CHAPTER I. 



T)EFORE I allude to the road as it is, let 

 ^-^ me refer to what it was, and in so doing: 

 bring my classical lore into play. Pelops was 

 a coachman, who has been immortalised for his 

 ability to drive at the rate of fourteen miles 

 an hour by the first of Grecian bards. Despite 

 his ivory arm, he got the whip-hand of (Eno- 

 maus, a brother " dragsman " in their cele- 

 brated chariot-race from Pisa to the Corinthian 

 Isthmus, owing more to the rascality of the 

 state coachman, Myrtilus, whom he bribed to 

 furnish his master, the King of Pisa, with an 

 old carriage, the axletree of which broke 

 on the course, than to his own coachino- 

 merits. 



Hippolytus, too, " handled the ribbons well," 

 but " came to grief" by being overturned near 



B 2 



