A good deal may be learned on board steam-boats, and in such vehicles as the American stages; and when accommodations of the kind become common, it will be difficult for the sulkiest Englishman to avoid admitting some ideas into his mind from the conversation and actions of the groups around him. When steam-boats ply familiarly on the Indus, and we have the rail-road to Calcutta which people are joking about, and another across the Pampas,--when we make trips to New Zealand, and think little of a run down the west coast of Africa,--places where we shall go for fashion's sake, and cannot go boxed up in a carriage of Long Acre origin,--our countrymen will, perforce, exchange conversation with the persons they meet, and may chance to get rid of the unsociability for which they are notorious, and by which they cast a veil over hearts and faces, and a shadow over their own path, wherever they go. Meantime, the wisest and happiest traveller is the pedestrian. If gentlemen and ladies want to see pictures, let them post to Florence, and be satisfied with learning what they can from the windows by the way. But if they want to see either scenery or people, let all who have strength and courage go on foot. I prefer this even to horseback. A horse is an anxiety and a trouble. Something is sure to ail it; and one is more anxious about its accommodation than about one's own. The pedestrian traveller is wholly free from care. There is no such freeman on earth as he is for the time. His amount of toil is usually within his own choice,--in any civilized region. He can go on and stop when he likes: if a fit of indolence overtakes him, he can linger for a day or a week in any spot that pleases him. He is not whirled past a beautiful view almost before he has seen it. He is not tantalized by the idea that from this or that point he could see something still finer, if he could but reach it. He can reach almost every point his wishes wander to. The pleasure is indescribable of saying to one's self, "I will go there,"--"I will rest yonder,"--and forthwith accomplishing it. He can sit on a rock in the midst of a rushing stream as often in a day as he likes. He can hunt a waterfall by its sound; a sound which the carriage-wheels prevent other travellers from hearing. He can follow out any tempting glade in any wood. There is no cushion of moss at the foot of an old tree that he may not sit down on if he pleases. He can read for an hour without fear of passing by something unnoticed while his eyes are fixed upon his book. His food is welcome, be its quality what it may, while he eats it under the alders in some recess of a brook. He is secure of his sleep, be his chamber ever so sordid; and when his waking eyes rest upon his knapsack, his heart leaps with pleasure as he remembers where he is, and what a day is before him. Even the weather seems to be of less consequence to the pedestrian than to other travellers.