<​October 19​> upon the brink of one of them, the cars being drawn by horses, the men had left the breakers; the conductor seeing the cars coming and about to run on to the horses, he hollered for the men to break, but finding none at the breakers and the cars approaching the inclined plane, the teamster liberated his horses as soon as possible, and they just escaped being run over, and the conductor sprang to the breaker himself and with great exertion merely saved it from running down the plane, which would have dashed the boat to atoms. I was standing in the cars at the time. I instantly flung my cloak from my shoulders, and prepared myself for leaping out of the cars in case it should start down the plane. In either case it might have killed me, but I knew it was certain death to go down the plane; but through the mercy of God the <​cars​> were stopped before they began to descend. The whole distance was a constant scene of danger, and I called upon God in my heart to preserve my life. Even while on a level, we were running on the edge of precipices, hundreds of feet deep, down which, if a wheel should break, or run off the track, the cars would surely be plunged; which would make an end of all flesh that was on board. We passed through one tunnel in the mountain, and when we reached the bottom of the inclined planes, I felt thankful to God and felt that we were mostly out of danger, but they put the boat together, and started it on the rail with all on board, without horse or steam, and the railroad being a little descending, it increased in speed, until it ran at a rapid rate, and was still in danger of upsetting. It ran of itself 4 miles, until it came to the canal, where it was to take water, and here again to finish the day with danger, a train of cars was left in our track, and with all the power that could be exerted on the breaks, we barely missed having a smash up at last. We finally got rolled into the water alive, with no bones broken, or lives lost, and for one I had a glad heart. While conversing with the mate in the evening on the subject, he remarked that “we were not sensible of one half of the danger that we were in during the proceedings of that day.” But I was sensible of a good deal at least. We got into the canal about dark, being 36 miles from canal to canal, in crossing the mountains. We travelled all night in the Canal which was one constant scene of locks.”