The Astor House is not what it was. It has been distanced by more gigantic competitors; and as for the Tremont, it is left high and dry, like a stranded whale, by the tide of fashion. Nevertheless, I bestowed my patronage on the latter, perhaps for Sam Slick’s sake, and spent a couple of days under its hospitable roof while recovering from the sensation of cramp, tedium, and nausea quite inseparable from a sea voyage. Then I set out for the West. The journey, as far as Fort Madison, on the western boundary of the State of Illinois, I performed by railway, expeditiously perhaps, and not very uncomfortably, in spite of the amount of rocking and swinging due to a carelessly-metalled “permanent way,” if I may employ the phraseology of engineering. But I could not, with a clear conscience, agree with the enthusiastic comments of my fellow-travellers, as to the immense superiority, in speed and accommodation, of American railroads over those of Britain. After being jolted and swung till one’s bones ached, all the time, perhaps, being at a net speed of thirty miles an hour, it was rather provoking to listen to such remarks as the following:— “Wall, mister, I expect our flying locomotives do rayther astonish you. They kinder take the conceit out of Old England, I some think.” Or, more gravely, “I believe, sir, it’s pretty universally admitted that America whips the world for speed. We have beaten your yachts, we have licked your racers, and our trains must make you think small beer of your expresses. We go ahead, _we_ do!”