It had to stop at every station,
therefore it was not an embarrassment to us. Our brake was a good piece
of machinery; it could bring the car to a standstill on a slope as steep
as a house-roof.
The scenery was grand and varied and beautiful, and there was no hurry;
we could always stop and examine it. There was abundance of time. We
did not need to hamper the train; if it wanted the road, we could switch
off and let it go by, then overtake it and pass it later. We stopped at
one place to see the Gladstone Cliff, a great crag which the ages and the
weather have sculptured into a recognizable portrait of the venerable
statesman. Mr. Gladstone is a stockholder in the road, and Nature began
this portrait ten thousand years ago, with the idea of having the
compliment ready in time for the event.
We saw a banyan tree which sent down supporting stems from branches which
were sixty feet above the ground. That is, I suppose it was a banyan;
its bark resembled that of the great banyan in the botanical gardens at
Calcutta, that spider-legged thing with its wilderness of vegetable
columns.
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