AMERICAN ROADS. 33 



dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to his 

 horses' heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help 

 liim, there are seldom any loungers standing round, 

 and never any stable folks with jokes to crack. 

 Sometimes when we have chanQ-ed our team there is a 

 difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent 

 mode of breaking a young horse, which is to catch 

 him, harness him against his will, and put him in a 

 stage-coach without further notice ; but we get on 

 somehow or other, after a great many kicks and 

 violent struggles, and jog on as before. 



"The frequent change of coachman works no change 

 in the coachman's character, he is always dirty, sullen, 

 and taciturn. If he be capable of smartness of any 

 kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing 

 it which is truly marvellous. He never speaks to you 

 as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to 

 him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. He 

 points out nothing on the road, and seldom looks at 

 anything, being to all appearances thoroughly weary 

 of it and of existence generally. 



" As to doing the honours of his coach, his business, 

 as I have said, is with the horses ; the coach follows 

 because it is attached to them and goes on wheels, 

 not because you are in it. Sometimes towards the 

 end of a long stage he suddenly breaks out into a 

 discordant fragment of an election song, but his face 

 never sings along w^ith him, it is only his voice, and 

 not often that. He always chews, and always spits, 

 and never encumbers himself with a pocket-handker- 

 chief. The consequences to the box passenger — 

 especially when the wind blows towards him — are not 

 agreeable. Whenever the coach stops and you can 



