TRANGLATED PROM

I of the most remarkable rathways i the world s that which crosses the Sennmerimg oo ridee belongime to the Noric Alps which marks the fronticr between Austria and Styria the Green.

The traveller who makes this journey for the first time receives a deep and lasting mpression. Ino truth, what can be more terrible, more striking, than the narrow track running at infinitc heights between hecething walls and yawning precipices? what more impressive than the carriages rolling with o crash like thunder over viaducts clevated to fabulous heights, or burying themsclves to the shrill scream of the locomotive 1 the deep night of the long tunnels ?

The air is cold frecezing. The train s swept along as by a whivlwind. The carth helow is so far away that it can hardly be distinguished through the hall-transparent NS, such sublimity man rcalizes his own insignifi- cwnce. But little thought 1s given to the Crousands of poor people who amidst the areatest dangers have spent their strength m

hauling the enormous rocks and blocks of

stone, in spanning the gigantic gulfs with bridges, and in bringing their Titanic task to a successful 1ssue.

[t is the story of two of these poor creatures that T proposc to tell. Not that

FrrpisaND Dy

whiceh s

In the midst of scenes and works of

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iy intention s to excite the pablic prey for their fate, or to ideahize thenr hives. 1 oshall simply strive to shed a hitde Tight apon the imense mass ol the suffermg poor who, after o life of struggle, of privations, and of rude labour, sink, despised and unvemen Lored, into the common tomhb. [ shall speak o the human heart, of its jovs and its sorrows, and of the wreat tragedy of hife renewed for ever amongst the humblest as among the most powerful of the carth.

The Semmering railway was almost fiinishedd. The hubbub of the labourers, the thunder of the blasting, had ceased. The swarm of workpeople who had come from Bobenia, rom Moravia, from sterile Karst and fertile rioul, had dispersed, and had pushed on farther south in scarch of work.

Reassured by the tranquillity of the place, the wild animals began to come forth again from the depths of the forest. Only here and there were still scen some of the hittle wooden huts which the wandering labourers had inhabited; most of which they had pulled down before they left.

These scattered cabins served as a shelter to a small number of workers who st remained to finish the railway: for sull, at certain places, rails had to be fixed, tele- oraph poles to be placed, and the points- men's boxes to be completed, under the roofs of which the swallows had already made their nests.