“You are a vile conspirator,” said I affectionately, “and have all the lower traits of the Yankee character.  But I will use you to carry me to Kehl, as Faust used Mephistopheles.  By the by, your carriage is a comfortable one and saves my time.  I have two hours before I need return to the train.”

“It is double the time you will need.”

EDWARD STRAHAN.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FROM THE POTOMAC TO THE OHIO.

[Illustration:  VIEW NEAR ANTIETAM, MARYLAND.]

An old writer who dearly loved excursions, Francis Rabelais, inserted in one of his fables an account of a country where the roads were in motion.  He called the place the Island of Odes, from the Greek [Greek:  odss], a “road,” and explained:  “For the roads travel, like animated things; and some are wandering roads, like planets, others passing roads, crossing roads, connecting roads.  And I saw how the travelers, messengers and inhabitants of the land asked, Where does this road go to? and that?  They were answered, From the south to Faverolles, to the parish, to the city, to the river.  Then hoisting themselves on the proper road, without being otherwise troubled or fatigued, they found themselves at their place of destination.”

This fancy sketch, thrown off by an inveterate joker three hundred years ago, is justified curiously by any of our modern railways; but to see the picture represented in startling accuracy you should find some busy “junction” among the coal-mountains.  Here you may observe, from your perch upon the hill, an assemblage of roads actively reticulating and radiating, winding through the valleys, slinking off misanthropically into a tunnel, or gayly parading away elbow-in-elbow with the streams.  These avenues, upon minute inspection, are seen to be obviously moving:  they are crawling and creeping with an unbroken joint-work of black wagons, the rails hidden by their moving pavement, and the road throughout advancing, foot by foot, into the distance.  It is hardly too fanciful—­on seeing its covering slide away, its switches swinging, its turn-tables revolving, its drawbridges opening—­to declare that such a road is an animal—­an animal proving its nature, according to Aristotle, by the power to move itself.  Nor is it at all censurable to ask of a road like this where it “goes to.”

The notion of what Rabelais calls a “wayfaring way,” a chemin cheminant, came into our thoughts at Cumberland.  But Cumberland was not reached until after many miles of interesting travel along a route remarkable for beauties, both natural and improved.  A coal-distributor is certain, in fact, to be a road full of attractions for the tourist; for coal, that Sleeping Beauty of our era, always chooses a pretty bed in which to perform its slumber of ages.  The road which delivers the Cumberland coal, however, is truly exceptional for splendor of scenery, as well as for historical suggestiveness and engineering science.  It has recently become, by means of certain lavish providences established for the blessing of travelers at every turn, a tourist route and a holiday delight.