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PRICE ONE SHILLING.
HEADS AND TALES
OF
TRAVELLERS & TRAVELLING,
BY E. L. BLANCHARD.
LONDON:
WILLOUGHBY & CO., S. AMEN CORNER,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1
4

OF
DELMWO
"It has often been a matter of pleasant entertainment to me to watch
the varied features of those who are to be my travelling companions,
and endeavour to divine by physiogomy the various motives that have
changed their stationarycondition."
WASHINGTON IRVING.
Carringes
a carele
HEADS AND TALES
OF
TRAVELLERS & TRAVELLING,
A BOOK
FOR EVERYBODY, COING ANYWHERE,
BY E. L. BLANCHARD,

TRANSPORTATION LIBRAR
DELANO ITE
“ GO ON A-HEAD!”–Rwer Reminiscences.
ILLUSTRATED BY F. G. DELAMOTTE.
LONDON:
WILLOUGHBY & CO., 8, AMEN CORNER,
9
PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON;
PRINTED BY WILLOUGHBY AND CO., 97, ST JOHN STREET
SMITHFIELD.
Fraud .
4-27-96Glenn
Fld 1-28-44
CONTENTS
PAGE,
INTRODUCTION -
7
CHAPTER I.
TOURISTS
WA
15
CHAPTER II.
OF STAGE COACHES, AND
THEREUNTO APPERTAINING .
MATTERS
21
CHAPTER HII.
OF PEDESTRIANS AND PEDESTRIANISM
36
CHAPTER IV.
OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS
43
CHAPTER V.
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING
58
vi
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER VI.
RAILWAYS
69
CHAPTER VII.
STEAMBOATS
77
CHAPTER VIII.
MARINE EXCURSIONS
88
CHAPTER IX.
MINERAL WATERS
97
CHAPTER X.
THE CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICER
99
CONCLUSION.
104

INTRODUCTION.
HE originater
of that great
plagiarism; the
"Dictionary 'of
the English
Language,"
there is not a
single word in
it but what has
been taken
from other au-
thors-once af-
firmed, "that
all travelling
has its advan-
tages; if it leads a man to a better country he
learns to improve his own, if to a worse to
enjoy it."
The learned lexicographer was
quite right.
8
INTRODUCTION.
Since that period when Dr. Johnson flourish-
ed, and the York mail set out for London once
a week, and reached it in three days-tempora
mutantur! we have almost arrived at that per-
fection of speed which could transfer a pas-
senger from the Land's end to John o’-Groats,
by incorporating him with the Electric Tele-
graph, and whirling him from Penzance to the
Orkneys, before he could utter the sponsorial
appellation of Mr. John Robinson. We can
fancy the ponderous penman of the “Rambler”
mystified by the transit of the trains, and ad-
vising us, after his own sonorous fashion,
thus :-“The physiology, sir, of travelling and
travellers which is proposed to be the prominent
characteristic of this portable duodecimo, should
present an animated picture of that unceasing
movement which is constantly impelling mu-
table humanity forwards and backwards, up-
wards and downwards, left and right, over the
solid, or fluid, or gaseous portions of the world.
To make the attempt is to achieve something,
but to achieve what is attempted, is to create a
wonder for posterity.”
There is indeed a wide field open. Taking
advantage of the numberless varieties of loco-
>
INTRODUCTION.
9
motion, we might tempt you in turn to make
trial of all the means of transport which civi-
lization, chance, and conveyance-companies
have provided, at different time, for the ex-
portation of the biped species. These are
capable of some sixteen thousand subdivisions,
from the skates on which the Dutch milkwoman
skims with her merchandise to market, to that
original specimen of vehicular architecture
which is usually symbolized in the vernacular,
as a pony belonging to an imaginary gentle-
man known as “Shanks." We might, with
,
the leverage
of our steel
pen, raise you
on to the back
of the king
of Siam's
white Ele-
phant, where
aš
the punish-
ment of such
équitation is
decapitation,
or poise you,
à-la-Bunn, on the hump of a dromcdary,

-
10
INTRODUCTION.
possessing the advantage over our horses of
being at once a quadruped and a carriage.
We might insist upon your right to ac-
company us on a Russian sledge, and treat
you to a botanical lecture in the midst of mos-
ses and lichens, which serve as Siberian nou-
rishment both to the traveller and his reined
reindeers, when other aliments fail; or under
other climes and other pretences take you to
Seringapatam, where, instead of hiring cabs
at eightpence the hour, you engage blacks by

the day, and bamboozle them with bamboo.
But we are merciful. It would take both
of us too far out of our way; we will confine our
marvels to miniatures; and visiting merely our
INTRODUCTION.
11
own land, or that of our immediate neigh-
bours, limit our peregrinations merely to those
regions where our countrymen are most likely
to travel.
The essentials of travelling may be briefly
enumerated.
As far as luggage is concerned,-mark how
the word hangs, back upon the tongue, was
there ever a more expressive name ?—have
none of it! If you want anything more than
what can be conveniently dropped into your
coat pocket, take a carpet bag. There is a
popular tradition that a carpet bag will hold
anything: we believe it. It is the very ency-
clopædia of light articles, possessing, like a
London Omnibus, the algebraic property of
containing within itself an unknown quantity.
It has a perfect aldermanic capacity for stuf-
fing; its limits are as indefinable as the Oregon
territory. Nature herself could not manifest
a greater antipathy to a vacuum. Into this
expansive receptacle cram everything you
want to take, from a top-coat to a tooth-brush,
and you have always a portable wardrobe at
your disposal, that may at any time be swung
from your hand, free from the extortionate
12
INTRODUCTION.
21
a
?
grasp of tavern-porters, and all of that ilk.
Anything in the shape of a box, is an abomi-
nation which no traveller should ever encum-
ber himself with, except he be going on a
pilgrimage of penance.
The next essential is a stick. Not a light,
flimsy, fragile, fanciful cane for show, but a
sound, seasoned, substantial stick for use. If
alone it supplies the place of a companion ; if
in society, it will be found a marvellous assist-
ant to a tired pedestrian. Besides having other
uses on which it would be of no use to descant,
it keeps the muscles of the arms in play, and
furnishes a desirable means of communication
with what
may
be out of arm's reach. Some tra-
vellers patronize umbrellas instead ; useful im-
plements to ward off an occasional shower, we
admit, but—to confess the truth, we have al-
ways had a sort of sneaking contempt for um-
brellas. Carrying one on a pleasure trip, in-
variably appears to us like a wilful invitation
of wet days, a pre-supposition of everything
that is damp, dull, and disagreeable,-a dis-
play of sceptical infidelity in the existence
of sunshine. Your true tourist has no
business with an umbrella,—that he can have
INTRODUCTION.
13
any pleasure with it is beyond the limits of
credulity.
Occasionally—such things have happened-
one may feel inclined, for the sake of refresh-
ing rest, to lounge away an intervening hour
between noon and sunset, in a cosy arm-chair,
beside the pleasant prospect-yielding bow-win.
dow of some inviting roadside hostel. Then
it is that the antiquated London newspaper, or
the crumpled local gazette, with which you
are considerately furnished by mine host, is
found to be too obtrusive in its dry details of
matters mundane to be in complete unison with
the dreamy tone of your mind. This is the
time when the favourite pocket volume
might we modestly suggest ours ?-may be ad-
vantageously perused, and a fresh interest be
found imparted to every passage. Never ven-
ture on even a day's excursion without being
thus fortified against ennui, without having
thus some genial interpreter at hand of the
heart's best and kindliest emotions, Should
some vague sensation of dreariness thus attack
you on a wet day at a country inn, you can
thrust your hand into your coat pocket, and
pluck forth-a companion.
14
INTRODUCTION
And lastly the Tourist should always havering,
ing in his ears, the glorious outburst of Thomson,
“ I care not Fortune what you me deny,
You cannot rob me of fair Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face,
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, &c."
A collection of such quotations as these-
and there are many such—will be found
worthy of admission into the mental treasury
of
every
true lover of Nature.
And now having come to the end of our
introduction--that like a typographical finger-
post serves to indicate the way —let us get
between our hat and boots perpendicularly
and be off. Allons'
-

CHAPTER I.
TOURISTS.
Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits,
Leavening his blood as cayenne does a curry,
As going at full speed, no matter where its
Direction be, so 'tis but in a hurry.
And merely for the sake of its own merits;
For the less cause there is for all this flurry,
The greater is the pleasure in arriving
At the great end of Travel-which is driving."
T
BYRON.
OURISTS form a class
more susceptible of
illustration by the
pencil than the
pen. They are too
volatile in their
nature-too evan-
escent in their ex-
istence to be easily
calotyped on paper.
Your genuine Tou-
rist is no sooner
here, than he is
THERE! a kind of
Wieland of every

