TERESINA IN AMERICA. CHAPTER I. BOSTON, THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE. S it would certainly be an offence to any Yankee for a traveller to write an account of America without mentioning Boston, I here beg to offer the amende honorable, by saying that owing to its prominent position as the Hub, it is so thoroughly known that it is superfluous to write about it. Almost everybody knows that it glories in the biggest organ in the United States; that it is naturally the capital of real America; that it has the highest culture; has produced the philosophers, poets, statesmen, and thinkers of the age; that its University of Cambridge, being a suburb, casts over it a liteshadow not to be met with in any other American city. There can be no doubt that if rary VOL. II. 1 a European gentleman were asked what city of America he would like to live in, he would reply, "Boston, of course;" for a man of education would certainly prefer to associate with such charming men as Longfellow, Agassiz, Emerson, and the scientific men of America, who principally reside there or at Yale. Still, all this being fully known, to repeat it would be tedious. This applies also to many other delightful cities of New England and the Northern States. Books and newspapers have made them familiar to readers. In writing these volumes I have endeavoured to narrate something new and unfamiliar-those details of life which often escape the scientific or political traveller. I have traversed the outlying country, the nooks and crannies of this vast continent, and I humbly trust they may prove as interesting as its more prominent places -Niagara, Saratoga, Newport, &c. The glories of this great land are unfolding every day; and I have no doubt that if I went back to it next year, I should find as much of novelty to record as would fill another two volumes. It is a magnificent country, and the Americans must be a little pardoned for boasting of it. CHAPTER II. OVERLAND ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO. NE of the greatest sensations ever worked up in the United States, was the overland route to San Francisco, "the biggest railroad in creation!" If a discovery had been made of a current of air direct to the moon, and the fact ascertained that a piece of paper could be wafted thithersay in a week-it would not, I believe, have caused more general excitement. The overland route "was bound" to be a sensation in order to make it pay, therefore it was talked up, written up, puffed up, whipped up to froth and foam like an omelette soufflée. No gazette where it was not paragraphed; no conversation where it did not crop up; no person of note who was not persuaded into having something to do with it; no person who had dollars to spare but invested them in shares. Not to be au courant of all the doings, sayings, writings-everything, in fact-connected with the great Pacific railroad, was to be a "know nothing." Sensationalism is the motive power of America. Nothing can be done without a fuss, and the 'big line" made the biggest fuss of all. It permeated and saturated the country like air and water, and the great banner cry was, "The most gigantic railroad in the world, and Pulman's Silver Palace Sleeping Cars!" No wonder it became the rage in America. To do the biggest thing, the most flashy thing, is there the height of ambition. I do not say that it is not so elsewhere.. Yet there was really nothing unusual in this railway but its length. It was long, certainly, but not longer than one could travel by rail in Europe. But the "Silver Palaces!" thinks the reader, "to sleep in a Silver Palace must be delightful!" I believe that all America thought so, and a great portion of Europe. So much for sensationalism. The name did the whole busiOnce get a name to ring in the world's ears, and you need not trouble about the reality. I am not wiser than my neighbour, so thought that I, too, should like to sleep in a silver But I met with no silver whatever in these cars; the fittings, lamps, bolts, hinges, ness. palace car. |