istle! You have come to a halt. Three pairs of whistles one after
the other! and then, putting on all steam, you make for the drift. The
superintendent locks the door, you do not quite understand why, and in a
second the battle begins. The machine rocks and creaks in all its joints.
There comes a tremendous shock. The cabin is as dark as midnight. The
clouds of flying snow put out the day. The labored breathing of the
locomotives behind you, the clouds of smoke and steam that wrap you up as
in a mantle, the noonday eclipse of the sun, the surging of the ship, the
rattling of chains, the creak of timbers as if the craft were aground and
the sea getting out of its bed to whelm you altogether, the doubt as to
what will come,--all combine to make a scene of strange excitement for a
landlubber.

You have made some impression on the breaker, and again the machine backs
for a fair start, and then another plunge, and shock, and twilight. And
so, from deep cut to deep cut, as if the season had packed all his winter
clothes upon the track, until the stalled trains are reached and passed;
and then, with alternate storm and calm, and halt and shock, till the way
is cleared to Erie.

It is Sunday afternoon, and Erie--"Mad Anthony Wayne's" old
headquarters--has donned its Sunday clothes, and turned out by hundreds to
see the great plow come in,--its first voyage over the line. The
locomotives set up a crazy scream, and you draw slowly into the depot. The
door opened at last, you clamber down, and gaze up at the uneasy house in
which you have been living. It looks as if an avalanche had tumbled down
upon it,--white as an Alpine shoulder. Your first thought is gratitude
that you have made a landing alive. Your second, a resolution that, if
again you ride a hammer, it will not be when three engines have hold of
the handle!

NOTES.--Chautauqua is the most western county in the state of New York; it
borders on Lake Erie.

The Cyclops are described in Grecian mythology as giants having only one
eye, which was circular, and placed in the middle of the forehead.

Cerro de Potosi is a mountain in Bolivia, South America, celebrated for
its mineral wealth. More than five thousand mines have been opened in it;
the product is chiefly silver.

"Mad Anthony Wayne" (b. 1745, d. 1796), so called from his bravery and
apparent recklessness, was a famous American officer during the
Revolution. In 1794 be conducted a successful campaign against t