OLD COACHING DAYS. 209 



Before concluding, I will relate some of the difficulties we 

 had to encounter in foggy weather. 1 We were obliged to be 

 guided out of London with torches, seven or eight mails 

 following one after the other, the guard of the foremost mail 

 lighting the one following, and so on till the last. We travelled 

 at a slow pace, like a funeral procession. Many times I have 

 been three hours going from London to Hounslow. I re- 

 member one very foggy night, instead of my arriving at Bagshot 

 (a distance of thirty miles from London, and my destination) 

 at eleven o'clock, I did not get there till one in the morning. 

 I had to leave again at four the same morning. On my way 

 back to town, when the fog was very bad, I was coming 

 over Hounslow Heath when I reached the spot where 

 the old powder-mills used to stand. I saw several lights in 

 the road, and heard voices, which induced me to stop. The 

 old Exeter mail, which left Bagshot thirty minutes before I 

 did, had met with a singular accident ; it was driven by a man 

 named Gambier ; his leaders had come in contact with a hay- 

 cart on its way to London, which caused them to turn suddenly 

 round, break the pole, and blunder down a steep embankment, 

 at the bottom of which was a narrow deep ditch filled with 

 water and mud. The mail-coach pitched on to the stump of 

 a willow-tree that overhung the ditch ; the coachman and 

 outside passengers were thrown over into the meadow beyond, 



1 These words remind me of a good plan for driving on a foggy night, 

 which it may be well to mention here. I have often when driving at night 

 been obliged to pull up and put my lamps out, and was able to get on better 

 without them than with them. The lights shine on to the fog and back again 

 into the coachman's eyes, so that he can see nothing, and is fairly dazzled. 

 So far as he is concerned he is better without lamps, but a light at night is 

 desirable in order to prevent other vehicles from running against one. It is 

 therefore a great object to have a light and to prevent it from shining in the 

 eyes of the coachman, as it is apt to do in a fog. In the coach wallet or the 

 pockets of coach or carriage should be a thick bit of leather fitting over the 

 square or circular lamps, coming down just so far as to cover rather more than 

 half the flame, and firmly strapped or buckled on. This shows the ditch or 

 fence on either side, lights the road, and does not come back off the fog into 

 the driver's eyes. It shows a certain distance, and keeps other people from 

 running against you. B. 



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