When the weather
is such as to allow a true current of air to circulate through the car,
the atmosphere is barely endurable; but with stoves at work, and all
apertures closed, it soon becomes dangerously oppressive. The German
element prevails strongly throughout Yankee-land: perhaps this accounts
for the natives' dread of fresh air. Your only chance of escaping from
semi-suffocation is to secure a seat next to a window, and keep it open,
hardening your heart against all the grumbling of your neighbors, who
run through a whole gamut of complaints, in the hope of softening or
shaming the Hyperborean. Sometimes you will have to encounter menaces;
but, in such a cause, it is surely worth while to do battle to the
death; revolver and bowie-knife lose their terrors in the presence of
imminent asphyxia. The advocates of the system chiefly insist on the
sleeping-cars, and the advantage of passing from one end of the train to
the other at your pleasure. On the first of these points, let me say,
that few aliens, after one trusting experiment of those stifling berths,
will be inclined to repeat it: the atmosphere of a crowded steamboat
cabin is pure and fresh by comparison. As for the vaunted promenade--the
man who would avail himself thereof, would, probably waltz with grace
and comfort to himself on the deck of the Lively Sally in a sea-way: it
requires some practice even to stand upright without holding on; the
jolting and oscillation are such that I think you take rather more
involuntary exercise than on the back of a cantering cover-hack.
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