avelled ones, who have no nasal twang, but otherwise the
nationality, partly by that, partly by the way occasional words are
pronounced, is easily recognized. Some of the Americans seem to
forget that England was the birthplace of the English language. One
said to me, when pronunciation was one day the subject under
discussion between us, "Very true, we do pronounce many words
differently, and I can always recognize your countrymen by the
British accent they use when speaking our language." I laughed, and
remarked that unless I mistook, _we_ had spoken it before Americans
existed. He did not answer; it seemed to strike him as a new view of
the subject, and he ruminated!

Running south from New York, the country we passed through until
night fell was very beautiful. That, and some I saw near Lake Erie
months later, was the most charming pastoral country I beheld in the
States. It was quite equal to anything in England, which is so rich
in pastoral scenery. One charm in American travel is, that, in
traversing that mighty continent, you see scenery equal to, and
like, the best that any country on earth produces. While executing
the enormous distances on American rail lines, you lie down at night,
the last of the twilight having shown you rural scenes--peaceful
villages, ivy-clad churches, browsing cattle, waggon teams and green
fields. You awake in a desert--a real desert like the great African
ones. Far as the eye can reach, for hours and hours as the train
rolls on, sand and nothing else. Not a house, not an inhabitant, no
water anywhere. You close your eyes that night on the arid waste, and
lo! next morning you are in Swiss scenery. Great fir-clad mountains,
capped with snow, border the rail, a precipice is below, and you
shudder as you realize how near you are to the edge. A mountain
stream, with numerous cascades, accompanies you for miles. Domestic
animals are confined to a small breed of horses and goats, but if
lucky you may see a large stag, or a grizzly bear, and possibly have
a shot at the latter. Before evening all changes again. Vast and
interminable plains of grass, with an occasional sluggish stream.
Cattle by the thousand in great flocks, sometimes grazing peacefully,
sometimes driven by wild-looking cowboys on wiry horses with the
high-peaked Mexican saddles and long whips. Here again you may travel
for hours and see no habitation. Trees, too, there are none. It seems
to be a country designed by nature fo