COACHMEN. 319 



travellers, and prevent them from driving right up 

 against the bridge, corner-stones, rounded off, are 

 placed on each side of, the bridge at both ends, 

 similar to those which may be seen in many places 

 where' there is a sharp turning round a wall which 

 forms a corner. 



These stones at the ends of the bridge being 

 rather obscured from the same cause as the road and 

 the bridge itself, by way of seeing them better at 

 night. Mills, when he was on the Bristol and Liver- 

 pool mail over this part of the ground, used to 

 pay a cottager living close to the bridge half-a- 

 crown a year to keep the stones well whitewashed, 

 so that he might see them on the journey when 

 coming from Bristol. The mail travelled at a 

 great pace, and passed over this bridge about nine 

 or ten o'clock at night ; so what with the road 

 being overshadowed, and the ground dark, it was 

 not very comfortable travelling, even with good 

 lamps. The hour when the mail passed along the 

 road of course came to be pretty well known, among 

 the residents, who, in driving along it at the time 

 when they expected shortly to meet or to be passed 

 by the mail, drove into one of those spaces which 

 are left along the sides of roads for depositing heaps 

 of stones until broken and put down ; and there 

 they remained until the mail went by, probably 



