When I came to this wonderful rampire [sic], it filled me with the greatest surprise,

To see such a great undertaking, on the like I never opened my eye.

To see a full thousand brave fellows at work among mountains so tall,

To dig through the vallies so level, through rocks for to cut a canal.

The frequent processions of barrowmen toiling their slow and weary way up the narrow plank to the sides of the cut – the high platforms erected for the cars used in moving the heavy masses of rock – the horse-drills keeping up their continual buzz as the poor, jaded animals tread to the ceaseless music, and the heated steel descends into the almost impenetrable rock – the noise of the blast which is so loud and frequent as to make one think he is going through the uproarious salute of a grand military reception, or that the 4th of July is perpetuating itself – the stampede among the men as word is passed that a fuse is fired – the scattering of the rock which follows the explosion, sometime shooting innumerable masses of all sizes into the heavens, giving you no bad idea of Ætna and Vesuvius – the voices of the overseers and the louder utterings of the cataract, which all this scene of animation is preparing to overcome for the uses of man.