day life, of whose stationary presence you are
never certain five minutes together.
The
16
TOURISTS.
meditative fly that coolly perambulates the
map of Europe suspended in your study, and
stalks from the North Pole to the Mediterra-
nean,
before
you
have time to whisk him off
with your handkerchief, scarcely scampers
over the whole continent with more speed.
One would innocently imagine him to be the
philosopher who, having discovered the perpe-
tual motion, was carrying out its first princi-
ples in a selfish possession of its exclusive
privileges. The worthy burgomaster in the
Dutch legend might have left him the cork
leg as his sole legatee. He appears to have
continually ringing in his ears the energetic
injunction of some phantom policeman, who
perpetually calling out "move on," leaves his
victim no peace. His great aim seems to be
the solution of a mathematical problem, which
involves the question of getting over
the
greatest possible amount of ground in the
smallest possible amount of time.
off like a sky-rocket, with the additional fea-
ture of taking his stick along with him. The
period of his return is about as uncertain as that
of the last newly-discovered comet, and-whew!
but he has put us out of breath already. Such
is the Tourist who merely travels for the sake
of travelling-a definition that includes a a
greater number of persons 'enumerated in the
latest census than staid, stay-at-home people
have
any
idea of. He mar have drank cham-
He goes
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
17
pagne in goblets on the Rhine, and sipped his
Kirchenwasser on the Alps—he may have
quaffed Burgundy in Paris, and soothed him-
self with sherbet in Turkey—swallowed his
sherry on the top of Trajan's pillar, and im-
bibed his claret fifty-fathom ocean deep in a div-
ing-bell-hobbed and nobbed brandy over the
heights of Chimborazo, or sucked' a Sherry
Cobler under the Falls of Niagara, yet if his
mind hath not been as excursive as his body,
shall he be outshone in real knowledge by the
veriest charity-boy that ever played leap-frog
with the posts down St. Giles's. But we grow
splenetic in our survey-another whiff from
our meerschaum and-lo! our gall hath chang-
ed to honey-inky benevolence trickles down
our quill, bland and bounteous like summer
heat-drops, and flows between the margins of
our page in a stream of gentle suavity. We
think of the law of libel-and forbear.
The motives of travelling are as numerous
as the travellers themselves. Some-and these
are the majority-go out of town because
others have gone out of town before them, and
they like not lingering behind. They go through
the usual routine of booking one place and look-
ing at another, and then when October takes
leave of the Calendar for that year, they turn
up simultaneously in Fleet-street, and flatter
themselves into the belief of having been
legitimate Tourists, though the extent of
18
TOURISTE.
their country peregrinations has been pro-
bably that parliamentary progression that has
led them from the commons to the piers,
and from the piers back again to the commons.
Another Tourist-afflicted with Hamlet's
malady--will venture five hundred miles from
London Bridge because he hopes, like the sa-
gacious king of Denmark, that
-
“Haply the seas and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brain still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself.”
>
This class of Tourists not only wins our
sympathy, but makes us also hope that in the
land they look for may be found the solace
sought. A third class will travel to merely
have the privilege of talking about it; whilst
a fourth will set upon their journey in the
true spirit of locomotion, and make much
better use of their time than their tongue.
But let us endeavour to classify each, accord-
ing to his dominant peculiarity.
THE ARTISTIC TOURIST experiences, about
the month of May-when the Royal Academy
opens with the spring blossoms, an invincible
desire to explore every romantic nook in Eu-
rope. He sets forth, and at every picturesque
view he stops, puts down his portfolio, takes up
his meerschaum, and thinks to himself"I'U
return and sketch that next year.”
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
19
THE GRUMBLING TOURIST grumbles about
leaving his own mansion, yet goes away with-
out the expectation of being more comfortable
elsewhere. Wherever he complies with the
custom of the country he complains according
to his own. The beds are too hard and the
roads are too soft, his time is too short and his
bills are too long, the dishes too sweet and the
wines too sour, the country bad for everything,
and the cigars good for nothing; yet when he
returns he lavishes eulogiums upon hotel bed-
rooms, foreign roads, continental economy,
culinary perfection, unrivalled vineyards, and
the delights of living abroad-not forgetting to
draw a painful contrast between the wretched
lettuce-leaves of home-manufacture and the
delicious tobacco he had regaled himself with
on the other side of the channel.
THE GASTRONOMIC TOURIST looks upon the
world as a large larder, and every country as
a distinct shelf. Thus will he make a pilgri-
mage to Yarmouth for bloaters, to Cambridge
for sausages, to Colchester for oysters, and to
the South downs of Sussex for mutton, and
then return perfectly astounded to find that in
London are herrings more relishing, sausages
more savoury, natives more delicious, and
mutton more tender, than in the places which
have attained celebrity for such articles of
diet.
THE PHILANTHROPIC TOURIST prides himself
1
TOURISTS.
20
upon the possession of a large heart, but forgets
that, like a large purse, it is of no use without
being well filled. The first building in every
city which he seeks is the prison, or the con-
vict-ship, or the hulks. He contrives to get
there, if possible, about dinner time, and par-
taking most unceremoniously of the bread and
soup, which forms the ordinary fare, he swal-
lows it with an indescribable relish, and ex-
claims, whilst he thinks how he has lessened
his tavern bill-" My friends! how much
better are you off than I imagined !"
THE BEGGING TOURIST gathers in a harvest
wherever he goes, and never travels but he
gleans something. From every town he must
carry a sample of the most famous character-
istic, and in default of a copy or a duplicate
will have no objection to take the original. At
every step he takes you may hear him say,-
"I shall be so happy to retain this as a souve-
nir of my visit"-and so without
any hesi-
tation he carries off what is frequently never
offered him.
THE SENTIMENTAL TOURIST haunts ruined
abbeys by twilight, and bathes himself in moon-
light. He writes limping sonnets to venerable
farms, under the impression of their being
castles of antiquity, and gets very ecstatic
about morning, and very sleepy about night.
He will throw himself into a reverie before
an old monastery, and flinging his cap far
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
21
enough off his forehead to make both poe-
tical, will remain long enough in that position for
our artist to scrape his own pencil, and the
other's acquaintance, and take him as he
stands.
He thus folds his arms, and becomes wrapped
in thought;
but the garb
is too flimsy
and thread-
bare to su-
persede the
old
mackin-/
tosh which he
has flung up-
on the green
sward,
the
better to en-
joy his brown
study. He stops there waiting for inspiration
but it never keeps the appointment, so he goes
to his inn, catches a cold, and loses the coach.
A few months after his return he calls
printer, and publishes, at his own cost, a book
of poems, but another Harvey is wanted to
discover the circulation.
upon a
THE ADVENTUROUS TOURIST never comes into
a new locality without wanting a new excite-
ment. He puts two pocket-pistols into his poc-
ket, one loaded with brandy, and the other with
gunpowder, and goes in search of adventures.
22
TOURISTS.
A night in a haunted chamber, or an encounter
with the brigands, would, he declares, give him
the most intense gratification; but should
the rats disturb his slumbers, or a pick-
pocket pilfer his handkerchief, he
grows
irate with his landlord, and furious with
the police. He would hazard his neck for
a seat upon
a perpendi-
cular crag,

but
goes
into an a-
gony oftor-
ture, when
he finds a
wasp's nest
has
been
his cush-
He
ion.
also turns
author, and
making his
own mouth the publisher, he invents a story,
and circulates it amongst his friends. To do
him justice, he is so ardent a lover of libe-
rality, that he never brings out a second edi-
tion without adding a number of extravagant
embellishments to the original.
Thus might we go on with our analysis, but
the above outline of a few will be sufficient
to give a hint for the classification of the many.
TRAVELLERS
23
AND TRAVELLING.
The majority of travellers being privileged
to behold strange things abroad, are apt to re-
late strange tales at home. They are the ori-
ginal inventors of those startling traditions
which are popularly recommended to be told
only to the marines. The imagination in
another climate flourishes with tropical luxu-
riance, and thus what to steady, stay-at-home
folks may appear positive exaggeration, is
merely to be attributed to the atmospheric influ-
ences of the place—an illusion of the senses—as
in crossing the desert a mirage that has presented
a scene of enchantment in the distance, will re-
solve itself into a sand-hill on a nearer approach.
Whatever description of Tourist the reader
may be we invite him to be our companion for
the rest of our journey, and first of all to climb
up to the roof of a coach, and make-stop, we
must impress this more forcibly in a distinct line.
And make—not by any means,
“ Our first appearance upon any stage.”

CHAPTER 1I.
OF STACE COACHES AND MATTERS
THEREUNTO APPERTAINING.
"Oh the days were bright when young and light,
I drove my team-
My four-in-hand along the Strand,
Of bloods the cream,“
But time flies fast, those days are past,
The ribbands are a dream.
Now there's nothing half so quick in life
As steam, still steam !”
Anon.
CHABOD! The first
few years of the
last half of the
nineteenth century
will see the ex
tinction of most of
the features of a
bygone age, which
forefathers
have regarded with
awe and admira-
tion. Tinder-box-
es and stage coaches
will be the perplexing subjects of investigation,
which the fossil-hunting Bucklands and Mur-
chisons of a future day will be doubtless
prying at in some primitive strata with a forty-

our
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
25
a
lens microscopic power and a dreadful incapa-
city, nolens volens, of discovering what on earth
could have been their utility. Who remem-
bereth not the old stage-coachman of whom a
graphic daguerrotype is prefixed to our chap-
ter? and yet in a few brief years such a ques-
tion will be asked, and the interrogator, with
the pertinacity of Brutus and the patience of
Job, will have to“ pause for a reply.
a reply.” When
stage-coaches first appeared upon the road it
is no very easy matter to determine. In the
year 1662 we find six making slow and any-
thing but sure journeys to the west and north
of England. Even these, however, were looked
upon as presumptuous attempts to “ rival the
flights of birds” and one of the wise men of the
east in those days-none other than Master
John Crosswell of the Charter-house, did his
best to write them down in a series of pamph-
lets, which set forth that the wives and daugh-
ters of country gentlemen would be ruined if
they came to town so easily, and unfitted for
their domestic duties at the farm and dairy.
Even a century back we find that the Oxford
coach left London at seven, and, by what the
posters" of that period called "marvellous
management,” reached Uxbridge by noon.
It arrived at High Wycombe, where it rested
for the night, at six in the evening ; and the
next day it proceeded at the same rate towards
Oxford. Such was coach travelling in 1747,
26
STAGE COACHES.
Even forty years ago the Holyhead mail started
from London at eight o'clock at night, and did
not reach Shrewsbury until eleven the follow-
ing night, being one hundred and sixty-two
miles in seven-and-twenty hours. More re-
cently, within the experience of our boyhood,
the same distance was achieved in sixteen
hours and a quarter, the Holyhead mail being
actually at Bangor Ferry-eighty-three miles
farther in the same time that it used to take
to reach the post-office at Shrewsbury. The
Tally-Ho was then our favourite coach.
Well do we remember the blythe horn of the
guard as we passed through the villages; the
crisp, cheering, crackling sound of the wheels
as we careered over the broad country road ;
how we watched, with the credulous wonder-
ment of a school-boy, the jolly gentleman on
the box-seat ignite an interminable series of
havannahs, and how we looked upon him with
,
inexhaustible admiration every time we saw
him get down during the change of horses,
for
exercise and brandy-and-water; how we lis-
tened dreamily to the clear melody of the
nightingale as we whirled along in the even-
ing past copse and cornfield; and when night
came on, clad in the beauty of its myriad stars,
and the horses' hoofs flashed over the flints as
we neared the destined city, how we watched
the dusty vehicle emerge from the old inn-yard
and witnessed the departure of our chatty
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
27
coach-companions with a regret that we could
follow them no farther. Yet now these are
things of the bygone—characteristics belong-
ing to a race as extinct as the Megatherium.
Like Macduff we cannot but remember “such
things were and now where are they?
Echo, in the most polite manner imaginable,
would like to know also. But we are neither
writing their history nor composing their requi-
Our sole desire is to awaken a few re-
miniscences of the road, and these are things
that we chiefly regret for being past. In the
jocund days of our bachelor-hood, when our
erratic propensities received no preventive
check from the “Home office,” it was a dan-
gerous and wilful exposure to temptation, to
lounge of an evening round the neighbourhood
of the Regent's Circus, or enter into perilous
proximity to the “ Bull and Mouth," or the
“George and Blue Boar” or the “Belle Sau-
vage,” or the “ Elephant and Castle," or any
other of those tavern compounds of monstrosi-
ties, where the old coaches once used to run
from, and the present omnibuses now run to.
On a soft summer evening one could hardly
help climbing up instinctively on to the favou-
rite seat, and after a slight reference to the
state of the waistcoat-pocket exchequer, find
oneself, in the morning, going probably into
Cornwall instead of properly into Cornhill.
Such vehicles seemed expressly intended to
em.
6
а.
28
STAGE COACHES.
66
betray unconscious gentlemen into sudden
travelling, and pleasant indeed was a journey
by them. The fine teams—such teams-steeds
whose every step sent a thrill of joy to the
heart, and whose musical footfall was a tramp
chorus” delightful to hear. And then the
coachmen—such coachmen-in neat white hats,
dapper frock-coats, faultless indispensibles,
and spotless doeskin gloves, with the floral
appendage of a bouquet affixed to the sinister
button-hole; men who knew the dignity of
their position and saw that admiring eyes were
bent
upon
them. But they had no pride-not
they—often have we seen them work the
mystic telegraph of the whip in friendly
recognition of some old farmer jogging leisurely
along in his market cart, or condescend to the
gratuity of a knowing wink when the pretty
servant girls, in smart caps and flaming ribbons,
would run down from the lodge to the garden-
gate to see the London coach pass by. And
how they would obligingly take the mysteri-
ously-muffled up gentleman in the back seat
into their unrestricted confidence, and hint to
him that an unheard of glass of ale was to be
obtained at one place, or how an unparalleled
pork-pie might be secured at that; and then
he would communicate with the young gentle-
man at his side, who had friends down at the
great house," and kept racers, what an ex-
'cellent creature that bay mare was for a leader
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
66
29
and indulge in a rhapsody of eulogy on the
merits of his near-wheeler. Proud, indeed!
he was affable humility personified.
But the guard-
ah! the guard with
his key-bugle; what
a pleasant fellow
he was-full of
gibes and jokes and
anecdotes

