SPLENDID SCENERY FROM WATERLOO
BRIDGE TO NINE-ELMS.
We believe there is nothing like it in the world, excepting the Blackwall line.
We will jot down right and left the principal beauties that most enchant us on this picturesque little railway, which is certainly the most laconic line that was ever sent through the electric post by one company to another.
We are sitting with our backs (though, by-the-bye, we have but one back) to the New Cut; the fertile district of Lambeth is on one side, the milky river on the other.
We were quite taken aback with the immense forest of chimneys which the engine cuts through like so much brush wood; they seem to be the only vegetation of the place. It is easy to distinguish the chimneys that have been recently stacked from those of previous years' crops. A curious windmill, supposed to have attained the age of three hundred and twenty, meets the left eye. It is quite the Methuselah of windmills. Cockney artists come from far and near to ask it to give them a sitting.
Your right eye will not fail to light up with the group of merry pipers that are sitting on the roof of the "Duke of Wellington." Their bright tankards sparkle in the sun, with which they moisten their respective clays. They present a pleasing picture of the happy peasantry of the suburbs. One laughing fellow presents his tankard to us, but we are obliged to refuse it, from the reason that the railway will not stop to allow us to take it.
An immense volume of smoke from a supposed brewery, though the perfume from the brewery is not particularly hoppy, is at the present moment delivered to the public in numbers. The passenger, if he is wise, will shut his eyes, and not open them again till he sees that it has quite blown over.
A magpie in a wicker cage, suspended from an attic window, is worth the passing sympathy of the third-class passenger. The first-class ditto can have no sympathy, from the obvious fact that he cannot see anything (Mem. To enjoy nature, there is nothing like the third-class; to enjoy a good snooze, there is nothing like the first.) We do not envy that poor magpie, with the engine rushing by him all day long. See how he crouches into the corner of his prison! And hark! he has learnt the railway whistle. Wretched bird! thou canst not have a pleasant life of it. How willingly, methinks, thou wouldst hop the twig, if thou couldst!