Note 30 — A LETTER, &c.

“The railway a little beyond Wavertree-lane is carried through a deep marle cutting, under several massive stone archways, thrown across the excavation to form the requisite communications between the roads and farms on the opposite sides of the railway. Beyond the marle cutting is the great rock excavation through Olive Mount, about half a mile to the north of the village of Wavertree. Here the traveller passes through a deep and narrow ravine, 70 feet below the surface of the ground, little more space being opened out than sufficient for two trains of carriages to pass each other; and the road winding gently round towards the south-east, the prospect is bounded by the perpendicular rock on either side, with the blue vault above, relieved at intervals by a bridge high over head, connecting the opposite precipices. At night, when the natural gloom of the place is further deepened, the scene from the bridges above will readily be imagined to be novel and striking. The light of the moon illuminating about half the depth, and casting a darker shade on the area below—the general silence interrupted at intervals by a noise like distant thunder—presently a train of carriages, led on by an engine of fire and steam, with her lamps like two furnaces, throwing their light onward in dazzling signal of their approach—with the strength and speed of a war-horse the engine moves forward with its glorious cavalcade of merchandize from all countries and passengers of all nations. But the spectacle is transient as striking; in a moment the pageant is gone—the meteor is passed; the flaring of the lamps is only seen in the distance, and the observer, looking down from the battlement above, perceives that all again is still, and dark, and solitary.