of the
road - and how
merrily he rang out
the notes from
his bugle on the
summer air, while
the clatter of the
wheels and the
tramp of the team
kept time to the
ioyous tones, and
the very clanking
of the brass on the
harness and the
rattle of the curb-
chains added their
jingling music to
the concert. Ay-
those indeed were
pleasant incidents!
But they are
-
gone all gone!
And
then the journey-why, it would make a
30
STAGE COACHES.
descriptive book of itself. We would un-
dertake to write fifty quarto volumes as
thick as the “ Encyclopædia Brittanica" about
that journey, and yet not leave the sub-
ject exhausted. But who could attempt such
a depiction in minature, after the vivid delinea-
tion by Charles Dickens ;* we should never be
upon good terms with ourselves again if we
ventured upon such a piece of arrogant pre-
sumption. So fully conscious, too, are we
that our readers will thank us for refreshing
their memory with the extract, that, warning
them to prepare their lungs with a full-drawn
inspiration, we bid them at once rattle through
the following glorious passage, and then tell us,
whether
every line does not paint itself into
the memory as each glowing word comes
bounding into sight.
“ Yoho! past hedges, and gates and trees;
past cottages and barns and people going
home from work. Yoho! past donkey-chaises,
drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts
with rampant horses whipped up at a bound
upon the little water course, and held by
struggling carters close up to the five-barred
gate, until the coach had passed the narrow
turning in the road. Yoho! by churches
dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks,
with rustic burial grounds about them, where
the graves are green and daisies sleep-for it is
• Martin Chuzzlewit.
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
31
to spare.
evening on the bosoms of the dead. Yoho,
past streams in which the cattle cool their feet,
and where the rushes grow; past paddock
fences, farms, and rick-yards; past last year's
stacks, cut slice by slice away, and showing
in the waning light like ruined gables old
and brown. Yoho, down the pebbly dip and
through the merry water-splash and up at a
canter to the level road again. Yoho, yoho!
“Yoho, among the gathering shades ; making
of no account the deep reflections of the trees,
but scampering on through light and darkness,
all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles
away, were quite enough to travel by, and some
Yoho, beside the village-green,
where cricket-players linger yet, and every
little indentation made in the fresh grass by
bat or wicket, ball or player's foot, sheds out its
perfume on the night. Away with four fresh
horses from the Bald-faced Stag, where topers
congregate about the door admiring; and the
last team with traces hanging loose, go roaming
off towards the pond, until observed and shouted
after by a dozen throats, while volunteering
boys pursue them. Now with a clattering
of hoofs and striking out of fiery sparks,
across the old stone bridge, and down again
into the shadowy road, and through the open
gate, far away, away into the wold. Yoho? !
“See the bright moon! High up before we
.
know it: making the earth reflect the objects
32
STAGE COACHES.
on its breast like water. Hedges, trees, low
cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps, and
flourishing young slips, have all grown vain
upon the sudden, and mean to contemplate their
own fair images till morning. The poplars yon-
der rustle, that their quivering leaves may see
themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak;
trembling does not become him; and he
watches himself in his stout old burly stedfast-
ness, without the motion of a twig. The moss-
grown gate ill poised upon its creaking hinges,
crippled and decayed, swings to and fro before
its glass, like some fantastic dowager; while our
own ghostly likeness travels on. Yoho, yoho ! !
through ditch and brake, upon the ploughed
land and the smooth, along the steep hill side
and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom-Hunter.
“ Clouds too! And a mist upon the hollow,
not a dull fog that hides it, but a light airy gauze-
like mist, which in our eyes of modest admira-
tion gives a new charm to the beauties it is
spread before, as real gauze has done ere now,
and would again, so please you, though we
were the Pope. Yoho! why now we travel
like the moon herself. Hiding this minute in
a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of
vapour; emerging now upon our broad clear
course; withdrawing now, but always dashing
in, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yoho!
a match against the moon. Yoho, yoho !
“The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
33
Day comes leaping up. Yoho! Two stages,
and the country roads are almost changed to a
continuous street. Yoho! past market-gardens,
rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces and
squares ; past waggons, coaches, carts; past
early workmen, late stragglers, drunken men,
and sober carriers of loads; past brick and mortar
in its every shape ; and in among the rattling
pavements where a jaunty seat upon a coach is
not so easy to preserve.
Yoho! down countless
turnings, and through countless mazy ways,
until London and an old inn yard is gained.”
Such indeed was the old stage coach and its
accompaniments of the days gone by; and with
such a description-every line has the crack
of a whip in it-it would be strange indeed if,
giving fancy the reins, a moderately imagina-
tive peruser could not renew his old associa-
tions of the road whenever he should so
choose, and perform a brisk and agreeable
journey in his easy chair and slippers.
Occasionally we admit the coachmen were
extortionate, the passengers disagreeable, and
the progress wearisome. Nay, the dexte-
rously-wielded lash of an expert driver has
been known ere
now to enter
accidentally
the coach-window, and terribly discompose
a solitary “inside” who had just dropped
off into a pleasant slumber.
But then these accidents only occurred,
when the parting admonition, of “Change
34
STAGE COACHES.
coachman at this stage if you
had been disregarded, and a
please, sir,"
friendly inti-
mation had
been given
to the suc-

ceeding pur-
veyor of Jar-
vey's sauce
that it was not
"all right"
within.
Many par-
venus who
in the day
have occupi-
ed the box seat on a stage coach have at night
occupied a stage box at the opera. The name
of "Stevenson" will long be remembered on
the Brighton road as the "greatest man of 'The
Age,"" also two celebrities, Sir Vincent Cotton of
"The Times" and Lord Edward Thynne of
"The Quicksilver." The former gentleman had
been a graduate at Cambridge, and his education
and early habits were always manifested in his
conduct of the coach under his control.
At a
certain change of horses on the road, a silver
sandwich-box was handed to the passengers by
his servant, accompanied by the offer of a glass
of sherry to all who were so inclined. So refined
a coachman, it may be supposed, had seldom
occasion to complain of want of patronage.
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
35
Of the post chaise-the old rumbling, jolting,
ricketty affair that used to whirl our eloping
ancestors off to Gretna-it may be remarked
that little can be said and less seen of it.
What becomes of the post-boys need now no
longer be a debated point. Since post-chaises
have fallen into disuse, we have discovered that
by a natural transition, most of the post-boys
have become post-men. We have occasionally,
at remote stations, seen some imitative vehicle,
lumbering up with luggage outside, and an
elderly lady within, wildly progressing towards

RAILWAY
RAILWAY HOTEL
000
口​口
​the Railway Station; but this-no, it cannot be
-we will not believe it-this cannot be one of
the retired post-chaises!
CHAPTER III.
OF PEDESTRIANS AND PEDESTRIANISM.
“For I have loved the rural walk through lanes
Of
grassy swarth, close-cropped by nibbling sheep,
And skirted thick with intertexture firm
Of thorny boughs; have loved the rural walk
O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink.”
COWPER.

