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Society if they were prepared some day to rush through 

 their ordinary occupations, to walk or run a mile, as the 

 case may be, against time, burdened with eatables or drink- 

 ables, or such other apparatus as antiquarian enthusiasts 

 might deem necessary for a day's outing — to be hustled 

 into a ballast waggon, and jolted over an unfinished rail 

 track, behind a boggy engine, belching smoke and dust 

 abundantly about them ; were I to ask if they were pre- 

 pared, after such particularly ungentlemanly treatment, to 

 stumble for a mile or two over a bouldery river course, 

 with the alcoholic uncertainty such a slippery footing 

 entails, they would say no ; and yet, in plain language, 

 such was the start, and little more, of the excursion of 

 which I am expected to say something. 



My readers may be inclined to think disparagingly of 

 a Society that was booked through to Garmouth in a ballast 

 waggon. They may be prompted to say it must have 

 been neither fisb, flesh, nor good red herring ; but the 

 reason of the consignment was simply this, that the Coast 

 Railway, over which we travelled, was still incomplete, 

 and that we made the journey at the kind invitation of 

 Mr. Granger, the contractor, in one of his " saloon " car- 

 riages. Even under favourable circumstances, it is difficult 

 to gracefully glide into a railway carriage. How awkwardly, 

 then, was our party placed, stauding at the rail level in 

 front of the ballast waggon. We looked like the remnant 

 of some forlorn hope, gazing yearningly at the crest of an 

 impregnable redoubt that had to be entered. Need I say 

 that it was ! And, considering the various stages of 

 inactivity represented among us, it was well done. Thanks 

 to the consideration of Mr. Granger, too, we gained some 

 experience in shipping and unshipping ourselves during 

 the journey, to inspect one or two beautiful examples of 

 sand-drift — exercise which would have been invaluable 



