The train and the wild cattle in the valley

"We were walking in a country unknown to me. We had crossed some grasslands and came to a roughly made stile of wooden bars, over which I helped my mother to climb. The path which we followed led down the side of a grassy slope which formed the side of a shallow winding valley. On our left the valley disappeared round a corner behind low hills. To our right a small foreign-looking village lay at a distance, too far off for us to see it clearly. Looking down the valley that we were descending into, I saw that the path lay across it like a white ribbon and then turned off to the right towards the distant village. ' It looks just like a road marked out upon a map, ' I thought, ' or like a railway map. ' As I looked again I saw that there was running down the length of the valley a railroad track which I had not seen before and which crossed the path that we were following. We came nearer, and I saw that no gates guarded the crossing of the roads. 'What a dangerous sort of level crossing, ' I thought, 'like some of those unguarded railway lines in America that we read of. There would be no warning whatever of a train coming from behind the hills except the sound of it. ' I listened, and then I began to hear, far away, the roar of a train ; it came round the hill and round a sudden sharp curve at the foot of the valley, rushing towards us very fast. I stood clear of the line and watched it come and go. 'Will it stop at the village?' I wondered. As it thundered by, three carriages at the end of the train detached themselves from it and followed, but at a lessening pace. 'Slip carriages for the village, of course, ' I thought. ' What a fine thing it is to see the oncoming of a great train — it is like the description of a stampede of wild cattle on the Western Plains. These slip carriages are like the animals selected and cut off by the herdsmen from the main body.' Again the suggested thought realised itself at once. From far down the valley there came the sound of many hoofs beating the earth all together with a deep sound, and there came tearing up it a vast body of splendid wild cattle ; their heads lowered, tossing their horns. They came rushing up — they were not very close to me, but I could see them part a little, and a few young ones, who were trailing rather behind them, got separated and were left a short way behind the rest.

"No sense of fear was in my mind and no great surprise, 'I suppose that in this country it is natural to see such great herds,' was my thought." The dream after this followed on a tranquil course, and nothing else occurred that needs to be recorded.