Look to your right, you will see the Houses of Parliament, the Barrycade of Westminster that has now been up for six years, and likely to remain up for thirty more. The bird you see on the top is a crane. It is sacred hereabouts, and is highway robbery if any one attempts to dislodge it. The Thames is worth looking at; but you must be quick, for unless you look down that narrow street before the train passes it, you will not see it. The silver speck—like a half-crown—you see at the end of that lane is the Thames. Turn quick to the left; you will perceive what an Englishman most delights in—a fight. Bah! you're too late; the Policeman has emerged from some invisible spot, and the fight is adjourned. One man in blue disperses five hundred Britons. You will see plenty of English Interiors on each side of the country. They display all varieties of paper, mostly at a halfpenny a yard. How desolate the fireplaces look, and yet they are interesting, as the last abiding-places of the grate must always be. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] How ferocious those chimneys look!—they give you quite a turn. Hurrah! now we approach Vauxhall! At night you can see the fireworks for nothing. Sometimes they drop in also upon you. A Roman wheel occasionally visits the first-class carriage, when he proves a very troublesome visitor, and which no one likes to turn out. The sticks—the departed ghosts of the short-lived rockets—think nothing of falling down upon the third-class passengers. But in the day-time you have nothing of these entertainments. All you see is the shell of the pagoda peeping through the trees, or an artist busy in veneering ham for the sandwiches; or you may get a small view of the airy abode of Il Diavolo, who led such a wire-drawn existence. [Illustration] Holla! there's a cab coming over Vauxhall Bridge, and a steamer going underneath it. The horse still carries it over steam occasionally. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Now, you have reached the Vauxhall terminus. But which is the way out? There, down that trap. Why, it looks like the cabin of a steamer; but it isn't. Venture down it—it only takes you into the cellar, for the passengers at this station are shot out through a dry arch. But this species of exit—underhand as it is—is not half so perplexing as the one at Waterloo Bridge—as they will persist in calling the terminus—though never were Directors so far out in their calculations. Here, as you rush in a hurry to discover the exit, you are stopped by the following directions:— [Illustration: THE WAY OUT] Well, how have you enjoyed your trip? Only consider the variegated landscape, the picturesque scenery, the wonderful insight into the domestic habits of the natives, which you have just enjoyed in your delightful little trip of three minutes' rapid flight over roof and chimneys, from Waterloo Bridge to Nine Elms. If you are a real lover of nature, you will never forget it as long as you live.