4 PIIEFACE. 



Coaches and railways aided me in a measure, but I 

 wearied sadly under a very heavy knapsack ; and 

 such long cross-country walks were not especially 

 favourable to framing cross-examinations at night. 

 Hence I soon found that 1 was merely cutting time 

 to waste, and, after making the discovery, I pushed 

 my way to the Orkneys, just to get a notion of the 

 work before me, and asked my good friend Archer 

 Fortescue to buy me a garron before that day twelve 

 months. 



Another summer came round, and there were only 

 two garrons of the size for sale in Pomona one at 

 IQ and the other at 7 10s. The brown was just 

 the thing, although it was rather ugly; but the bay 

 looked, when I met it by chance on the deck of the 

 Vanguard, as if it would have come in half with me. 

 Condition was everything at such a crisis; and, 

 thanks to " Moore's Dietary of Corpulence" (which 

 is very nearly the same, but several years senior to the 

 " Banting system"), I was enabled to take 241bs. of 

 flesh off my back, and carry it behind me in the much 

 pleasanter shape of macintosh and luggage. " Just 

 fifteen four the lot" was the announcement of Pro- 

 vost Bell of Dumfries, when, grasping my pad, valise, 

 book-bag, and macintosh, I sat in his bacon-scales. 

 Many and various were the suggestions about sad- 

 dles ; but a pad seemed best, on three grounds : it 

 would fit almost anything if my mare died or was 



