[Visit to Iceland by Ida Pfeiffer]@TWC D-Link book
Visit to Iceland

CHAPTER XI
5/98

The first and second class contain eight persons in each division, the third class ten.

The carriages are all numbered, so that every passenger can easily find his seat.
By these simple arrangements the traveller may descend and walk about a little, even though the train should only stop two minutes, or even purchase some refreshments, without any confusion or crowding.
These conveniences are, of course, impossible when the carriages have the length of a house, and contain sixty or seventy persons within locked doors, and where the doors are opened by the guards, who only call out the name of the station without announcing how long the stay is.

In such railways it is not advisable for travellers to leave their seats; for before they can pass from one end of the carriage to the other, through the narrow door and down the steep steps, the horn is sounded, and at the same time the train moves on; the sound being the signal for the engine-driver, the passengers having none.
In these states there was also not the least trouble with the passport and the intolerable pass-tickets.

No officious police-soldier comes to the carriage, and prevents the passengers alighting before they have answered all his questions.

If passports had to be inspected on this journey, it would take a few days, for they must always be taken to the passport-office, as they are never examined on the spot.
Such annoying interruptions often occur several times in the same state.
And one need not even come from abroad to experience them, as a journey from a provincial to a capital town affords enough scope for annoyance.
I had no reason to complain of such annoyances in any of the countries through which I had hitherto passed.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books