THE WAY THAT AMERICANS GO DOWN 
HILL. 
“But who has not been both wearied and amused with the slow 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. Ona road of the gentlest undulations, where a heavy English coach 
would go at the rate of ten 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 six 
florins (ten shillings) on any loaded carriage 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.”—Howitts Moral and 
Domestic Lifein Germany. 
Tue 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. 
