228 AMERICAN RAILWAY -CARS IX WINTER. 



a very honourable thing to the sea-coast of New England 

 that, with all these fetters of pecuniary advantage hang 

 ing about it, so strong an anti-slavery feeling should 

 really be everywhere found, and so many who declare 

 themselves against the continuance of slavery. 



&quot;VVaterville stands on the Kenebec River. It is a clean 

 new town, at least so it seemed to me, with its white 

 houses and streets covered with snow. It is the seat of 

 a Baptist college, founded in 1820, which has five pro 

 fessors, seventy-six students, and a library of eight thou 

 sand volumes. The college buildings are plain but 

 capacious, and the situation retired and beautiful. The 

 cultivation and productiveness of the intervales and up 

 lands, on the Kenebec River, have been much esteemed 

 in Maine. One of the most valuable agricultural districts 

 of Old Maine lies along its banks ; but, from what I have 

 heard of it, the newly acquired land upon the Aroostook 

 River, which is rapidly filling up, ought to be of a still 

 richer quality. 



After an hour s delay at this place, we were delighted 

 to embark in one of the cars of the railway train, which, 

 being warmed to any desired temperature by roaring 

 stoves, placed us in entirely new conditions, as to com 

 fort, for the rest of our journey. Our furs and skins now 

 became so much lumber, though the weather outside was 

 as cold as ever. It is in a winter season like this, when, 

 in an English first-class carriage, the half-starved passen 

 ger would be wrapping himself in cloaks and railway 

 rugs, that the superior comfort of the long American 

 carriage which, though common -to fifty or sixty pas 

 sengers, carries a large stove in the centre becomes 

 feelingly evident. 



At seven in the evening we arrived at Portland, a 

 town of twenty thousand inhabitants, the largest in the 

 State of Maine. It has some well-built streets, and has 

 the air of a thriving and prosperous town. To a Euro- 



