such a high, narrow, long
thing, so high that the women and girls couldn't climb up without the
men's help, and great difficulty; so narrow that two persons could not
sit comfortably side by side, and so long that it took me some time to
move my eyes from the rear end, where the baggage was, to the front,
where the driver sat.

When all had settled down at last (there were a number besides
ourselves) the two horses started off very fast, in spite of their heavy
load. Through noisy, strange looking streets they took us, where many
people walked or ran or rode. Many splendid houses, stone and brick, and
showy shops, they passed. Much that was very strange to us we saw, and
little we knew anything about. There a little cart loaded with bottles
or tin cans, drawn by a goat or a dog, sometimes two, attracted our
attention. Sometimes it was only a nurse carrying a child in her arms
that seemed interesting, from the strange dress. Often it was some
article displayed in a shop window or door, or the usually smiling owner
standing in the doorway, that called for our notice. Not that there was
anything really unusual in many of these things, but a certain air of
foreignness, which sometimes was very vague, surrounded everything that
passed before our interested gaze as the horses hastened on.

The strangest sight of all we saw as we came into the still noisier
streets. Something like a horse-car such as we had seen in Vilna for the
first time, except that it was open on both sides (in most cases) but
without any horses, came flying--really flying--past us. For we stared
and looked it all over, and above, and under, and rubbed our eyes, and
asked of one another what we saw, and nobody could find what it was that
made the thing go. And go it did, one after another, faster than we,
with nothing to move it. "Why, what _is_ that?" we kept exclaiming.
"Really, do you see anything that makes it go? I'm sure I don't." Then I
ventured the highly probable suggestion, "Perhaps it's the fat man in
the gray coat and hat with silver buttons. I guess he pushes it. I've
noticed one in front on every one of them, holding on to that shining
thing." And I'm sure this was as wise a solution of the mystery as
anyone could give, except the driver, who laughed to himself and his
horses over our surprise and wonder at nothing he could see to cause
it.

But we couldn't understand his explanation, though we always got along
very easily with the German