312 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



road before he is aware of them ; and therefore, as I 

 have said, it is essential that he should be wide-awake, 

 and have his horses well in hand. 



When I first knew the road, more danger was to be 

 encountered by night coachmen than at the present time. 

 Awkward bridges 1 were to be passed; quarters {i.e. ruts) 

 were to be changed ; and at the bottom of almost every 

 hill was a grip, or something of that sort, which was well 

 calculated to throw down a blind or clumsy horse. To 

 guard against these, night coachmen had their marks — 

 such as a tree, a gate, a haystack, a cottage, or any 

 other object by the roadside, which gave them notice of 

 the danger. All, however, is now plain sailing ; and as 

 I before mentioned, we hear of fewer accidents by night 

 than by day. 



Unless when the moon is very bright, a dark night 

 and a narrow road are in favour of the safe travelline of 

 a coach by night. When it is what the coachmen term 

 ' a clear dark ' — that is, quite dark and black — the lamps 

 give much better light than when the darkness approaches 

 to grey. In very wide roads — particularly where there 

 are no hedges to confine it — lamp-light is both weak and 

 deceiving. A narrow road, sufficiently wide of course 

 for carriages to pass with convenience — with no ditch on 



1 The old way of doing business was certainly slow when compared with 

 the present ; but, from the bad state of cattle, and other appendages to 

 coaching, more danger attended it. The following anecdote is told of a night 

 coachman of the old school. He had just got his coach over a very awkward 

 bridge in a foggy night, when he thus addressed a passenger who was on the 

 box with him : ' Well over that, sir ; only one eye among us ! ' That, of 

 course, was his own. 





