We arrived safe at Malines, and I was infinitely amused at the variety of astonishment in the five hundred thousand faces which we passed. In one rich meadow I beheld a crowd of Roman Catholic priests, who looked at the trains in such a manner as if they thought that they were "heretical and damnable," and that the Chemin de Fer was nothing but the Chemin d'Enfer. At Malines we all got out, walked to a stone pillar, where a speech was made to the sound of martial music, and we all got in again. And then to show the power of his engines, Mr Stephenson attached all the cars, omnibuses, and diligences together, and directed the Elephant to take us back without assistance from the other two engines. So the Elephant took us all in tow, and away we went at a very fair pace. It must have been a very beautiful sight to those who were looking on the whole train in one line, covered with red cloth and garlands of roses with white canopies over head, and decorated with about three hundred Belgian flags, of yellow, red, and black. However, the huge animal who dragged this weight of eighty tons became thirsty at Ville Vorde, and cast us off--it took him half an hour to drink--that is to say, to take in water, and then he set off again, and we arrived safely at Brussels, much to the delight of those who were in the cars and also of his majesty, and all his ministers, and all his authorities, and all the mercantile classes, who consider that the millennium is come, but very much to the disappointment of the lower classes, who have formed the idea that the _Chemin de Fer_ will take away their bread, and who therefore longed for a blow-up. And Mr Stephenson having succeeded in bringing back in safety his decorated cars, has been _decore_ himself, and is now a Chevalier de l'Ordre Leopold. Would not the _Iron_ order of the Belgian patriots have been more appropriate as a _Chemin de Fer_ decoration? It is impossible to contemplate any steam-engine, without feeling wonder and admiration at the ingenuity of man; but this feeling is raised to a degree of awe when you look at a locomotive engine--there is such enormous power compressed into so small a space--I never can divest myself of the idea that it is possessed of _vitality_--that it is a living as well as a moving being--and that idea, joined with its immense power, conjures up in my mind that it is some spitting, fizzing, terrific demon, who, if he could escape control, would be ready and happy to drag us by thousands to destruction. And will this powerful invention prove to mankind a _blessing_ or a _curse_?--like the fire which Prometheus stole from heaven to vivify his statue, may it not be followed by the evils of Pandora's fatal casket? The lower classes of Belgium have formed an idea that the introduction of steam is to take away their bread. Let us examine whether there is not in this idea a degree of instinctive and prophetic truth.