green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!"

And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so felicitously as that

one. They say there is no word for "home" in the French language. Well,

considering that they have the article itself in such an attractive

aspect, they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let us not

waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I have observed that Frenchmen

abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time

or other. I am not surprised at it now.

We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took

first-class passage, not because we wished to attract attention by doing

a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could make our

journey

quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any

country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is infinitely more

delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the

West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since

then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic.

Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and

by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first

seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and

softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its

magnitude--the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer

scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on

the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of

121

The Innocents Abroad