AST thou not
seen,
oh!
pe-
ripatetic pe-
ruser, in the
course of thy
way ward
wanderings
by the way-side, some itin-
erant minstrel
some soli,
tary administrator of mirth-
ful music, some vagrant A-
pollo, who after plodding,
footsore and famished, along
many a weary and dusty mile, hath at last
lighted upon a well-tenanted roadside hostel of
promising aspect, and there hath unslung his
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
37
guitar from his aching shoulder, and oblivious
of all cares and pains foregone, hath made
the said instrument discourse most eloquent
music? Hast thou not, in the fulness
of thy noble heart, and in the plenitude of thy
capacious purse, been struck with the insuf-
ficiency of the copper recompense, and given
the minstrel wherewithal to pursue his pil-
grimage of erratic destiny in a more hospitable
direction ? And hast thou not further won-
dered, in thy meditative moments, what hidden
charm there could be in a stroller's life-what
latent joys were lurking in the vagaries of
vagrancy-what unknown pleasures could be
attached to such a precarious existence? Of
course thou hast, and we will solve thy pro.
blem. The charm is in the adventurous spirit
of such excursions in the seductive nature of
this random rambling-in the delightful feeling
of independence that travelling afoot always
yields to the pedestrian, though haply the
miles be long and the money short.
Nothing in the whole range of nature-
animate or inanimate-infuses such a gladden-
ing thrill of joy into the human heart as a sum-
mer saunter through a pleasant country in the
morning sunshine.
In sooth, a pedestrian freed from the thick
murky air of a populous city, and suddenly
transferred to a country lane, with the bright
green turf underfoot, and a cloudless canopy
38
PEDESTRIANS.
a
m
of azure overhead, may hold himself well
excused for an indulgence in all manner of
strange absurdities. He may dance extem-
poraneous fandangos with any respectable
looking dog that he may encounter in his path,
and enter into imaginary conversation with
birds and bees as they hover about the banks
and bushes. He may carelessly cull bouquets
of wild flowers for his button-hole, or, as
safety valve for his exuberance of animal spi-
rits, thrust his own walking-stick into a piece
of soft sward, and make it give him a “ back”
at leap frog. A country ramble, in short, is
apt to make a susceptible citizen run riot in all
manner of venial absurdities, an observation
that we deem it essential to make beforehand,
in order to guard effectually against any mani-
festation of astonishment at our own volatile
fancies.
There is nothing that brushes up the dor-
mant vitality so quickly as a brisk effort of
pedestrianism. If those who unhappily fly to
ardent spirits as a relief to their worn and jaded
frames would but try this unfailing and un-
bought panacea for mental anxiety or depres-
sion, it would soon be found that both health
and happiness would be materially benefited
by the experiment About the very liberty
of a ramble there is a charm which is inex.
pressibly delightful, and the sudden discovery;
at the end of a winding-road, that a varied
0
2
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING,
39
and unexpected landscape lies beyond it, is a
temptation to prolong the excursion that can
hardly be resisted.
On a walk by ourselves we always make a
point of dropping into the corner of our coat-
pocket some small edition of one of our favou-
rite poets, and the zest given to their perusal
by a region where nature furnishes the choicest
ulustrations, will be considerably to enhance the
pleasure of a solitary stroll. It must be admitted,
however, that it is a still better plan to go forth
into the country, linked arm-in-arm with a
congenial companion, who can thoroughly
sympathise in every emotion evoked during
the journey. Then, luxuriantly lolling on a
couch of
grassy
surface, we can let the cares
and annoyances of the outer world fade into
forgetfulness; our dull and lifeless lump of clay
has gone-exhaled---evaporated, we, have be-
come all air-an impalpable extract of humanity
-and have as contemptuous a disregard for the
petty squabbles of human ambition as we have
a growing and instinctive appreciation of the
wondrous beauties by which we are surrounded.
We luxuriate in the prospect before us,
with the picturesque villages peacefully folded
vonder in the green bosom of the undulating
hills ; gaze with delight on that old grey ruin
with its ivy-mantled walls and broken arches;
watch with intense rapture the glancing of the
golden sunshine through the forest foliage--
40
PEDESTRIANS.
and whilst the warm breeze dimples the surface
of the glittering pool into rippling smiles of
welcome, the only sounds that lull the drowsy
sense of hearing are the gentle swaying to and
fro of the leafy branches, and the thrilling
melody of the sky-lark, subdued softly into
silence by the blue distance.
But the conditions by which the tenure
of frail humanity is held, rise up before
the recumbent pedestrian. An appetite stirs
within him—there is an actual reality present
that effectually precludes the visionary unsub-
stantiality. He is suddenly called back by

e
a peremptory voice from dreams to dinners-
from the prospect without to the prospect with
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
41
Inn. · He hastens to the nearest roadside hostel,
and with a zest that epicures may envy, con-
sumes the casual chop, or smoking steak, with
wonderful celerity. Behold our pedestrian
thus engaged whilst a pretty barmaid-we
have a penchant for pretty barmaids—arrives
at an arithmetrical computation of the damage
he has committed. He is now happy. The
dove of his hopes has gone forth and found
a resting place upon the table cloth. His
imagination is no longer startled by fearful
phantasies; he reposes in the calm conscious-
ness of having dined, and dwells with seraphic
beatitude on the vanished glories of the
bygone repast. His dreams are of universal
philanthropy; he mentally shakes the universe
by the hand, and hob-and-nobs with the world
at large. A dinner is the dial of every day
life, for, like that instrument, it only numbers
the hours on which the sun shines.
And so, having dined, he rises like a giant
refreshed, and having aided his digestion
possibly with the slightest suggestion of a
spirituous compound, and a welcome whiff
from his meditative meerschaum, he goes
forth, braced for another ten miles pilgrimage
before twilight, and by the time he has reached
the next country town, and composed himself
for a pleasant slumber, lit up by dreams of the
scenery he will behold on the morrow, there
will not be a mortal on the face of the entire
42
PEDESTRIANS.
globe that will have had a more true and
perfect notion of a day's enjoyment than our
happy-thrice happy-pedestrian.
Stop! There is a certain demon that often
dogs the peripatetic philosopher, and against
whom we should put the peruser on his guard.
It is an imp of Crispin-a conjuration of the
cobbler. In a word, it is-a tight boot.
We knew once a pedestrianising poet, who
loved the country, and who wrote sonnets.
He had a happy knack of rhyming as he
walked, and, wanting a contribution from him
for a magazine, we took advantage of our
companionship one summer to solicit a few
lines. But the demon was at his heels, and
we heard this :-
SONNET TO JUNE.
"Delicious month of June! where er we range
The spendthrift birds pour forth their-(Ah! ah! phew!)
Their notes that at each country bank they change.
Whilst bounteous nature doth their bills renew.
How sweet to walk to some far, cool retreat,.
And hear-(Ugh! ugh! I can't much farther go!)
And hear the artist-(how they draw my feet!)
Enraptured praise (the fool! I told him so!)
The varied landscape and the verdant fields,
The just return(YOUR bill's not settled, Mr.
The grateful tribute to what pleasure yields,
The-(Wooh! Booh! Wooh! I know that's raised a blister.)
The (Imph! that pebble,) peaceful joy (the grippers,)
The outburst wild (where ARE a pair of slippers?)"
And from that time we understood Shakspere's
assertion :-
"The man that hath not music in his sole,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils."
CHAPTER IV.
OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
'And pray what company is there within?
"True Gentlemen, sir, Gentlemen of the Road
Excellent at the board, or bottle;-of gallant oearing,
And skilled, I warrant me, in good discourse,
Will please you walk this way-I'll bring you to them."
BEN JONSON.-"THE NEW INN.'

COMMERCIAL
Traveller hath
a marked dis-
tinction be-
tween him-
self and the
rest of the
wandering
tribe. They
are travellers
of pleasure for
themselves -
He
he a traveller of necessity for others.
careth more for the fluctuations of the price
current than for the temptations of the pictur-
and considereth his time to be the best
bestowed when it is spent in getting as much
esque,
44
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
as possible out of the buyer in the morning and
the cellar in the evening. He hath a firm
faith in the wisdom of Pope-" the noblest
study of mankind is man"-and being man, he
studies himself. He detecteth with wonderful
alacrity the flavorous twang of the true port, and
is not to be deluded by the native gooseberry.
The most reckless host would never dream of
introducing the lettuce-leaf to the lips of a
commercial," when an order for a
"best
havannah" had issued previously therefrom.
Thus awing Tavern-keepers into submissive
excellence on the condition of his custom, the
best inn's best room, and the best room's best
accommodation, linked with the highest favour
and the lowest charges, are made the exclu-
sive property of the Commercial Gentleman
wherever his gig goes or his carpet-bag comes.
66
Great has been the change that has come
over the spirit of the road within the last dozen
years. One meets no longer the spruce repre-
sentative of Grubbins, Grab and Company of
Aldgate, careering over the broad country-heath
after dusk, with the bright lamps gleaming on the
dusky sward, and the cheerful glow of the
cigar lighting up a ruddy nose that peeps out
of a woollen comforter just visible above a
chaotic mass of coats and sample-cases. We
hear no longer the crack of the traveller's
whip as he urges his jaded steed through the
quiet village, and rouses the "General Dealer"
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
45
upon whom he has to call therein, into a state
of nervous gratification. The railways have
effected a wondrous revolution, and now, for
the most part, travellers take the trains, and,
sweeping through the towns by the aid of steam,
complete their “rounds” with a tithe of the
expenditure of time and money that attended
their journeys in the days gone by.
The “Commercial Room” may however
still boast of retaining its most prominent
characteristics, though recently a dash of re-
finement has been infused into the embellish-
ments, and the order has become somewhat
less exclusive. It is still pre-eminently the
scene of practical joking, and many a victim
have we seen there mercilessly immolated at
the shrine of Fun. The first time a novice
makes his appearance in that Sanctum he may
surrender himself at once as the target at
which the most practised hands will huri their
shafts of social satire.
Then will arise such questions as the fol-
lowing :
see! I recollect your face as
one belonging to somebody somewhere.
In the calico line I think ?" To which if the
victim, in the innocence of his heart—responds
with a full avowal of the wholesale house of
which he is the representative, some of the
elder rival practitioners will but hold it com-
mercial morality to rise an hour sooner in the
“ Let me
46
996
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
morning and anticipate the demand by a
personal application on their own employer's
behalf.
But-on the other hand-should the Neo-
phyte, from former experience in such matters,
and, having duly obtained his diploma, be
upon the evasive-he will answer the interro-
gater somewhat after this fashion
;
Victim Loqui-

