learning that I
was an American, said, "But I suppose you have now been in England some
time?" He meant, finding me not absolutely a savage, that I must have
been caught a good while ago. . . . .