"Ah," said Rollo, seating himself upon the soft cushion on one of the seats, "is not this superb? I am _very glad_ I did not take a second-class car."
"And yet the second-class cars in France are very comfortable and very respectable," said Mr. George, "and they are very much cheaper."
"How much should we have saved," asked Rollo, "in going to Strasbourg, if we had taken a second-class car?"
"I don't know, precisely," said Mr. George. "We should have saved a great deal."
The train now began to move; and, soon after it left the station, Mr. George took out his newspaper again and began to read. It was a copy of a very celebrated newspaper, called the London Times. Mr. George had another London paper which was full of humorous engravings. The name of it was Punch. Mr. George gave the Punch to Rollo, thinking that the pictures and caricatures in it might perhaps amuse him; but Rollo, after turning it over a moment, concluded that he should prefer to amuse himself by looking out the window.
Rollo saw a great many beautiful views and witnessed a great many strange and striking scenes as he was whirled onward by the train across the country from Paris towards Strasbourg. We cannot, however, stop to describe what he saw, but must hasten on to the Swiss frontier. The travellers arrived at Strasbourg in the evening. They spent the night at a hotel; and the next morning they took another railway which led along the bank of the Rhine, up the river, towards Switzerland. The country was magnificent. There was the river on one side, and a range of mountains rising sublimely in the interior on the other. The mountains were at a distance of several miles from the river; and the country between was an extremely fertile and luxuriant plain, covered with villages, castles, parks, pleasure grounds, gardens, and cultivated fields, which presented every where most enchanting pictures of rural beauty. This province is called Alsatia.
The terminus of the railway was at the city of Basle, which lies just within the confines of Switzerland. A short distance before reaching the gates of Basle, the train stopped at what seemed at first to be a station. It was, however, only the custom house, where the trunks and passports were to be examined.