BY THE NEW FOREST 103 



or, anticipatory and ornate : 



' Postmaster, 



SoicthainjJton, to Post-Office, 



London. 



' The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company's 

 steamship Bijjon, with the Indian mail on board, now coming 

 up Southampton Water.' 



Postmaster Lankester, nominated by the Treasury, 

 and strange to his work, fortunately had two capable 

 assistants, Messrs. Cooper and Wilhams. As Lord 

 Hammond of the Foreign Office stated of himself and 

 his colleague, they divided the world between them, 

 so far as the packet-service went. Lankester looked 

 after the outward despatches, Williams the making up 

 the mails, and Cooper and Williams the arrivals. 



' It was at one time,' writes Mr. Williams, ' part of my duties 

 to meet the P. and O. steamers at the Motherbank, where they 

 had to perform quarantme, and to bring the mails to land. For 

 this purpose the company supplied me with a sailing yacht of 

 about eight}^ tons, and subsequently with a small steamer. 



'We used to cruise up and down the Solent both in the 

 summer and winter, looking out for the steamer. We then 

 followed her to her moorings, and attached ourselves to her 

 without allowing her crew to touch a rope. The bags and boxes 

 were then shot down a gangway into oin: vessel, after having 

 received a baptism of hot vinegar. Many a night have I passed 

 lymg on the boxes during the run to Southampton Pier, perfectly 

 regardless of plague or yellow fever. 



' The mail-coaches, from west to east, passed through South- 

 ampton to Portsmouth, Brighton, etc., and travelling as they 

 did over Sahsbury Plain, used to carry mail-bags hung over the 

 guard's seat, and therefore in winter much exposed to the cold, 

 so that in sorting the letters one seemed to hold lumps of ice in 

 the hand.' 