tor-"Oh, ah!
yes, to be sure.
We met at
Didlington last
summer. You
must remem-
ber-I travel
for Spiff and
Company !"
66
Spiff! I
dont recollect
the firm-how
do you spell the
name?"
"Oh! it's a
very old one. We spell it on our bill-heads,
double S., double P., double I., double H.,
double F., double E-Spiff. Nothing can be
simpler.
And they are-
?""
"Mouse trap manufacturers to her Majesty
-number nix Botherum Buildings, Bungay."
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
47
Then will the enquirer solicit no further.
Various are the crafty expedients resorted
to by the old stagers of the road, to get, in
business, the whip-hand of the younger frater-
nity, one—which we exhibit as a sample—may
suffice to reveal the quality of the rest. Let us
begin novelist fashion.
One afternoon, in the sunny days of early
spring, a gay party of commercials were sitting
in the large room of the Swan at--no matter
where—sipping their sherry after dinner, and
smoking their cigars with as excellent an
appreciation of mine host's catering as that
individual himself could have desired. The
laugh, song, and joke, passed merrily round
ás freely as the bottle ; and when the growing
dusk suggested the introduction of the bill with
the candles, it was discovered that two, travel-
ling for different houses in a similar line, were
pursuing their journey onwards to the same
town. This important fact, which, with the
customary caution, had not been suffered to
transpire in the course of dinner-table conver-
sation, came to the ears of A. through a direc-
tion given by B. to the ostler as he instructed
him to bring forth his horse and gig. A. took
n.easures accordingly; and knowing the pecu-
liar effect upon the system produced by a
carefully administered compound of claret,
sherry, and brandy, persuaded B. to have a
parting glass with him, composed of the latter
48
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
liquid, and carefully hinted his own intention
of not proceeding further that night. Scarcely,
however, had B.—the unsophisticated one-
driven off, than A. has his horse put in the
vehicle also, and follows, at a gentle pace, in
the same direction.
As the cunning commercial had predicated,
so fell the event. A misty evening, and the
regular tramp of the horse over a level road,
combined with the narcotic influences of the
cigars and the subsequent grog, proved suffi-
cient to make the unconscious traveller some-
what oblivious of his condition; and knowing
that a short ride of a couple of hours would at
that rate finish the journey—and having more-
over confidence in the knowledge of his steed,
who had long been familiar with the route, he
threw himself quietly back, gave the horse
the reins, and prepared himself for a quiet nap.
In this consoling condition is he overtaken by
A., exactly as he had anticipated, only that the
animal, finding apparently no demand on his
exertions, had quietly walked into a hedge at
the roadside, and was enjoying the light repast
afforded by the young juicy twigs that were
sprouting forth on the bank. A glance suf-
ficed to show the position of affairs, and the
advantage that could be taken of it. A.,
therefore, dismounted, and contrived to draw
the vehicle of his rival into an open field
adjoining, where, cutting the traces, and
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING,
49.
com-
a
closing the gate after him, he leaves the one
to enjoy his slumber and the other to luxuriate
in the clover, quickening the speed of his own
conveyance, and arriving at the town time
enough to obtain some large orders from the
best customers of his drowsy victim Morning,
grey, cold,
and
fortless, was
just dawn-
ing upon the
belated tra-
veller, when
he awoke to
sense of
his forlor
condition.
Starting up
in the iso-
lated gig, he
stamps his
feet furious-
ly on the
mat, to con-
vince him-
self of a return to a waking condition. The
icy nose of his jag, satiated with the dewy
herbage, had been quietly reposing on his
shoulder; and, emblematical of his journey,
a couple of idle snails had got instead between
the shafts, and were now calmly trailing forth

M
D
50
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS,
2
their slime in the morning sunshine. At a
loss to account for this elf-like change, he
reinstates the horse and deposes the usurpers :
but, before he can lead the gig back again to
the main road, he is watched by a litigious
farmer who owns the ground, and compelled
by present payment to compromise a future ac-
tion for trespass. A few words will tell the rest,
--B. arrives at the first customer-hears that
A. has been there before him, and so with the
remainder, leading to an explanation of the
whole affair, and administering a severe prac-
tical lesson in the art of Commercial Travelling
which an accompanying rheumatism effectually
prevented him from forgetting for some time
afterwards. And hence cometh that curious
problem out of Euclid, often alluded to in the
mathematical moments of Bagmen: As A. is to
B., so is C. to D., and the sinister thumb pro-
jected at an angle of forty-five degrees over the
base of the left shoulder, is popularly supposed
to be a solution of the query,
Occasionally this kind of badinage is less
personal and more pleasant. Who that has
made one of a company that had—we will
shroud his name under the more common cog-
nomen of Jones—that had Jones for a pre-
sident at a commercial dinner, can forget the
sly drollery of his jokes? We can fancy him
now-the ambassador of Gingham, Gimp, and
Cag, the eminent drapers of Holborn-throned
9
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
51
in all the majesty of a chairman at the head of
a well appointed table !

Despite a certain haw !-haw !-dev'lish-fine-
fellow-I-am sort of impression that his appear-
ance conveyed, few in the drapery line did
such effective execution as Jones, either in the
way of business, or chambermaids. He took
orders and kisses in such a style that all re-
sistance was useless; and directly he crossed
the threshold of a country drapery establish-
ment that he supplied with goods from town,
the luckless owner would become persuaded,
from a firm conviction that he wanted nothing,
into a positive belief that he stood in need of
everything Jones carried no samples, for
when he walked into the presence of a cus-
tomer, you saw the whole magnitude and
52
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
66
resources of the firm he represented before
you. An enquiry as to the latest London
fashions then in vogue, would be met by in-
clining his fore-finger to the cravat he wore,
and an ejaculation of, — “Ah! this sort of
thing!” or a descent to the vest below, and
a satisfactory demonstration of," I see! that
sort of style!” He invested his whole human-
ity in a portable pattern-book, and gave you
the choicest selections. But the joke-well,
then, this was the joke that Jones practised.
A new landlord had taken an old commercial
inn, once well known on the road for its
excellent fare, and at the period when this
joke was born, the change was not for the
better. At breakfast Jones found the bread
stale, the butter rank, the eggs of undeniable
antiquity, the ham similarly venerable, and the
coffee affording excellent grounds for com-
plaint.. And now for Jones's joke.
. The
landlord was invited by him and the rest of
the commercials, then stopping there, to dine
at the commercial table. Though everything
had been presented as a fresh commodity, the
longevity of the larder became more apparent
than ever. At last, after the first course of an-
tediluvian soup, Jones—severe wag that Jones
-requested the landlord, as a more skilful
anatomist, to dissect a cold roast fowl that had
been placed before him. The Host plunges
his knife into the prominent portion of the
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
53
repast;-wings and drumsticks fly rapidly
asunder, when lo, from beneath the gizzard
rises on the apex of his fork, a curiously
enfolded note. One general desire to inspect

66
the contents of this strangely conveyed missive
pervades the whole company. It was accord-
ingly opened and read, and its contents ran
thus: Gentlemen, I am obliged to you for
the interest you take in my welfare, and I have
the honour to inform you that my legs are now
once more able to walk, having been cooked
for ten days, and but for your friendly bespeak,
I should have been no doubt running on for a
fortnight. Your obedient servant
Cockadoodle doo,
Aged 14 years 6 months."
And this was Jones's joke!
54
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
.
2
But let us introduce you to another scene
in commercial life, to describe which, drama-
tically, we should first show the chief actors.
The place is the commercial room : Time, ten
minutes after dinner. A supposed novice is
being drawn out in the usual style by the
anticipative chairman.
“Let me see, Mr. Spriggins, I think we
have met before on the road, I know I have
seen you somewhere ?"
“Very likely, I often go there.”
“ Ahem! you travel I think for-
“ Noses."
“ Moses ?”
“ No! Noses !"
“ Ah! in the toy trade, I see?"
“ You are wrong, sir. I deal in noses be-
longing to living humanity — the ordinary
sneezing noses of every-day physiognomy."
“Very odd traffic certainly, but I should
like to see your way of doing business. I
never met with a gentleman in the nasal line
before.”
“ Then I shall be most happy to deal with
you. I cannot say that
your nose is of the
first quality-it turns up rather too much, and
belongs to a variety not greatly in demand, but
I will buy it of you."
My nose ?"
Yes, sir. I am serious in my proposal
your nose.
>>
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
55
>
66
“To be delivered?"
“When you have no longer any use for
it."
“ That's not very troublesome. And to be
paid for — ?!
“ This very moment. I will give you its
full value—say £10."
“I accept your offer."
“ There is only this condition, that we both
agree to forfeit £20 if either of us should go
from the bargain.”
Agreed that is, if you allow me all my
!
life to enjoy your property, and do not at-
tempt to interfere with it in the performance
of its functions."
“Not in the least, sir. You may import
or export the merchandise in question, as you
please. I will not even make a condition that
it shall be insured.”
“ Then I consent to your clause in the
agreement."
“ And I will pay you directly."
The agreement is drawn up, the money paid,
and the bargain concluded, the purchaser only
whispering to the waiter, who soon after returns
with the kitchen pair of tongs, having the
extreme ends heated to red-heat.
“Give me the tongs, William,” says the
dealer in noses.
The waiter hands them, and
the purchaser leans forward with the tongs,
which he holds towards the seller.
a
56
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.
56
Why-what's all this?" exclaims the man
who had sold his nose, looking aghast at the
ominous preparation.

"Only a pair of red-hot tongs, sir; every
time I make a purchase I mark my merchan-
dise in order to insure its not being changed.
Having bought your nose, I of course must
put our usual brand upon it."
66
But, Zounds! I cannot allow this."
"Then I must remind you of the clause in
the agreement, and that you are the first to
break the contract.'
وو
"But put yourself in my position."
"Impossible! I am the buyer, not the
seller. Pay the forfeit. Twenty pounds I
claim. These gentlemen will, I am sure, see
the justice of my demand."
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
57
66
one
V
Ultimately the purchase-money was returned,
and two dozen of champagne accepted as
a compromise. The intended victim was
hailed amongst his brother commercials as
of the right sort," and the confused chairman
-the vendor of the turn-up nose, confessed
that, in having disposed of his nose, he had
been, for the first time in his life, altogether
-sold.
But in all the facetious pastimes of solial life
your commercial traveller is generally pro-
foundly proficient. He can execute wonderful
tricks with cards, and cause half-pence to dis-
appear through tables in a manner astonishing
to behold. He can extract marvellous music
from the chin by rapid concussion of the
knuckles, and make extraordinary bets on
wagers that would defy the universal umpire
“ Bell's Life” to decide. He will sing strange
comic songs with remarkable facility of “patter,"
and terminate them with a chorus, fearfully
perplexing to quiet old tradesmen, who listen
with deferential admiration to his powers. And
.
should he have a fine voice, and incline to the
sentimental, he will favour the company with
a popular ballad from the last new London
opera, and cause the waiter to apply his ear to
the key-hole, and the chambermaid to loiter on
the landing. And all this will materially tend
to augment his order-book, and increase his
popularity on the road.
CHAPTER V.
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.
This ride was my delight. I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be;
And such was this wide ocean and this shore
More barren than its billows, and, yet more
Than all, with a remembered friend, I love
To ride as I then rode;—for the winds drove
The living spray along the sunny air
Into our faces. The blue heavens were bare,
Stripped to their depths by the awakening north,
And from the waves, sounds like delight broke forth,
So as we rode-we talked.”
SHELLEY. Julian and Maddalo.
N these
days of
rapid
transit,
when

