36 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



sufficient subjects of interest until the meal is over 

 and we resume our journey, 



*' It was well for us that we were in this humour ; 

 for the road we went over that day was certainly 

 enough to have shaken tempers that were not resolutely 

 at set fair down to some inches below stormy. At 

 one time we were all flung together in a heap at the 

 bottom of the coach ; at another we were crushing 

 our heads against the roof. Now one side was deep 

 in the mire, and we were holding on to the other ; now 

 the coach was laying on to the tails of the two wheelers, 

 and now it was rearing up in the air in a frantic state 

 with all four horses standing on the top of an un- 

 surmountable eminence, looking coolly back at us, 

 as they would say, 'unharness us, it can't be clone.' 

 The drivers on these roads certainly get over the 

 ground in a manner that is quite miraculous — so twist 

 the teams about in forcing a passage, corkscrew fashion, 

 through the swamps and bogs, that it is quite a common 

 circumstance, on looking out of the window, to see the 

 coachman, with the end of a pair of reins in his hands, 

 apparently driving nothing and playing at horses, and 

 the leaders staring at one unexpectedly from the back 

 of the coach as if they had some idea of getting up 

 behind. A great portion of the way was over what is 

 called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing 

 the trunks of trees into a marsh and leaving them to 

 settle there. The very slightest of the jolts with 

 which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log was 

 enough, it seemed, to dislocate all the bones in the 

 human body. It would have been impossible to 

 experience a similar set of sensations in any other 

 circumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to get up 



