Sir Francis Bond Head

“ As a departing railway-train, like a vessel sailing out of harbour, proceeds on its course, its rate rapidly increases, until, in a very short time, it has attained its full speed, and men of business are then intently reading the “City news,” and men of pleasure the leading article of their respective newspapers, when this runaway street of passengers—men, women, and children—unexpectedly find themselves in sudden darkness, visible only by a feeble and hitherto unappreciated lamp, which, like the pale moon after a fiery sunset, modestly shines over their head. ”

“ If the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its branches. An ox-fence—composed of two ditches, a bank, a pair of hedges, and a stiff, low, oak rail—may altogether prove too broad to be cleared. Timber also may be too high to be topped; yet, in all these cases, if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been the melancholy result ”

“ It had been hot all day—the roads had been dusty—the ground, as one trod upon it, had felt warm—the air was motionless—animal as well as vegetable life appeared weak and exhausted—Nature herself seemed parched and thirsty—the people on the promenade, as it got hotter and hotter, had walked slower and slower, until they were now crawling along as unwillingly as if they had been marching to their graves. ”

“ There is, indeed, nothing more different than active and passive courage. Hagi Ismael would fight, but he had not strength of mind to suffer. At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleasure the rugged top of Chiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris cried out, with a loud voice, 'Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!' I saw from the southeast a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. ”

“ When every person has succeeded in liberating himself or herself from the train, it is amusing to observe how cleverly, from long practice, the Company’s porters understood the apparent confusion which exists. To people wishing to embrace their friends—to gentlemen and servants darting in various directions straight across the platform to secure a cab or in search of private carriages—they offer no assistance whatever, well knowing that none is required. ”

“ Mounted on one charger, the Duke of Wellington in his cocked hat and feathers, military cloak, sword, pistols and spurs, in all weathers, rides triumphantly on the summit of an arch at the western end of London, while, at the same moment, in pantaloons and shoes, without hat, stirrups, or spurs, mounted on another charger, he appears, as a sentinel, in front of the Bank of England, the commercial heart of the empire.
Among the great potentates of the earth, the coin that is most currently used, in proffers to each other of amity and friendship, is a horse. ”

“ The eager step with which I always walked towards the strong steel bath, is almost indescribable. Health is such an inestimable blessing; it colours so highly the little picture of life; it sweetens so exquisitely the small cup of our existence; it is so like sunshine, in the absence of which the world, with all its beauties, would be, as it once was, without form and void, that I can conceive nothing which a man ought more eagerly to do than get between the stones of that mill which is to grind him young again, particularly when, as in my case, the operation was to be attended with no pain. ”

“ In Abyssinia, royalty sits perched on the tops of the highest mountains; the great bulk of the community enjoy themselves on the sides of the hills, or in the wide, healthy plains; and in the hot, feverish, putrid atmosphere of the low woods, we meet that wretched, unfortunate being, the black, woolly-headed negro, who there, as in other regions of the world, finds his fellow-creature, pagan as well as Christian, a more cruel, cunning, relentless enemy than the savage beasts of the field. ”

“ But among all the subterranean pipes laid bare before us there is certainly no one which has more curious contents than the three-inch iron pipe of the Electric Telegraph Company; and yet, of all the multitudes who walk the streets, how few of them ever care to reflect what a singular contrast exists between the slow pace at which they themselves are proceeding, and the rate at which beneath their feet forty-five electric wires are transmitting in all directions, and to a variety of distances, intelligence of every possible description! ”

“ On the contrary, it only proves that human institutions can no more extinguish the native virtue, talent, and integrity of a country, than they can hide from the world the light of the sun; but education can misdirect, though it cannot annihilate; it can give the national mind a hankering for unwholesome instead of wholesome food,—it can encourage a passion for useless instead of useful information. On its course high-bred lads may be trained to race against each other, until the vain object they have strived for can never in after life re-appear, but their blood warms within them. ”

“ For at the top of his speed, just as when swimming, a horse can neither rear, kick, nor plunge, and therefore at his best pace he proceeds on his sure road to ruin, until not only all his wind is pumped out of him, but after that, until twisted hide-thong and sharp iron have converted his terror of man into an ardent desire to be obedient to his will. In fact, like a small nation that has unsuccessfully been contending against a great one, he wishes to put an end to the horrors of war, and to sue for the blessings of peace. ”

“ If, as you are stretching out your glass, you retire but half a stride, to allow a thirsting lady to step forward, you clearly see, whensoever you afterwards meet her, that the slight attention is indelibly recorded in your favour. Even running against a German produces, as it were by collision, a spark of kind feeling, which, like a star in the heavens, twinkles in his serene countenance whenever you behold it. Smile only once upon a group of children, and the little urchins bite their lips, vainly repressing their joy whenever afterwards you meet them. ”

“ As the train now flies through our verdant fields, the cattle grazing on each side do not even raise their heads to look at it; the timid sheep fears it no more than the wind; indeed, the hen-partridge, running with her brood along the embankment of a deep cutting, does not now even crouch as it passes close by her. ”

“ Bruce stepped one pace backward, and dropped the burnoose behind him, holding a small blunderbuss in his hand, without taking it off the belt. In a firm tone of voice he replied, "This is my answer: I am not a man, as I have told you before, to die like a beast by the hand of a drunkard; on your life, I charge you, stir not from your sofa." ”

“ Religion belongs to every day—to the place of business as much as to the church. High in an ancient belfry there is a clock, and once a week the old sexton winds it up; but it has neither dial plate nor hands. The pendulum swings, and there it goes, ticking, ticking, day in and day out, unnoticed and useless. What the old clock is in its dark chamber, keeping time to itself, but never showing it, that is the mere sentimentality of religion, high above life, in the region of airy thought ”

“ Beneath lies the little contracted nook in which we were born, studded with trifling objects, each of which we once fancied to be highly important; every little rock has its name, and every inch of ground belongs to one man, and therefore does not belong to another; but, lying prostrate before us, is a great picture of the world, and until he has seen it, no one born and bred below could fancy how vast are its dimensions, or how truly insignificant are the billows of that puddle in a storm from which he has somehow or other managed to escape. ”

“ It is the same with mankind. On entering a railway station, we merely mutter to a clerk in a box where we want to go—say “How much?”—see him horizontally poke a card into a little machine that pinches it—receive our ticket—take our place—read our newspaper—on reaching our terminus drive away perfectly careless of all or of any one of the innumerable arrangements necessary for the astonishing luxury we have enjoyed.
On the practical working of a railway there is no book extant, nor any means open to the public of obtaining correct information on the subject. ”

“ About four days' journey from Tripoli, Bruce met the Emir Hadji, conducting a caravan of pilgrims from Fez in Morocco, across the whole of Africa, to Mecca—that is, from the Atlantic Ocean to the western banks of the Red Sea. The caravan consisted of about three thousand men, with an immense number of camels laden with merchandise, water, flour, and food, for the hadjis or pilgrims; and such a crowd of uncivilized beings, wildly traversing such a vast inhospitable desert, yet urged forward and supported by a principle of religion, formed a very extraordinary spectacle. ”