Following the Rhine for twenty miles farther, the line turns to the right, and we pass through the coal district which supplies the soft coke by which the locomotives are fed, and the dirty-looking coal to which the neighbouring region owes so much of its industrial prosperity. Iron furnaces, coal-pits, and chemical manufactories, remind us, as we pass Oberhausen, of the denser peopled and more smoke-blackened coal-fields of northern and western England, while all the appointments we see around them speak of an economy in management somewhat different from our own. No heaps of waste and burning coal indicate the approach to a colliery, nor columns of black smoke vomiting waste fuel into the tainted air, nor wheels and ropes rattling and busily revolving in the open day, nor troops of blackened men and boys lifting their heads to gaze, as the train skims swiftly by. Fine buildings cover in and conceal the openings to the pits with all their gear; and it is not quite obvious whether climate and profit compel this system, or whether it is the general habits of the people which thus manifest themselves. Cattle are kept under cover nearly all the year through; thoughts are very much kept under cover, even in so-called constitutional Prussia and Hanover; and the operations of the coal-pit may be boxed in and hidden from the vulgar gaze, merely as the consequence of a precautionary habit. Dordmund, with its fortifications, and its associations with the famous “Vehm-gericht,” stands in the middle of this coal-field. Several borings in progress on the flats of black land, which stretch away from its old walls, exhibited the living influence of railway communication in changing the surface even of old countries, in opening up long-neglected resources, and in imparting new energy to half-dormant populations. Through the fertile Hellweg we sped along, leaving Dordmund behind us, and through the region of Westphalian hams, till the dark wet night overtook us. But, easy and comfortable in our luxurious carriages, we only quitted the train at Hanover that we might spend a morning in a city with which England has had so many relations.