you can
go to the
South-
ampton
Railway
Terminus, and book your place at Nine Elms
for Paris, with a moral certainty of reaching
that capital twenty-four hours afterwards, the
romance of continental travelling has nearly
become obsolete. Let us retrograde a few
years, and go back to the period when we
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
59
and say,
"
first thought the opposite cliffs from Dover
bounded a terra incognita, and fancied the road
from Abbeville to Amiens was a terror to
travellers. At this epoch a diligence starting
from Paris would drag its slow length along
at the rate of about five miles an hour. After
some ten miles had been thus accomplished,
the travellers alighted to breakfast, when
perhaps some wandering minstrel would delight
them during their repast by a romance or two
in fifteen er twenty couplets.
Then the conductor would light his pipe,
“Gentlemen, make haste, we have
not more than three quarters of an hour to
remain here after this meal,”—at which time
the diligence would again proceed on its
journey, until perhaps it arrived at some hill,
where the traveller was compelled to walk
unless the roads were heavy, when they were
even requested to put their shoulder prover-
bially to the wheel.
At length you thus arrived at the place
where you were to dine, and a journey indeed
of a hundred miles was at this period a pil-
grimage which a man never commenced with-
out making his will, and all his family in tears
would escort him to the vehicle which was to
bear him away. A nightcap and a pair of
slippers were then articles of necessity; and at
night, when fifty miles of the journey had been
traversed, the traveller slept at the sign of the
60
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING,
Dauphin, or some other tavern, with a similar
loyal appellation.

In these days there were four meals to be
imperatively made on the road at a táble d'hote,
and payment was proportioned not to the state
of the appetite, but to the place occupied in
the vehicle. The coupé for instance would
pay three francs for dinner, whilst the occu-
pants of the interieur would only be called
upon for fifty sous, but if a person travelled
post, four francs were charged for the same
meal. Now these things are “indifferently
reformed ” altogether.,
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
61
In the present year of grace, travellers eat
but once in twenty-four hours, and know not
what it is to go to bed. They slumber as they
roll on, without dread of being disturbed to
walk up hill, or push the wheel- there is no
time to observe any monuments or public
buildings as you pass—the vehicle rushes over
the mountains at full gallop, to the great dis-
pleasure of beggars, who are constrained to
practise gymnastics with their legs in order to
catch the alms. The box of the diligence, too,
has been divided into coquettish-looking com-
partments; the interieur has received the
addition of a leathern partition as high as the
head, by which means, every one has a corner
-a privilege which in former times could only
be enjoyed by four exclusives—and the rotonde
has become a regular post divan, with agreeable
arm-rests and pleasant cushions.
But the abolition of the equestrian postilion,
and his transformation into driver, has most
cruelly slaughtered the poetry of the coupé.
Well do we remember that once this part of
the diligence was accessible to the air-it was
open on all sides—it was a regular observatory
-a parlour upon wheels. The equestrian
postilion imparted life to locomotion ; the har-
ness and trappings of the horses—the dress of
the rider-his jokes—his gossipings by the way
- nay, even his eccentric oaths at his horses-
all tended to beguile the tediousness of the
62
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.
way.
From the coupé one might take part
in the affairs of the government of the dili-
gence, and the mind, during rapid descents,
preserved wonderful equanimity from ob-
serving how safely the quadrupeds were
under the driver's control. But now-nous
avons changé tout cela — the traveller in the
coupé resembles a statesman in disgrace-he is
deprived of all official communication-above
his head he sees the reins, but cannot judge
whether the individual who holds them is or
is not likely to upset the vehicle. The coupé,
in fact, has become a sort of prison cell, the tem-
porary inhabitant of which has, by way of aggra-
vation of punishment, to receive sundry frequent
flagellations from the driver's seat above him.
The conductor, in the vocabulary of the
French diligence--as in that of our own omni-
buses—is he who has nothing to do with the
conducting. The conductor having then ab-
solutely nothing to conduct, gives himself up
to the embellishment of his erratic life by a
display of gymnastic evolutions which would
throw the Bedouin Arabs into the shade. He
runs amid the wheels and along the packages
like a ship-boy on the verge of the top mast.
If he hears a nurse in the roto de endea-
vouring to pacify her unruly child, he hitches
one foot in some traveller's cloak, he scram-
bles over the top, leans his head towards the
side of the vehicle whence the sound proceeds,
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
63
and poking his nose in at the window, ex-
claims—“Nurse, mind that child don't spoil
that seat ;” and, with these words, the con-
ductor leaps back again into his place.

Should a ray of the sun gleam upon a small
pebble in the road, he exclaims—“I think 1
have dropped a button!” With one bound
he is upon the earth, shouting to the postilion,
-“don't stop;" and with another he is again
at the top of the vehicle, and coolly says—“I
was deceived.” In a journey of fifty miles
the conductor will descend from his place
about one hundred times; and if a due calcu-
lation be made, it will be found that his
descents and ascents, if measured, will exact!y
correspond with the whole length of the jour-
ney, so that it would have saved him labour had
be trotted by the side of the vehicle all the way.
We thoroughly believe, that there is nothing
a
64
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.
on.
either in nature or art that can be compared
with the brutal oscillation of the French mails.
The springs of the vehicle play at shuttlecock
with the unfortunate traveller; and when there
are four occupants of the interior, there arises
a sanguinary combat of nose against nose.
One, two, three, and under,-one, two, three,
and over, and so A murderous duel,
where forehead bangs forehead, and only finds
a rampart behind the hat. It is impossible to
cherish enmity in a malle-poste—the constant
shocks make the most inveterate enemies em-
brace each other.
But we have a practical moral lesson to
give, impinging on that love of competition
and reduction of prices which is nowhere more
rife than in France. We already feel your
gratitude falling upon our shoulders like a
mantle. Listen!
We will suppose you are stopping at Paris,
and that you see posted on the wall some such
bill as the following, of course in the French
language:
ROYAL COACH OFFICE,
GREAT REDUCTION OF PRICES.
COUPE 35 france
INTERIEUR 26 francs
TOULOUSE
ROTONDE 16 francs
BANQUETTE
8 francs, 70 centimes.
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
65
9
Now you
have never seen the canal of Langue-
doc, or the country of Clemence Isaure, and you
--metaphorically-jump for joy. You offer up
most ardent prayers for the success of an en-
terprise which brings such a journey within
the means of every purse. Nay, you seriously
discuss the propriety of inserting a letter in a
leading journal, calling upon all travellers and
tourists to subscribe, and erect a statue to the
memory of the author of such a disinterested
public act. You think-—“Ah! I have exactly
150 frances to spare, and I cannot do better
than visit this interesting spot before I return
home.” You then proceed to make some such
calculation of expenses as the following:
Fare in the Coupé—there and back 70 francs
Expences of living on the journey,
cigars, &c.
30 francs
A week's expences at the hotel, at
5 francs a day
40 francs
Theatres, and petty expenses
9 francs 70 centimes.
Omnibus to my own door 30 centimes
TOTAL 150 francs.
Accordingly you set out, and when the week
has elapsed, you are proud that you have not
been deceived in your calculation of expendi-
ture—you think of your return, and you hasten
to the office to book your seat in the coupé.
You enter the office, and to your utter horror
find that there is another change in the fares,
66
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.
which came into operation the day before, and
that two rival companies having got tired of
ruining each other, had now formed a league,
and smoked the pipe of reconciliation.
You approach the clerk.
“ A seat in the coupé for Paris ?"
“ Ninety francs, sir,”—and the clerk rubs
his hands as he speaks with a manifest malig-
nant glee at
the change
that instantly
becomes visi-

PRIX
DE
PLACES
ble in your
features, till
your face be-
comes nearly
as long as the
journey!
“Good gra-
cious! and
the interi -
eur ?"
Eighty
francs.”
“ Deuce take it and the rotonde ?"
“Seventy francs.”
Seventy francs ! and the banquette ?"
“Fifty francs, thirty centimes !”
Exactly the sum I have got left for food
and all. Why, I shall not have anything for
provision on the road !”
60
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
67
"That's not our affair sir!"
"And I shall not be able to have an omni-
bus!"
"That's your own affair, sir?"
You have no alternative-you must go.
Starvation appears in all its horrors before
you. Fortunately you are seated outside on
the banquette, and there are some fine orchards
on the road. Trees stretch their fruity stems
athwart the heads of the outside passengers.
You endeavour to seize, in passing, an apple to
quench your thirst, and appease your hunger.

You make a sudden grasp-crash! the branch
has caught you by the neck, swung back again
68
CONTINENTAL TRAVELLING.
off to its old position, and you find yourselt
unexpectedly elevated in the air, and the coach
passing on in the distance.
So probably you would remain but for the
observation of a truffle hunter beneath, who
would shout after the diligence-
"Look !-Hilli-Ho! You've dropped a
traveller."
And such is the every day result of a sudden
reduction of prices.

