a European
patent. From here the road again clings to the shore of the Delaware,
and until we reach Wilmington the river, with its sails and its blue
water, is on the left--on the right a high ridge, which ends in the
valley of the Shell Pot and Brandywine at Wilmington.

[Illustration: VIEW OF DELAWARE RIVER NEAR CLAYMONT.]

We flash past Linwood to stop a moment at Claymont, where the ridge
comes nearer the river and offers superb sites for buildings. Why
Claymont has not grown more no one seems to know. There are schools
and churches, fine rolling land, noble river-views, and all that can
make a country home delightful. That the place has attractions for
lovers of the picturesque may be inferred from the fact that it counts
among its residents an artist of such wide and well-founded celebrity
as Mr. F.O.C. Darley, whose delineations of American life and scenery,
especially in the form of book-illustrations, have been familiar to
the public for the past thirty years. With so many years of fame, Mr.
Darley counts but fifty-two of life, and in the enjoyment of vigorous
health still continues the practice of his art, executing many
commissions from Europe, where his genius is as highly appreciated as
at home.

[Illustration: VIEW AT CLAYMONT: CREEK AND BRIDGE.]

[Illustration: PRINCIPIO.]

But we must stick to our train, which carries us through the Red
Bank Cut to Ellerslie Station, where occurred the first accident of a
serious character which has happened on this road for eighteen years,
and which was due only to a willful violation of orders by an old and
very trusted conductor. At Ellerslie are the Edgemoor Iron-works of
Messrs. William Sellers & Co., where every known improvement in the
manufacture of iron is being tested and applied. The next curve in the
road shows us the meadows of the Shell Pot and the Brandywine, with
Wilmington in the distance. The Brandywine, famous in our history,
runs through as picturesque a valley as there is in America, combining
all that the climate of Delaware permits in trees, shrubs, vines
and flowers with the wildness and variety of the valley of the
Pemigewasset or the wild Ammonoosuck. In this rare valley are mills as
old as the settlement of the country, and quaint hamlets that seem to
belong to Europe rather than America.

At Wilmington the system of the Delaware railroads begins: it spreads
out over the peninsula of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland
like a hug