230 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



ill August, 1833, when, arriving in London from a Continental 

 six weeks' tour, on a Thursday morning, I was bound to be in 

 Liverpool next day. This could be accompUshed only by takmg 

 the first fast coach (I think, the Telegraph) right through. By 

 twenty-seven hours' contmuous travelling I reached my destina- 

 tion late in the afternoon, pretty well tired of locomotion, having 

 been on the road, since leaving Zurich, six nights out of seven. 



' For many years it has been my practice to take 1113' party 

 right through from evening to mid-day at Aviemore, a fifteen 

 hours' spell. But now mj^ daughters and the doctor are 

 peremptory in their insistency on a night's rest at Edinburgh or 

 Perth. 



' These particulars, I am well aware, have no interest in them- 

 selves, nor should I state them, were they not all that I can 

 offer in reply to your inquny.' 



As another instance, I may add that Mr. F. H. 

 Maberly (the Colonel's cousin) recently informed me 

 that he recollects going down to Exeter by the Old 

 Traveller, one of the last long stage-coaches on the 

 Great Western Eoad, in October or November, 1839. 

 He got on the coach as an outside passenger at 

 the Old Bell in Holborn, at about four o'clock in the 

 afternoon, and got off it at six or seven p.m. next day, 

 at the Eoyal Clarence in the Cathedral Close. He 

 does not recall any special sense of fatigue. 



The direct mail-road to Glasgow crossed many 

 rivers : the Eden, the Eske, the Sark, the Milk, the 

 Driff, Glengoner Water, Douglas Water, and even the 

 noble Clyde, more than forty miles, however, from 

 Glasgow, and its dredged and deepened reaches. 



But its chief interest, in modern eyes at all events, 

 lies in the supposed existence, at one time or other, 

 of the blacksmith's shop at Gretna Green ; in the 



