ntly a horse-railroad.

"A horse-railroad in Italy!" said I, aloud. "A horse-railroad in
Sybaris! It must have changed since the days of the coppersmiths!" And I
flung myself on a heap of reeds which lay there, and waited.

In two minutes I heard the fast step of horses, as I supposed; in a
minute more four mules rounded the corner, and a "horse-car" came
dashing along the road. I stepped forward and waved my hand, but the
driver bowed respectfully, pointed back, and then to a board on top of
his car, and I read, as he dashed by me, the word

[Greek: Pleron],

displayed full above him; as one may read _Complet_ on a Paris omnibus.

Now [Greek: Pleron] is the Greek for full. "In Sybaris they do not let
the horse-railroads grind the faces of the passengers," said I. "Not so
wholly changed since the coppersmiths." And, within the minute, more
quadrupedantal noises, more mules, and another car, which stopped at my
signal. I entered, and found a dozen or more passengers, sitting back to
back on a seat which ran up the middle of the car, as you might ride in
an Irish jaunting-car. In this way it was impossible for the conductor
to smuggle in a standing passenger, impossible for a passenger to catch
cold from a cracked window, and possible for a passenger to see the
scenery from the window. "Can it be possible," said I, "that the
traditions of Sybaris really linger here?"

I sat quite in the front of the car, so that I could see the fate of my
first friend [Greek: Pleron],--the full car. In a very few minutes it
switched off from our track, leaving us still to pick up our complement,
and then I saw that it dropped its mules, and was attached, on a side
track, to an endless chain, which took it along at a much greater
rapidity, so that it was soon out of sight. I addressed my next neighbor
on the subject, in Greek which would have made my fortune in those old
days of the pea-green settees. But he did not seem to make much of that,
but in sufficiently good Italian told me, that, as soon as we were full,
we should be attached in the same way to the chain, which was driven by
stationary engines five or six stadia apart, and so indeed it proved. We
picked up one or two market-women, a young artist or two, and a little
boy. When the child got in, there was a nod and smile on people's faces;
my next neighbor said to me, [Greek: Pleron], as if with an air of
relief; and sure enough, in a minute more, we were flying along at a
2.