CHAPTER VI
RAILWAYS.
A mile a minute on we go-
Hurrah, for our courser fast;
His coal black mane,
And his fiery train, [blast.
And his breath a furnace
On and on till the day is gone,
We rush with a goblin scream,
And the cities at night,
Start with wild affright,
At the cry of escaping steam.
Bang! bang!! bang!!!
Shake and shiver and throb,
The sound of our feet
Is the piston's beat.
And the opening valve our sob.
SONG OF THE STOKER.
AKING in the morning to
go off by the first train,
having previous-
ly gone off into
a sound slumber,
is the Battle of

:6
Life" in sheets
-
a victory to boast of a
display of physical prowess, the
very memory of which we may
leave
as an
heir-loom to our
children to go with the rest of
our astonishing achievements down to pos-
terity. Ugh! ugh! to emerge from ones's
warm comfortable bed to brave the chilli-
ness of the raw morning air-to abandon
70
RAILWAYS.
the billowy embrace of the heaving counter-
pane for the encircling frigidity of a clean-
never mind what—to desperately cram carpet-
bags by candlelight, with a distressing recol.
lection, at the period of padlocking, that the
most important articles have been omitted ;
and to have, after all this, precisely fifteen
minutes to spare for the journey of three miles
and a half from your own domicile to the Rail-
way Terminus—such incidental items form, in
the aggregate, a trial of skill and a test of
patience that sadly disturbs the system of sus-
ceptible humanity. It is perhaps as well for
his reputation that Job knew nothing of early
trains. Who has not felt the vexation of being
aroused from a delightful dream about some
caliph's palace, and some eastern princess,
with whom you were on terms of great inti-
macy, to hear booming through the darkness
the hour of four, at which period you had pre-
viously determined to rise for a quiet breakfast,
as the train started at six? Who has not expe-
rienced the unutterable agony of finding, during
the five minutes' doze into which you incon-
tinently fall immediately after this discovery,
that some undigested paring of cucumber, some
rebellious crumb of an overnight's Welsh-
rabbit, has become transformed into an impish
incubus that amuses itself we are not certain
of the sex of night-mares, and prefer the
neuter-by sounding the tocsin of the ter-
.
>
TRAVELLING AND TRAVELLERS.
71
wand
minus immediately above your nose, and
thundering
forth its stir-
ring tale of
the times? If
anybody is
deficient in
the personal
knowledge
of all this
-“happy
man be his
dole.”
But, to speak honestly, transit by railroad
can hardly be called travelling ; you are here
and you are there-you start, and you arrive
at your destination—the rest is a dream. The
process is this. You wind your way to the
terminus, and invest your coin in the purchase
of a small slip of paper, in virtue of which
possession you may be wafted a certain num-
ber of miles. Your luggage is taken from
you, and another ticket is thrust into your
hand. Remonstrance is useless; you must
believe in locomotive laws, and have faith in
it turning up again precisely at the right time
and place. From a platform you step into
the carriage you select from the train that
appears before you, with the mighty engine
fuming and fretting and fizzing at the head.
You have hardly had time to arrange your
72
RAILWAYS.
coat-tails before, with a jolt, and a jerk, and a
rumble, you are off. The engine is chafing,
roaring, thundering onwards. You stop.
What can be the matter? You remember
horrible things. Psha! it is only the first
station; and you have travelled ten miles from
London before you have recovered breath to
look around you. You crane your neck to
admire the simple architecture of the building,
"all right," is shouted by the guard-a jet
of steam, another roar of the engine-jerk,
jolt, and rumble number two, and you are off
again.
But you roll onward in a mighty chaos;
landscapes present puzzling peculiarities; and
cows, cabbages, and cottages become fused
into one heterogeneous mass. All seems to
teach that practical moral lesson that "no-
thing is cer-
tain," except
in the transit
through tun-
nels, when
you are not
even certain
of that. You
bob your head
win-

out of
dow to obtain
a prospect for
yourself, and, speedily withdrawing it, you
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING,
73
present some such prospect as this to your
opposite companion.
On every line, and at every period of a train
starting, there are certain passengers, character-
istic of a class, that you are sure to meet.
Thus you will always find among the pas-
sengers a stout, ruddy-faced, good-humoured
individual, with a carpet-bag slung upon one
arm and a great coat thrown over the other,
who seems to be always treating himself to
short railway excursions, and bustling about
the station in the busiest and pleasantest man-
ner imaginable. You never see any body with
him, and are quite convinced he will not go
farther than twenty miles along the line; but
there he always is, blandly rubbing his hands
together, and chuckling to himself as though
impressed with a vague notion that the whole
affair was a capital joke, devised for his espe.
cial gratification. Another prominent feature
is the lady who has lost her bundle, and who
will always insist on looking for it herself in
the most unlikely and impossible places ; rum-
maging under the bales of goods that came up
with the last train ; and obstinately believing
that the little iron-door for the fire-place be-
hind the engire, is the “ boot” of the locomo-
tive, in which the stoker surreptitiously stows
away the small parcels that don't go on the
top. Then we are sure to see two or three
nervous people, diffidently disposed, who are
74
RAILWAYS.
>
so overcome with awe at the immensity of the
building, or the nature of the journey, that
they timidly perch themselves, when they enter,
upon the extreme edge of the wooden bench
that runs along the wall, and await with reve-
rential submissiveness the instruction of the
porter, whom they address as “Sir,” to take
their seats, turning very red indeed in the face
if they sneeze, and regarding in the interim
a subdued cough as a very heinous offence, if
not a positive crime.
Those strange telegraphic posts, forming the
railway code of signals, have an eccentricity of
movement that cannot fail to mystify the un-
initiated. We never look upon one with its
complicated apparatus in motion without tracing
a caricature resemblance to a member of par-
liament making an enthusiastic speech to his
constituents. One arm up-then the other
arm down, and so on, with a variety of gestures
appropriate to the wildest notions of modern
electioneering oratory.
As to a railway tunnel, we have often
thought, with a loving couple in the coupé,
what a capital place it would be in which to
pop the question. The rapidity of motion
bracing up the fluttering heart, the darkness
shrouding the flattering blushes, the whistle
responding to the faltering words, and that
consciousness of wanting a protector which
must be felt by a traveller of the gentler sex
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
75
under such circumstances, would all tend to
make an achievement like this become a mere
matter of every-day performance with the most
bashful of swains. It is then that we might
expect to behold such a TABLEAU VIVANT as
the following:

There is one peculiar effect of railway tray-
elling which we do not remember to have seen
noticed. We allude to the influence it has
upon our ideas of time. The transit seems to
lengthen our days in the same proportion that
it shortens our distances. A journey that
formerly cost our ancestors eight days to take
is now easily compassed in one, and thus a
clear week is added to the sum of our ex-
istence; an addition, which occurring so fre-
76
RAILWAYS,
quently, in a man's life must be a matter of no
little moment. You leave London in the midst
of a sunny summer afternoon, and are yet time
enough to behold the sunset off Dover. Verily,
it is a strange bewilderment of the calendar,
and it requires all the paraphernalia of a bed
and a nightcap to bring the imagination even
with the almanack. The cycle of time, like
those odd-looking little bands of vulcanized
Indian rubber, seems to have become so capa-
ble of expansion as to embrace anything or
everything. You can make one day contain
the incidents of six-with a stretch.
a
We have had a little con-
nexion with railways at dif-
ferent periods, and as we
were presumed to possess
some influence, numberless
applicants have solicited our
“vote and interest” for situa-
tions on the railroad. One
of the modest missives we
then received ran as follows:
“Sir,-Could you do me
the favour of getting me one
of those places where they
pay you half-a-crown a day
to see the passengers pass
along the line ?”
We believe, therefore, these civil posts are
in no inconsiderable demand.
CHAPTER VII.
STEAMBOATS
"O'er the dark waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear the billow's foam,
Survey our empire and behold our home!
Oh! who can tell, save he who's heart hath tried,
And danced in triuniph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense-the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way."
HERE!

what
would
our
ferry-
loving
ances-
tors
say
could
they
start
from
their
ૐ
sleep
of cen
turies and behold the Thames instinct with
vehicular existence? Their favourite river
78
STEAMBOATE.
a
a
>
14
6
>
>
once only rippled by the intermittent oar of an
isolated waterman, now churned into showers
of perpetual spray by the ceaseless paddles of
a hundred steamers, and made the great aque-
duct of a myriad of daily voyagers. The stream,
on whose placid bosom erst floated the galley
of a Raleigh, and the wherry of a Burleigh, is
now gashed by the cutting of a “ Diamond,”
and emblazoned by the setting of a “Ruby.”
The hoarse sound of a tobacco-loving urchin,
lustily demanding his “ back-her-stop-her!”
usurps the recollection of the quaint old mad-
rigals, and instead of hearing the invite of
"oars to Ranelagh " from the lips of a sturdy
waterman, we have the mystic injunction of
“ Turn her astarn, easy,” shouted forth from
the larnyx of a hoarse intruder, who scram-
bles out a coil of damp rope at the very
instant
your feet are entangled unperceived in its
mazy intricacies. But, with a full conviction
of the true philosophy contained in the old
Caledonian proverb, we will let “by-gones be
by-gones," and content ourselves with letting
description begin-like charity and the late
memorable Matthews –“ at Home.”
Did you ever, speaking technically and
Polytechnically, see the exhibition of the Hy-
dro-Oxygen Gas Microscope? Do you re-
member that little drop of water magnified-
Cocker only knows how many million times--
with its myriads of crowded restless inhabitants,
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
79
Do you
all pushing, squeezing, running, scrambling,
hurrying, skurrying past each other, here,
there, and everywhere at once ?
recollect the busiest and most energetic of
them all-pointed out by a gentleman with a
low base voice, and a long white wand as a
specimen of the monoculi-how he was a little
fellow evidently with an umbrella in one
hand and a carpet-bag in the other, and how
he first pushed his way up the disc in one
direction, and then scrambled away in another,
and how all the rest, not seeming to care a
jot, either for him, or anything, or anybody
else, were all in perpetual motion scrambling
away on their own account, and scudding
through the water as if it were a matter of
intense importance which should get to some
indefinite place first ?-if you recollect all this
for we have got a long-winded paragraph
here which must be wound up somehow-if
you recollect all this, we say, you have a
capital notion of a summer's morning among
the steamboats to begin with.
Whether you patronise those eccentric fun-
nels with an elongated three of diamonds
running up their sides, or adopt those with
the reduplicated white rings, is a matter of
little consequence to our present mission. We
pass onwards with an observant eye to the
objects that throng upon our gaze, and fami-
liar as we have grown with them, there is
80
STEAMBOATS.
always a kind of winning freshness visible,
that invests each with an air of novelty. Let
us trace a few on our route down the river from
Hungerford ?
Long rows of buildings varied by pleasant
strips of green sward, and occasional narrow
glimpses of the busy thoroughfare of the
Strand beyond, first engage our attention.
Then with a gurgling sweep under the dark
arches, we pass beneath the bridges vibrating
with the ceaseless traffic that is pursued above,
and dotted alone the balustrades with human
heads, lingering there like a reminiscence of
the days of universal decapitation.
Then
come the huge wharves and granaries along
the banks—mighty places of marvellous ar-
chitecture, with projecting warehouses tumbling
out wildly into air at the precise point where
second-floor windows are usually situated in
buildings of primitive construction. There we
behold cranes-lankier and longer-necked than
we ever see elsewhere, continually fishing up
sacks and barrels from barges beneath, and
men, standing on dangerous ledges, stowing
them away with untiring energy. Shrinking
behind the walls of such places, you may mark
at intervals some solitary tree, crouching down
with its branches, and seeming to be, as well it
might, ashamed of finding itself in such a po-
sition. There are curious old taverns, too,-
peculiar to the river's side---with great bulging
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
81
bow-windows hanging over the water, and
crazy sign-boards swinging solemnly above
the muddy bank, with some indefinitely-sug-
gestive symbol, the very source of which is a
problem to unravel. London Bridge behind
us, and a perfect forest of masts belonging to
ships of all sizes and all nations, looms out in the
pool. Steamers, that in less than forty hours
will be within sight of Antwerp, or traversing
the Rhine ; copper-visaged sailors bending
lazily over the sides of outward-bound vessels,
and looking with contempt on the smaller
craft that pass beneath; dingy coal-whippers
jerking out measures of coal from grimy
colliers into gritty barges; drowsy individuals
with red noses and nightcaps to match, smok-
ing dreamy pipes through forecastle windows,
and steward's boys industriously swabbing
drenched decks above-these, and the many
other incidents encountered about the neigh-
bourhood of the docks, are never scant of
attraction. Then follows the long line of
stunted pollards fringing the waters' edge, and
wedging between their branches the shattered
boards that mark the distance traversed. Then
glorious old Greenwich-that somehow or other
we get prouder of every time we see it-and
then Blackwall with its white-bait dinners,
and squeezed out pier, spreads along to our
sight; a fresher breeze on turning the point,
and Woolwich with its endless crowd of
E
82
STEAMBOATS.
soldiers and shipping is hurried past; dreary
wastes of marshes dotted with ruminative
cattle ; quiet Erith, pleasant Purfleet, villa
spangled Greenhithe, and Gravesend, which
rambling Londoners have made their own-all
successively lead on to the broader expanse of
the Nore, and lastly, the channel margined
with its many watering places of "mark and
likelihood," receives us on its glassy bosom.
Who loveth not thus to explore the wayward
windings of the Thames ?' We believe the
code of signals adopted by the river steamers
had its origin from the conventional combi-
nation of the coptic Priests who assisted in
the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries.
Thus « Bacca
is still the evident relic of
an apostrophe to Bacchus—“Eza” or “Ease
her," as it is now corrupted, the symbolized
form of the path of the sun; E being the
myth of the equinox, when the days and
nights are of equal length, as typified by the
uniformity of the letter ; Z the serpentine
course of the sun through the heavens; and
A the worshipped form of the mystic triangle,
originally derived from the Hindoos. The
manipulatinos of the captain are manifestly from
the same source; the progressive or retrograde
motion of the hand being the primitive mode
among the Brahmins, of ascertaining “ what's
o'clock" by the sun's shadow. We know
this reveals profound learning upon our parts,
9
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
83
but we
are still diffident, and devoid of
pride notwithstanding. Extremely so: An
instant descend into the engine-room and
behold the swarthy, sooty demon, that is the
priinary mover of the whole machine. He

