My first trip on the Charleston rail-road was more amusing than prosperous. The arrangements were scarcely completed, and the apparatus was then in a raw state. Our party left Columbia at seven in the evening of the 9th of March, by stage, hoping to meet the rail-road train at Branchville, sixty miles from Columbia, at eleven the next morning, and to reach Charleston, sixty-two more, to dinner. Towards morning, when the moon had set, the stage bumped against something; and the driver declared that he must wait for the day-spring, before he could proceed another step. When the dawn brightened, we found that we had, as we supposed, missed our passage by the train, for the sake of a stump about two inches above the ground. We hastened breakfast at Orangeburg; and when we got to Branchville, found we need have been in no hurry. The train had not arrived; and, some little accident having happened, we waited for it till near two o'clock.
I never saw an economical work of art harmonise so well with the vastness of a natural scene, as here. From the piazza of the house at Branchville, the forest fills the whole scene, with the rail-road stretching through it, in a perfectly straight line, to the vanishing point. The approaching train cannot be seen so far off as this. When it appears, a black dot, marked by its wreath of smoke, it is impossible to avoid watching it, growing and self-moving, till it stops before the door. I cannot draw; but I could not help trying to make a sketch of this, the largest and longest perspective I ever saw. We were well employed for two hours in basking in the sun, noting the mock-orange-trees before the house, the turkeys strutting, the robins (twice as large as the English) hopping and flitting; and the house, apparently just piled up of wood just cut from the forest. Everything was as new as the rail-road. As it turned out, we should have been better employed in dining; but we had no other idea than of reaching Charleston in three or four hours.
For the first thirty-five miles, which we accomplished by half-past four, we called it the most interesting rail-road we had ever been on. The whole sixty-two miles was almost a dead level, the descent being only two feet. Where pools, creeks, and gullies had to be passed, the road was elevated on piles, and thence the look down on an expanse of evergreens was beautiful. This is, probably, the reason why three gentlemen went, a few days afterwards, to walk, of all places, on the rail-road. When they were in the middle of one of these elevated portions, where there is a width of only about three inches on either side the tracks, they heard a shout, and looking back, saw a train coming upon them with such speed as to leave no hope that it could be stopped before it reached them. There was no alternative; all three leaped down, upwards of twenty feet, into the swamp, and escaped with a wetting, and with looking exceedingly foolish in their own eyes.
At half-past four, our boiler sprang a leak, and there was an end of our prosperity. In two hours, we hungry passengers were consoled with the news that it was mended. But the same thing happened, again and again; and always in the middle of a swamp, where we could do nothing but sit still. The gentlemen tried to amuse themselves with frog-hunting: but it was a poor resource. Once we stopped before a comfortable-looking house, where a hot supper was actually on the table; but we were not allowed to stop, even so long as to get out. The gentlemen made a rush into the house to see what they could get. One carried off a chicken entire, for his party; another seized part of a turkey. Our gentlemen were not alert enough. The old lady's table was cleared too quickly for them, and quite to her own consternation. All that we, a party of five, had to support us, was some strips of ham, pieces of dry bread, and three sweet potatoes, all jumbled together in a handkerchief. Our thoughts wandered back to this supper-table, an hour after, when we were again sticking in the middle of a swamp. I had fallen asleep, (for it was now the middle of a second night of travelling,) and was awakened by such a din as I had never heard. I could not recollect where I was; I looked out of the window, and saw, by the light of the moon, white houses on the bank of the swamp, and the waving shrubs of the forest; but the distracting din was like nothing earthly. It presently struck me that we were being treated with a frog-concert. It is worth hearing, for once, anything so unparalleled as the knocking, ticking, creaking, and rattling, in every variety of key. The swamp was as thick of noises as the forest is of leaves: but, five minutes of the concert are enough; while a hundred years are not enough of the forest. After many times stopping and proceeding, we arrived at Charleston between four and five in the morning; and, it being too early to disturb our friends, crept cold and weary to bed, at the Planters' Hotel. It was well that all this happened in the month of March. Three months later, such detention in the swamps by night might have been the death of three-fourths of the passengers. I have not heard of any mismanagement since the concern has been put fairly in operation.
There are many rail-roads in Virginia, and a line to New York, through Maryland and Delaware. There is in Kentucky a line from Louisville to Lexington. But it is in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, that they abound. All have succeeded so admirably, that there is no doubt of the establishment of this means of communication over nearly the whole of the United States, within a few years, as by-ways to the great high-ways which Nature has made to run through this vast country. The evil of a superabundance of land in proportion to labour will thus be lessened so far, that there will be an economy of time, and a facility of intercourse, which will improve the intelligence of the country population. There will, also, be a facility of finding out where new supplies of labour are most wanted, and of supplying them. By advantageous employment for small capitals being thus offered within bounds, it may also be hoped that many will be prevented from straying into the wilderness. The best friends of the moral as well as economical interests of the Americans, will afford all possible encouragement to wise schemes for the promotion of intercourse, especially between the north and south.
I believe the best-constructed rail-road in the States is the Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts: length, twenty-five miles. Its importance, from the amount of traffic upon it, may be estimated from the fact that some thousands of dollars were spent, the winter after it was opened, in clearing away a fall of snow from it. It was again covered, the next night.
Another line from Boston is to Providence, Rhode Island, forty-three miles long. This opens a very speedy communication with New York; the distance, two hundred and twenty-seven miles, being performed in twenty hours, by rail-road and steam-boat.
There is a good line from Boston to Worcester; forty-five miles in length. Its estimated cost is 883,904 dollars. This road is to be carried on across the entire State, to the Connecticut; from whence a line is now in course of construction to the Hudson, to issue opposite Albany. There are proposals for a tunnel under the Hudson at Albany; and from Albany, there is already canal and rail-road communication to Lake Erie. There is now an uninterrupted communication from the Atlantic to the far end of Lake Michigan. It only remains to extend a line thence to the Mississippi, and the circle is complete.
The great Erie canal, intersecting the whole State of New York, is too celebrated to need much notice here. Its entire length is three hundred and sixty-three miles. It is forty feet wide at top, twenty-eight at bottom, and four feet deep. There are eighty-four locks on the main canal. The total rise and fall is six hundred and ninety-two feet. The cost was 9,500,000 dollars. Though this canal has been opened only since 1825, it is found already insufficient for the immense commerce carried on between the European world and the great West, through the eastern ports. There is a rail-road now running across the entire State, which is expected to exhibit much more traffic than the canal, without at all interfering with its business.
I traversed the valley of the Mohawk twice; the first time by the canal, the next by stage, which I much preferred, both on account of the views being better from the high-road, and from the discomfort of the canal-boats. I had also the opportunity of observing the courses of the canal and the new rail-road throughout.