BOUND FOR THE BORDER 229 



the usual length of journey which, m mail-coach 

 days, was made without a break. Mr. Frederic Hill, 

 formerly Third Secretary at the Post -Office, tells 

 how, in 1835, being in the full vigour of life, he 

 travelled from London to Edinburgh continuously, 

 thus spending little short of two days on the coach-top. 



Mr. Nobbs, the mail - coach guard, journeyed 

 habitually a hundred and seventy miles without stop- 

 ping, and has covered as many as two hundred and 

 eighty-six miles, through deep snow, and of course 

 outside his coach, without a halt. I think Mr. Stanley 

 Harris, a well-known writer on the Eoad, once told 

 me that he travelled through, from Holyhead to 

 London (two hundred and sixty-one miles), outside 

 the mail. But I may be mistaken. 



The most interesting testimony, however, which 

 has reached me is from the Eev. Dr. Martineau, who 

 in his ninety-first year gives me, in the following 

 letter, an account of his own experience in this 

 direction seventy years ago : — 



' London, 



' May 8, 1895. 



' My present connection with the North of Scotland dates back 

 only about eighteen years, and therefore does not run off the 

 rails. In the tiventies I went frequently single day's journeys 

 from Norwich to London, and thence, after a pause, to Bristol ; 

 and also, from the same starting-pomt, across country to 

 Stamford, on the Great North Koad, and thence to York. But 

 my only visit to Scotland was made (with my late sister Harriet) 

 by sea to Edinburgh ; and, after coaching to Perth, was con- 

 tinued for thirty days, and completed on foot, till, on the Border, 

 we struck the coach-road to Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



' The only longer run on the liighway which I remember was 



