contains the common drawing-room as well as
the prince's private apartments. Beneath the
deck is an independent and separate suite of
rooms for the princess and her ladies, besides
six handsome guest-chambers opening into a
dining-room for eighteen persons; there is also
the kitchen and the servants' offices. The fore-
part of the vessel is occupied exclusively by the
staff and the crew.

The yacht is always ready to put to sea. The
prince, his aides-de-camp, the crew, and the
servants, are all so accustomed to these flying
voyages, that it is much easier and simpler for
his yachting household to undertake a four
months' jaunt than to go and spend a week in
a suburban château. Every individual has his
own room, his bed, his bureau, his library, with
every other requisite for his usual pursuits and
his daily habits. Under such circumstances, a
yacht is more than a mere means of locomotion;
it is a floating mansion. Consequently, the
prince, while travelling, makes but very brief
settlements on terra firma. After a rapid trip
into the interior, the yacht is his home, his
country. French private life and luxury are
thus transported into the most inhospitable
regions. After a walk in absolute solitude on
the coast of Greenland, amongst chaotic blocks
of granite, snows, and avalanches, where plants
cannot grow nor animals live, the travellers
could return on board to enjoy a blazing fire,
take up the favourite book, and conclude the
half-finished letter or drawing. The table,
served exactly as in Paris, glittered with
brilliant lamps and crystal. French wines were
sipped to the strains of a band which called
forth echoes from the rocky wilderness where no
human sound had been heard before.

It had been arranged to leave the Princess
Clotilde in Europe; but at the last moment she
declared simply and firmly that she would
accompany her husband to America. But as her
highness could not bear the long land journeys
of the interior, she was installed—with horses,
carriages, and ladies of honour—at the New
York Hotel, in Broadway. The males of the
party went their way, leaving under the protection
of American hospitality the only princess
who appears to have set foot on the soil of the
republic.

Their first acquaintance with American railways
conveyed no favourable opinion; nor did
further experience modify the impression. Every
carriage or "car" is some sixteen yards long,
without divisions or compartments. Two rows
of benches range from one end to the other,
leaving between them a narrow passage by
means of which the carriages communicate; so
that the public is incessantly promenading along
the whole length of the train. There is neither
first, second, nor third class. All places are
alike, and the same in price.

Whenever the prince entered a station, even
without being expected, one of the carriages
was immediately reserved for him and his suite,
shut up, and locked. The key was then taken
to one of the party with discreet and cautious
eagerness. They were then obliged to find up
the director, to present their thanks; for he
never put himself in the way of receiving them.
Often, payment for their places was refused to
be taken at the office, and more than once it was
brought back after having been received.

In spite of the care thus taken to withdraw
them from contact with a very mixed public
and the crowding of the multitude, they were
still very sensible of the defects of the American
railway cars. Whether on account of their
length, or whether in consequence of the bad
condition of the road and the rails—which
latter are, in the majority of cases, crushed,
warped, and dislocated—the vibration is
insupportable. Moreover, the dimensions of the
windows are so small that you experience an
approach to suffocation.

It has been rumoured that, on the American
railways, every train has its refreshment-room—
a fable. Not only is there nothing to eat and
nothing to drink (except iced water, which
national and tonic beverage is supplied at discretion),
but there is not the least bit of bar room
at the stations. For strangers, this absence of
all refreshment is a serious annoyance. As to
the Americans, they will pass a whole day without
taking sustenance.

Philadelphia, the capital o Pennsylvania (once
the metropolis of Quakers, and now the
manufacturing town of the New World), long disputed
the pre-eminence with New York. At present,
the struggle is no longer possible, the balance
having inclined in favour of the latter.
Philadelphia, born only yesterday, refuses to be
comforted for having only five hundred thousand
inhabitants. The Philadelphians boast that their
city is the best built in all the world. Red brick
figures side by side with fine white marble.
Calcareous rocks of all colours abound in the
neighbourhood.

Nevertheless, the town is poorly lighted,
horribly filthy, and very ill kept, especially in
what concerns the highway department. Every
means seem to be taken to frighten the citizens
from stirring, except in omnibuses. The streets,
neither macadamised nor paved, but simply
strewed with bits of stone, offer a succession of
mountains and valleys capitally adapted to sprain
the ankles of foot passengers, and to break the
springs of vehicles. Besides, there is not one
which is not furrowed by one or more railways,
which are neither more nor less than the
confiscation of a portion of the public way for the
benefit of a private speculation. In Philadelphia,
the streets are completely overrun with
iron rails. You must either stop at home or
submit to the omnibus, which takes you where
it goes, not where you want to go. Every hired
carriage which has not its own proper railway,
offers, as soon as it attempts to stir, the emblem
of the lot which awaits small industries when
they venture to compete with great ones.

The great lion of Philadelphia is the Cherry
Hill Penitentiary, which is situated at the city
gates, upon a naked elevation of cold and melancholy
aspect. The exterior presents a square of