AMERICAN ROADS. 27 



fifty-one miles, the descent is 2500 feet, and a further 

 descent in seventy-five miles is 6ooo feet. From here 

 to Sacramento, 104 miles, the line is carried along the 

 €dge of precipices, and in places along ledges ex- 

 cavated in the sides of mountains. One of the most 

 imposing of these passages is Cape Horn, 1722 miles 

 from the eastern point of departure. 



Over these mountains the Californian stages used 

 to run. American writers have made us acquainted 

 with the wild and adventurous style of coaching in the 

 Western States, and the words "canons" and '"grades" 

 seem quite familiar to us on this side of the Atlantic, 

 owing to the numerous writings of Bret Harte, Mark 

 Twain, and others. The teams are not always con- 

 fined to four horses, but sometimes consist of six 

 or eight ; the whip is quite unlike any English 

 coachman's four-horse whip, but more like the whip 

 used in ranches by stock-drivers ; and the harness 

 bears no resemblance to that used by the English 

 Four-in-hand Club. 



Charles Dickens, in his '' American Notes," gives 

 an amusing description of a drive in an American 

 coach, when in Virginia. He says : 



" Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac 

 Creek, where we are to land, and then comes the 

 oddest part of the journey. Seven stage-coaches are 

 preparing to carry us on, some of them are ready, 

 some of them are not ready. Some of the drivers are 

 black, some white. There are four horses to each 

 coach, and all the horses, harnessed or unharnessed, 

 are there. The passengers are getting out of the 

 steamboat into the coaches, the luggage is being 

 transferred in noisy wheelbarrows, the horses are 

 frightened and impatient to start ; the black drivers 



