not join in the secession, hoping to keep up domestic slavery at home, as it then stood. They were therefore very indignant with the Southern planters, who forced on, by their persistent efforts at secession, the emancipation of the slaves.

Few Northern, and still fewer Western, people were any more averse to slavery, as it then existed, than the South; but both strongly objected to the South aggrandizing herself by extending slavery into those immense new territories-Kansas, Texas, and the rest, united, or to be united, to the States. But when the South declared, in its haughty contempt, that it would break up the Union, would destroy the glory of the American nation, that it would annihilate its prestige and power, efface the boasted Republic of the United States from the history of the world, and would destroy "this great country," leaving it maimed and disabled to do as it best could with its disjointed limbs -then the Yankee was cut to the quick, and turned on his sister Carolina with all the vindictive hate that a man feels towards a supercilious woman. Not to be able to boast of the United States as the greatest nation in the world, not to be able to vaunt his Republican principles as the greatest system of government on earth, no longer to be able to extol the American people

as the finest in creation, was to him worse than death. To lose that prestige, was to him worse than any loss, and to save it, no sacrifice of blood or money was too great-and this alone brought about this war à outrance.

Not for humanity, not to free the suffering slaves-for humanity and philanthropy are not his shining virtues-but to avoid that worst and most galling of positions, the bursting of his vaunted bubble over his own head.

The Northerners, rather than accept that position, took up another of quasi-monarchial government. They stigmatized the Southerners as "Rebels," subdued them by force of arms, and then ruled them as absolutely as any imperial autocrat. They were glad enough to receive them back on any terms at that time, although, having once got them under their sway, they have not kept their promises. Republican self-government in the United States had had a dangerous sickness, and time alone will show whether it will ever thoroughly

recover.

CHAPTER XXVI.

FROM LOUISVILLE TO CAVE CITY.-HOME AND

FOREIGN DWARFS.

N route from Louisville to Cave City, we passed through a most picturesque chain of hills, which rose abruptly, and terminated in oddly sharp points-their peaks so clearly defined against the sky as to resemble a chain of mountains cut in paper by a child. The railway skirted them, running through a ravine for about twenty miles, now crossing it by a suspension-bridge, now running along the edge of a rock, but never on a wider space than would barely carry the train, sometimes not half a yard intervening between it and the brink of the precipice.

American railroads are made easily enough for temporary use. Half a dozen trees are felled on either side, and thrown down somewhat at random. Half a dozen feet of earth shovelled over them levels them; iron gathered

on the mountains, where it lies as thick as blackberries, is then passed through the foundry, laid pretty straight along the ground, and you have an American railway. Of course there are a good many accidents, but the cars are cheaply and slightly built; and, besides, the travelling is not so rapid as in England, so that should a piece of rail have gone astray, the driver generally perceives it. The train is then stopped, all are set to work to replace it, and again you pass on. Sometimes the passengers are requested to lend a helping hand, which they readily do, as a matter of course.

How would a trainful of English passengers receive a proposition that they should descend from their comfortably-padded seats, leave their warm foot-pans, morning Times, etc., and do an hour's shovelling and pick-axing, in order to "fix the track?" In America you must just do it, and make the best of it. Perhaps having no comfortably-padded seats to descend from may make a difference. Yet by no argument or proof can you convince an American that everything is not as complete and perfect as it is in Europe.

Everywhere along our route the earth was strewn with a warm brown carpet of crisp leaves, and those trees which still retained their summer garb had adopted their winter hue. In the

train we travelled by was the smallest atom of a man I ever saw-twenty-eight inches comprised the whole of him. He was very stylishly arrayed-a velvet waistcoat, gold guard-chain, gold-headed cane, and square-toed tiny boots. He had written the story of his life, and was offering the book for sale, together with a photograph of himself. He was perfectly formed, and had a pleasant, intelligent face. He was born, I am told, in Memphis, where he had lived, and had been generally seen and known in the city. Strange to say, during our stay in Memphis Tom Thumb chanced to arrive, and gave a reception. The Memphians rushed into the wildest excitement over this small natural phenomenon ; the room was so crowded, that ladies fainted, and children screamed. Had the Queen of Sheba herself come down in all her glory, she could not have caused more sensation in Memphis than did the advent of Tom Thumb.

By a curious coincidence, there was also on the same train with us a man eight feet high, and broad in proportion, called the Kentucky giant. He was said to weigh over three hundred pounds. He had been a soldier in the Confederate army, and under arms during the whole four years. Although foremost in a score of engagements, he had never been wounded or taken prisoner. I thought it a proof of very