THE WAY THAT AMERICANS GO DOWN 

 HILL. 



"But wbo has not been both wearied and amused -with the slo-w caution of 

 the German drivers ? At every little descent on the road, that it would almost 

 require a spirit-level to discern that it is a descent, he dismounts, and puts on 

 his drag. On a road of the gentlest undulations, where a heavy English coach 

 would goat the rate often English miles an hour, without drag or pause, up hill 

 or down, he is continually alighting and putting on one or both drags, alighting 

 and ascending with a patience and perseverance that amazes you. Nay, in 

 many states, this caution is evinced also by the government, and is forced on 

 the driver, particularly in Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Austria, by a post by the 

 way-side, standing at the top of every slope on the road, having painted on a 

 board, a black and conspicuous drag, and announcing a fine, of commonly sis 

 florins (ten shillings) on any loaded carnage which shall descend without the 

 drag on. In every thing they are continually guarding against those accidents 

 which result from hurry, or slightness of construction."— ^c>«/?Y^"s Moral and 

 Doinestic Life in Germany. 



The stage in which we travelled across " the Alleganies," 

 was one of the then called " Transit line." It was, as the 

 driver termed it, '^ a rushing affair," and managed, by a 

 refined cruelty to dumb beasts, to keep a little ahead of 

 the " Opposition," which seemed ever to come clatter- 

 ing in our rear, like some ill-timed spirit, never destined 

 exactly to reach, but always to be near us. 



