With the arrival of the railroads began the decline of the river, though some years were to elapse before the decline was seriously felt. It was the absolute perfection of the railway system that eventually made its competition irresistible. The lines paralleled the river; they had, as I have said, easy grades; they responded to that consideration in regard to speedy delivery of consignments which is as pronounced in the United States as it is in Great Britain; they were as free from stoppages due to variations in water level as they were from stoppages on account of ice or snow; and they could be provided with branch lines as "feeders," going far inland, so that the trader did not have either to build his factory on the river bank or to pay cost of cartage between factory and river. The railway companies, again, were able to provide much more efficient terminal facilities, especially in the erection of large wharves, piers, and depôts which allow of the railway waggons coming right alongside the steamers. At Galveston I saw cargo being discharged from the ocean-going steamers by being placed on trucks which were raised from the vessel by endless moving-platforms to the level of the goods station, where stood, along parallel series of lines, the railway waggons which would take them direct to Chicago, San Francisco, or elsewhere. With facilities such as these no inland waterway can possibly compete. The railways, again, were able, in competition with the river, to reduce their charges to "what the traffic would bear," depending on a higher proportion of profit elsewhere. The steamboats could adopt no such policy as this, and the traders found that, by the time they had paid, not only the charges for actual river transport, but insurance and extra cartage, as well, they had paid as much as transport by rail would have cost, while getting a much slower and more inconvenient service. [Illustration: SUCCESSFUL RIVALS OF MISSISSIPPI CARGO BOATS. (1) Illinois Central Freight Train; 43 cars; 2,100 tons. (2) " " Banana Express, New Orleans to Chicago; 34 cars; 433 tons of bananas. [_To face page 114._ ] The final outcome of all these conditions is indicated by some remarks made by Mr Stuyvesant Fish, President of the Illinois Central Railroad Company (the chief railway competitors of the Mississippi steamboats), in the address he delivered as President of the Seventh Session of the International Railway Congress at Washington, in May 1905:--