The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee!”
Cork, with its fine bridges crossing the branches of the Lee, might, under bright atmospheric effects, lay claim to its antique designation; but, amid mud and rain, the most enthusiastic traveller can see no extraordinary beauty even in Paris itself. Church spires and buildings darkened by the rain have a gloomy look. Even the church of S. Anne, which may fairly be said to have “two sides to it”—one being of differently-colored stone from the other—has had its peculiar claims to the traveller's attention somewhat weakened by the effect of the rain.
We have concluded to wend our way quietly toward Dublin, taking in our route anything that may be of interest. The Great Southern and Western Railway runs through one of the most beautiful districts in Ireland. A long panorama of beautiful and characteristic scenes is unrolled as you steam along. Green hedges and slopes, furze-covered fences, century-old trees covered with moss and ivy, rippling streams, a ruined abbey or dismantled tower, bits of soft blue appearing through slate-colored clouds—the humid atmosphere toning down all harsh lines, and yet spreading a sweet though melancholy softness over all—this limited by the gentle undulations of the ground, whose beautiful curves give life to the landscape, yet circumscribe its horizon, and you have the peculiar characteristics of an Irish landscape.
There is an air of solidity about the track and its accessories to an eye habituated to trans-Mississippi railroads. Very pretty are those stations of stone, covered with green ivy, every foot of space in front of them devoted to the culture of some sweet, simple flowers. The Lady from Idaho, who has recently been dipping her gentle nose into the cryptogamia, is in ecstasies over the magnificent ferns we have passed at various points of our route.
For an excellent railway dinner, let me recommend Limerick station to the traveller. The best railway breakfast I have ever eaten—and I have eaten not a few in both hemispheres—I ate at Altoona, on the Pennsylvania Central. It was twelve years ago, however. The best railway dinner I have ever eaten I had at Limerick Junction. It would have done credit to many a pretentious hotel on either continent. It surpassed the menu of private hotels in London, “patronized by officers of both services and their families.” It was a better meal than I have had at what is considered one of the best hotels in Northern Germany, and did not cost half so much. It was well and comfortably served, malgré the ponderous solemnity of the British style of hotel attendance, which to me is a terrible bore. Plenty of time was allowed us to eat and enjoy our meal. Some jovial young gentlemen at the table politely caused champagne to be offered us, in compliment to our trans-Atlantic character. They insisted, as far as politeness would admit, on regaling us; but we declined indulgence in the lively beverage. Sparkling wines are not good to travel on. One of the gentlemen was fascinated by a [pg 416] specimen of infantine America—a member of our party, and one of its most important members, by the way. The champagne, probably, had a softening effect on the gentleman. He lamented his childless condition, and expressed his readiness to give fabulous amounts for the little Columbian stranger. The father of the latter good-humoredly told the gentleman that Young America, white or black, is out of the market, and has been so for some years.
The bell rings. We resume our seats in the train. We have a carriage to ourselves. The guard told us, on leaving Cork, that he would try to keep us alone. This means that he wants a gratuity at the journey's end; for your conductor, or “guard,” on European railways is not above taking a shilling or a sixpence. He shall have it, so far as we are concerned.
The manner of starting a train is good. The bell rings—signal to the passengers to take their seats. There are two guards, one in front and one in rear, each supplied with a whistle. They look along the train to see that the doors of all the compartments are closed. The forward guard, seeing all right at his end, blows his whistle. The rear guard, to make assurance doubly sure, glances along the entire train, and, finding everything in readiness, whistles. The second whistle is the signal to the engineer, who then sounds the steam-whistle, and the train starts.
The trains generally exceed ours in rapidity, but are very much behind them in comfort and elegance. There is no drinking-water in the English or Irish carriages. There are no stoves to keep one warm in cold weather or during the chilly hours of the night. If the weather is cold, tin foot-warmers, filled with water which is not always warm, are furnished in the proportion of one to two first-class passengers. There is no luxurious sleeping-car, where you can sleep comfortably, awake refreshed, find your boots ready blacked when you get up, and wash yourself at a marble wash-stand. No comfortable hotel-car, into which you can step from the sleeping-car in your slippers, and enjoy your beef-steak and fried potatoes, or your quail on toast, at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
In consequence of the absence of arrangements for personal comfort on trains, the British traveller is obliged to weight himself down and half fill his compartment with rolls of railway rugs, bottles of water, and plethoric lunch-baskets, to his own great inconvenience, as well as that of his fellow-travellers. The trouble caused by the want of a proper system of baggage transportation compels the traveller to carry huge leather portmanteaus about five times as large as an ordinary American travelling-satchel. As these are considered “parcels that can be carried in the hand,” the traveller is allowed to take them into the carriage with him. By this means he avoids the trouble of watching the “luggage-van” at junctions, and the delay of waiting for its unloading at the terminus. Then come bundles of umbrellas and canes strapped together, and the leather hat-box—that inseparable adjunct of British respectability. Behold the unprotected matron, surrounded by half a dozen family jewels, with any quantity of wraps and lunch-baskets, and bottles and umbrellas, and band-boxes and multitudinous matters wrapped up in endless newspaper packages! How she glares at you [pg 417] when you step as carefully as you can among the formidable piles to three square inches of a seat in the interior corner! Woe be to him who displaces one of the parcels sacred to family use. I might be able to stand a Gorgon, but I could not stand that. Please do not put me in the carriage with the matron! Rather in the van with the untamable hyena, Mr. Guard, if you please!