go past as gulls flap past a boat.  For there is a certain apparent swagging movement of the objects past which one travels which can only be likened to the peculiar flight of a large sea-bird.  But now there are signs of increased activity on the foot-plate; the stoker is busy controlling the feed of water to the boiler, and fires at more frequent intervals; the driver’s hand moves oftener as he coaxes and encourages the engine along the road, his slightest gesture betraying the utmost tension of eye and ear; the stations, instead of echoing a long sullen roar as we go through them, flash past us with a sudden rattle, and the engine surges down the line, the train following with hot haste in its wake.  We are in a cutting, and the noise is deafening.  Looking ahead, we see an apparently impenetrable wall before us.  Suddenly the whistle is opened, and we are in one of the longest tunnels in England.  The effect produced is the opposite of that with which we are familiar in a railway carriage, for the change is one from darkness to light rather than from light to darkness.  The front of the fire-box, foot-plate, and the tender, which had been rather hazily perceived in the whirl of surrounding objects, now strike sharply on the eye, lit up by the blaze from the fire, while overhead we see a glorious canopy of ruddy-glowing steam.  The speed is great, and the flames in the fire-box boil up and form eddies like water at the doors of an opening lock.  Far ahead we see a white speck, which increases in size till the fierce light from the fire pales, and we are once more in open day.  The weather has lifted, the sky is gray, but there is no longer any appearance of mist.  The hills on the horizon stand out sharply, and seem to keep pace with us as the miles slip past.  The line is clear; but there is an important junction not far distant, and we slacken speed, to insure a prompt pull-up should we find an adverse signal.  The junction signals are soon sighted; neither caution nor danger is indicated, and, once clear of the station, we steam ahead as fast as ever.  One peculiarity of the view of the line ahead strikes us.  Looking at a railroad line from a field or neighboring highway, even where the rails are laid on a steep incline, the rise and fall of the road is not very strikingly apparent.  Seen through the weather-glass, the track appears to be laid up hill and down dale, like a path on the downs above high cliffs.  Over it all we advance, the engine laboring and puffing on one or two heavy gradients, in spite of a full supply of steam, or tearing down the inclines with hardly any, or none at all and the brake on.  And here it may be noted that, like modern men, modern engines have been put upon diet, and are not allowed to indulge in so much victual as their forefathers.  The engine-driver, like the doctor of the new school, is determined not to ruin his patient by over-indulgence, and will tell you severely enough that “he will never be guilty of choking his engine with an over-supply