372 
PAEIS UNIVERSAL 
the tower of Babel was not worthy to be compared. For that 
was only a confusion of tongues, while this was a confusion of 
everything else added to a confusion of numberless tongues 
the Babelites knew nothing about. Ponderous machines, fresh 
from Cyclopean workshops had just arrived on the cars and 
must have the power of a thousand men to move them. Loco¬ 
motives, dragging long lines of unloaded freight cars, sharply 
screamed their “ get out cf my way.” Hundreds of great wage ns, 
piled mountain high and skilfully engineered by shouting 
teamsters, crossed their track every moment and demanded, all 
at once, the attention of somebody and everybody for their 
relief. Long-armed, giant cranes creaked their slow music in 
the ears of impatient workmen. Ten thousand hammers 
crashed and thundered in every quarter of the Park and grand 
nave. Huge piles of boxes in the interior were being pulled 
down and knocked open by thousands of exhibitors, agents and 
commissioners, for the treasures they contained ; while hurried 
carpenters, glaziers, painters, gilders and upholsterers by the 
thousand, each plied their handiwork in the thirty or more 
national courts of the Palace and on the annexes and pavil¬ 
ions without. Marvelous chimes of bells were going into 
place, and roof-touching cathedral organs being attuned for the 
grand worship of the coming months. While countless num¬ 
bers of the men of every nation were running to and fro and, 
with anxious faces, asking loud questions that nobody could 
understand and nobody answer. 
As usual, (on such occasions, I mean, nowhere else,) Ameri¬ 
ca was even more backward than most of the other leading 
powers, and the half chaotic, half vacant court of the Great 
Republic presented the sorry spectacle of box-encumbered 
floors, empty counters and groups of long-faced Yankees, 
venting their disappointment and chagrin in imprecations, more 
emphatic than either elegant or deserved, upon the devoted 
head of the Commissioner General, who, up to this time was 
no more responsible for the shameful condition of the Ameri¬ 
can court than was the Bey of Tunis. The causes of delay 
were not to bo found at Paris, but at homo. Tho National and 
