Genre:

Travelogue

Subjects:

Steamships, Railways, Amusement, Accidents, Engineering, Nationalism, Colleges, Engineers, Heroism

    Observes that the 'social life of a steamer is a very different thing, as we all know, from that of a railway. In a steamer you make acquaintances, you chat with everybody'. One of the passengers on the journey to Holland is 'a commercial man who had just swinged a railway company for three thousand pounds on account of an accident'. (540) After considering the regular flooding of Rotterdam, remarks, 'No wonder that the Dutch are good water-engineers. The country is kept safe and sound, and comfortable, by dint of engineering, and a college for training the State engineers, who look after the dykes, exists at Delft' (546).