inct circles of readers--the
English and American--have been present to my mind, I felt
constrained to face and address the latter, just as if speaking to
them alone. I have, moreover, adopted the free and easy style of
epistolary composition, endeavoring to make each chapter as much
like one of the letters I promised my friends and neighbors at home
as practicable. In doing this, the "_I_" has, perhaps, talked far
too much to beseem those proprieties which the author of a book
should observe. Besides, expressions, figures and orthography more
American than English may be noticed, which will indicate the circle
of readers which the writer had primarily in view. Still, he would
fain believe that these features of the volume will not seriously
affect the interest it might otherwise possess in the minds of those
disposed to give it a reading in this country. Whatever exceptions
they may take to the style and diction, I hope they will find none
to the spirit of the work.
ELIHU BURRITT.

London, April 5th, 1864.

CHAPTER I.

MOTIVES TO THE WALK--THE IRON HORSE AND HIS RIDER--THE LOSSES AND
GAINS BY SPEED--THE RAILWAY TRACK AND TURNPIKE ROAD: THEIR
SCENERIES COMPARED.

One of my motives for making this tour was to look at the country
towns and villages on the way in the face and eyes; to enter them by
the front door, and to see them as they were made to be seen first,
as far as man's mind and hand intended and wrought. Railway
travelling, as yet, takes everything at a disadvantage; it does not
front on nature, or art, or the common conditions and industries of
men in town or country. If it does not actually of itself turn, it
presents everything the wrong side outward. In cities, it reveals
the ragged and smutty companionship of tumble-down out-houses, and
mysteries of cellar and back-kitchen life which were never intended
for other eyes than those that grope in them by day or night. How
unnatural, and, more, almost profane and inhuman, is the fiery
locomotion of the Iron Horse through these densely-peopled towns!
now the screech, the roar, and the darkness of cavernous passages
under paved streets, church vaults, and an acre or two of three-
story brick houses, with the feeling of a world of breathing,
bustling humanity incumbent upon you;--now the dash and flash out
into the light, and the higgledy-piggledy glimpses of the next five
minutes. In a moment yo