A few hours after quitting these planes, we came to the end of the railway, and had to coach it over a ten-mile break in the line.  It was one of those wretched wet days which is said to make even an old inhabitant of Argyleshire look despondingly,—­in which county, it will be remembered that, after six weeks’ incessant wet, an English traveller, on asking a shepherd boy whether it always rained there, received the consoling reply of, “No, sir—­it sometimes snaws.”  The ground was from eight to eighteen inches deep in filthy mud; the old nine-inside stages—­of which more anon—­were waiting ready; and as there were several ladies in the cars, I thought the stages might be induced to draw up close to the scantily-covered platform to take up the passengers; but no such idea entered their heads.  I imagine such an indication of civilization would have been at variance with their republican notions of liberty; and the fair ones had no alternative but to pull their garments up to the altitude of those of a ballet-dancer, and to bury their neat feet and well-turned ankles deep, deep, deep in the filthy mire.  But what made this conduct irresistibly ludicrous—­though painful to any gentleman to witness—­was the mockery of make-believe gallantry exhibited, in seating all the ladies before any gentleman was allowed to enter; the upshot of which was, that they gradually created a comparatively beaten path for the gentlemen to get in by.  One pull of the rein and one grain of manners would have enabled everybody to enter clean and dry; yet so habituated do the better classes appear to have become to this phase of democracy, that no one remonstrated on behalf of the ladies or himself.

The packing completed, a jolting ride brought us again to the railway cars; and in a few hours more—­amid the cries of famishing babes and sleepy children, the “hush-hushes” of affectionate mammas, the bustle of gathering packages, and the expiring heat of the poisonous stove—­we reached the young Birmingham of America about 10 P.M., and soon found rest in a comfortable bed, at a comfortable hotel.

If you wish a good idea of Pittsburg, you should go to Birmingham, and reduce its size, in your imagination, to one-fourth the reality; after which, let the streets of this creation of your fancy be “top-dressed” about a foot deep with equal proportions of clay and coal-dust; then try to realize in your mind the effect which a week’s violent struggle between Messrs. Snow and Sleet would produce, and you will thus be enabled to enjoy some idea of the charming scene which Pittsburg presented on the day of my visit.  But if this young Birmingham has so much in common with the elder, there is one grand feature it possesses which the other wants.  The Ohio and Monongahela rivers form the delta on which it is built, and on the bosom of the former the fruits of its labour are borne down to New Orleans, via the Mississippi—­a distance of two thousand and twenty-five miles exactly.