of the owners, without any care or concern on the part of the officers of the boats!  Trunks seemed to run on wheels, carpet-bags to have wings, and portmanteaus to jump about like grasshoppers.  If you had put down one article while looking for the rest, in an instant it would be gone.  In this amusing scuffle were involved several members of Congress, returning in the “down” boat from their legislative duties.  The celebrated Judge M’Lean was among them.  But the safety of some box or parcel was just then—­to most of us—­of more importance than all the great men in the world.  The baggage storm being over, and the great division and trans-shipment effected, we moved forward in peace.  By-and-by, however, each one was called upon to show his baggage, that it might be set apart for the particular coach to which it would have to be consigned.  This was a most troublesome affair.  At half-past 6 in the evening we arrived at Brownsville, having been ten hours in getting over the 56 miles from Pittsburg.

And now for the stage-coaches; for, nolens volens, “a-head” we must go that very night.  About seven or eight coaches were filled by those of our fellow-passengers who, like ourselves, were going to cross the mountains.  Some of the vehicles set off immediately; but three waited to let their passengers get tea or supper, meals which in America are identical.  About 8 P.M. we started on our cold and dreary journey of 73 miles across the Alleghany Mountains.  A stage-coach in America is a very different thing from the beautiful machine that used to pass by that name in England.

It has no outside accommodation, except for one person on the box along with the driver.  The inside, in addition to the fore seat and the hind seat, has also a middle seat across the vehicle.  Each of these three seats holds three persons, making nine in all.  In our stage we had ten persons; but the ten, in a pecuniary point of view, were only eight and a half.  The night was fearfully dark, and the roads were altogether unworthy of the name.  Yet there is an immense traffic on this route, which is the highway from East to West.  The Americans, with all their “smartness,” have not the knack of making either good roads or good streets.  About 11 P.M. we arrived at Uniontown, 12 miles from Brownsville.  There the horses were to be changed, an operation which took about an hour to accomplish.  Three coaches were there together.  The passengers rushed out of the inn, where we had been warming ourselves, and jumped into the coaches.  Crack went the whips, off went the horses, and round went the wheels.  But, alas! while we could hear the rattling of the other coaches, our own moved not at all!  “Driver, why don’t you be off?” No answer.  “Driver, push on.”  No reply.  “Go a-head, driver,—­don’t keep us here all night.”  No notice taken.  We began to thump and stamp.  No response.  At last I put my head out through the window.  There was no driver; and, worse still, there