76 THE EXETER ROAD 



excellent. It would Ije well if Cobbett could take 

 a ' Euml Ride ' over the Heath to-day and see this 

 cultivation, not m'erely so called, which raises some 

 of the finest market -garden produce ever seen, and 

 supplies London with the most beautiful spring 

 blossoms. If it would not suffice to see the growing 

 crops, it would perhaps Ije better to watch the loading 

 of the clumsy market waggons with the gathered 

 wealth of the soil. Tier upon tier of cabbages, 

 neatly packed to an alarming height ; bundles of 

 the finest lettuces ; bushels of peas ; in short, a 

 bounteous quantity of every domestic vegetable you 

 care to name, being packed for the lumbering, 

 rumbling, three - miles - an - hour journey overnight 

 from the market gardens to the early morning babel 

 of Covent Garden. 



The market wao;ooiis, goino- to London, or re- 

 turning about eight o'clock in the morning, form, 

 in short, one of the most characteristic features of 

 the first fifteen miles of this road. The waggoners, 

 more often than not asleep, are jogged up to tow^n 

 by the philosophic horses who know the way just 

 as well as the blinking fellows who are supposed to 

 drive them. Drive them ? One can just imagine 

 the horse - laughs of those particularly knowing 

 animals, who move along quite independently of 

 the reclining figure above, stretched full length, 

 face downwards, on the mountainous pile of smelly 

 cabbages, if the idea could be conveyed to them. 



There is an exquisite touch of appropriateness in 

 the fact that on converted Hounslow Heath, where 

 these terrors of the peaceful traveller formerly 



