290 MAN AND NATURE. 



riages were taken to pieces for a passage over these 

 mountains. But, on the other hand, we do not desire 

 to exchange the grandeur of a great Alpine pass, and 

 those glories of the first view of Italy which gave exul- 

 tation to Hannibal and his army, for the sullen dark- 

 ness of a tunnel, distinguishable in nothing but its 

 wearisome length from those of our English midland 

 counties. The engineer gains a lasting fame from his 

 work. The traveller gains a few hours of time upon his 

 journey, and emerges into Italy through a hole in a 

 rock ! 



It may seem ungracious, as well as irrational, to 

 throw even a shade of doubt on the advantages which 

 railways have rendered to mankind. The magnitude of 

 the benefits derived from this great conquest over time 

 and space in the natural world is too obvious to be seri- 

 ously impugned. Commerce, manufactures, and agri- 

 culture gain universally by the change effected ; and 

 the social relations of mankind are enlarged at least, 

 and perhaps improved. But we must admit some few 

 qualifications to this high estimate. Even the traveller 

 does not gain his good without alloy. We quit our 

 homes to see and learn to gain fresh health and en- 

 joyment often, it must be owned, to follow fashion or 

 relieve ennui. For all these objects the railway affords 

 facilities before unknown, but almost too great for the 

 worthiest purposes of travel. European tourists, now 

 in number legion, are hurried from place to place with 

 unwholesome and unprofitable speed the slaves of 

 trains and time-tables, and imbued with more vivid 

 recollections of stations and crowded hotels than of 



