TRAVELLERS' EXPERIENCES 225 



more fevered than hungry, I determined on spending 

 the time in combing my hair, and washing my face 

 and hands with vinegar. In the midst of this solacing 

 operation I heard what seemed to be the mail running 

 its rapid course, and quick as lightning it flashed on me, 

 *There it goes! and my luggage is on the top of it, and 

 my purse is in the pocket of it, and here am I stranded 

 on an unknown beach, without so much as a sixpence 

 in my pocket to pay for the vinegar I have already 

 consumed!' Without my bonnet, my hair hanging 

 down my back, my face half dried, and the towel with 

 which I was drying it firmly grasped in my hand, I 

 dashed out — along, down, opening wrong doors, 

 stumbling over steps, cursing the day I was born, still 

 more the day on which I took a notion to travel, and 

 arrived finally at the bar of the inn, in a state of excite- 

 ment bordering on lunacy. The barmaids looked on me 

 with wonder and amazement. 'Is the coach gone?' I 

 gasped out. 'The coach? yes!' 'Oh, and you have let it 

 go away without me! Oh! stop it, cannot you stop it?' 

 and out I rushed into the street, with streaming hair 

 and streaming towel, and almost brained myself against — 

 the mail! which was standing there in all stillness, 

 without so much as horses in it! What I heard was a 

 heavy coach. And now, having descended like a maniac, 

 I ascended again like a fool, and dried the other half of 

 my face, and put on my bonnet, and came back a sadder 

 and wiser woman." 



In the year 1830 speculation as to the railway was 

 rife, and Charles Lamb travelled with a talkative gentle- 

 man who for twenty miles discussed "the probable 

 advantages of steam carriages." Lamb knew nothing of 

 the subjeft, but as it was one in which wild speculation 

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