lives in an atmosphere to which that of the
Black Hole of Calcutta was a breezy paradise;
he inhales carburetted hydrogen in a state of
poisonous purity ; yet is he content with his
calling, and desires not to change his state.
He shovels on coals, and—fulfils his mission.
On board these steamers there are always
a few stereotyped characters belonging to cer-
tain recognised classes. The most prominent
perhaps is the knowing gent, who, directly he
gets on board, will perch himself upon the
wooden railings at the side, and taunt unoffend-
ing rowers in wafer-like wager-boats, with
>
84
STEAMBOATS.
not being able to keep up with him. He
puzzles timorous scullers who are making their
first appearance in that character by a direction
to look behind them for the crabs they have
caught, and amuses himself with similar divert-
ing pleasantries. He bows furiously to ima-
ginary acquaintances in passing steamers, and
desires to be remembered by them to fictitious
personages in unknown regions. He badgers
the boy who keeps blinking at the captain, and
bawling directions to the engine-men, with a
desire that his compliments should be presented
to the sto-
ker, and that
he should
like to know
whether they
felt it cool
and comfort-
able down
there. In-
spired by the
little brown
label that
sets forth the
refreshments
to be obtain-
ed of the ste-
ward, he
wildly goes
in quest of that mysterious personage, and

TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
85
lustily demands the obligation of “a pint of cham-
pagne with the chill off.” Indeed his faceti-
ousness developes itself so abundantly in so
many ways, that we have not space to include
them in our chronicle. Then there is the impa-
tient couple who are always too late, and who
are invariably left behind upon the pier-head,
struggling with the wind, somewhat after the
fashion of the cartoon on the page preceding:
Another, familiar to most of us, is the in-
quisitive passenger, who waylays every unfor-
tunate straggler with such interrogatories as
“ What are they going to do with Westminster
bridge ?” and, “What is to be placed in the
empty towers on Hungerford ?" always ima-
gining that some great event is also coming off
on the river, of which he is tantalisingly kept
in profound ignorance. The indignant person-
age, too, is very frequently encountered ; he
continues in a condition of fearful ferment
from his first embarking until his last exit, and
is periodically breaking forth into soliloquies
of remonstrance upon the many stoppages and
the over-crowding of the boats. But few in-
terest us more than the servant-girl who has
got a holiday, and who goes by the boat to
meet her sweetheart with the indispensable
white handkerchief, that is never unfolded,
crunched up in one hand, with the cheap
parasol that is never closed elevated in the
other. How she marvels at the captain's
86
STEAMBOATS.
dexterity of communication with the man at
the wheel, and wonders whether every naval
commander can talk with his fingers like that ;
how benignantly she smiles on the pier-at-
tendant who hands her across the narrow
plank, and how indescribably proud she is
when the ticket collector addresses her with
“now then, Miss," and she withdraws the
little slip of coloured paper from her glove,
with a fluttering degree of trepidation quite
engaging to behold. And then the breakfasts
on board these steam-boats—when you start
early on a bright warm morning, and have
an appetite whetted by the salt breeze to a
sharpness of edge that you rarely gain else-
where. How tempting the ham, how fragrant
the steaming coffee, how magnificent the ribs
of beef, sinking in oppressed majesty beneath
an avalanche of parsley and horse-raddish!
The day passes deliciously away—the packet
is close to the pier. Recognitions from those
on board are met by acknowledgments from
those on land. Passengers, porters, touters,
hampers, packages, carpet-bags, and congra-
tulations follow each other fast and numerous.
But another half-hour and all is again quiet,
save the dreamy sound of the waves breaking
on the shingles, and the occasional whirring of
the sea-gull as it dips its wing in the waters
now bathed in the lustre of the setting-sun.
But we must tarry no longer on details.
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
87
Other phases of metropolitan transit demand
our space; and, having borne the reader on
the dusky wings of steam to some sequestered
spot, "far from the maddened world's ignoble
strife," we will here leave him to enjoy his
siesta on the sands, thinking "unutterable
things," and drowsily musing over Alfred
Tennyson's glorious lines:-
"Who would be a merman bold,
Sitting alone, singing alone,
Under the sea with a crown of gold
On a throne !"


CHAPTER VIII.
MARINE EXCURSIONS.
"Down the steep path I wound
To the sea shore,-
The evening was most clear
And beautiful,
And there the sea I found,
Calm as a sleeping child in dreamless slumber bound."
SHELLEY.
WE consider the essentials of a watering-place
may be alliteratively summed up thus:-
Sea, salt, sun, sand, shrimps, shells, sailors,
and shingle. We believe that the most acute
analysis would fail to detect a primitive ele-
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
89
a
ment not there given. The male portion of
humanity, included in the visitors, will by the
same chemical process become resolved into
straw-hats, buff-slippers, and cigar-cases. There
is not a jetty or a pier-head on the coast but
will furnish the specimens.
The ordinary amusement of the visitors is
bathing.
A bathing-machine is an aquatic caravan,
containing respectively two towels, two ricketty
hat-pegs, a damp flooring, a strong smell of
seaweed, and a broken looking-glass, exhibiting
the phenomena of oblique refraction. Though
this last cannot be exactly considered the
“ glass of fashion," it frequently exhibits the
“ mould of form" about to have a dip.
To rise betimes of a bright summer morning,
to invest oneself negligently in loose, cool,
and comfortable clothing to walk steadily and
quietly to the sea-side, to undress in one of
these amphibious vehicles, whilst the music of
the waves dashing against the ponderous
wheels, or gurgling through the crannies in
the wooden steps, greets your delighted ears-
to plunge headforemost into the sea sparkling
in the rays of the rising sun, and then-
“To fling the billows back from the drenched hair,
And laugh from off the lip the audacions brine,
And then to plunge with wanton spirit down
Into their green and glassy gulphs, and make
Our way to shells and seaweed in their depths
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep
The long suspended breathi-"
90
MARINE EXCURSIONS.
then to resume our abandoned habits—stop !
that's a slip of the pen—then to resume our
left-off clothing, and feel the ecstatic glow ex-
hilarating the whole frame, is the apex of
enjoyment—there is not a luxury in nature to
compare with it.
As for the breakfast that
follows, it is a positively alarming subject to
speak about-it can only be properly described
by the eloquence of silence.
And then the ladies-generally such giggling
graces in their girlhood !- with their flowing
sea-dresses, and their curiously close caps,
,
beneath which the
obstinate curls will
rush stragglingly
forth—to see them
cautiously step-
ping down the lit-
ile stairs of the ma-
chine into the arms
of two aquatic gen-
tlewomen who re-
ceive them. Whish!
Flop! There's a
plunge beneath the
onward rolling wavema little breath and ano-
ther plunge-a further respite and a third
plunge, and then—all is over.
The continental bathing-machines are sentry-
boxes on wheels. In France-no! Sterne,
they do not manage THESE things better in

TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
91
France-huge, clumsy men, in greasy flannel
gaberdines, usurp the office of our feminine
Tritons. The husband coolly surrenders his
wife to their charge, and ascends a rock above
water-mark to behold the bathing process car-
ried on in the distance. We remember a gay
Parisian adventurer, who knowing the custom
of his country, disguised himself in this man-
ner, and had
the felicity of
bathing an Eng-
lish heiress who
had also arrived
only the day
before at Bou-
logne to spend
the honeymoon.
The result was
an elopement,
before the astonished eyes of her hopeless hus-
band, and with the accompanying sketch made
by our artist, who was on the beach, we make
the hint a present to the reader.
A pleasant pastime, peculiar to marine ex-
cursionists, is the collection of shells and sea-
weed gathered on the beach. Odd specimens
of conchology are thus occasionally disinterred,
and curiously-shaped chimney ornaments fur-
nished for future inspection and retrospection.
A singular circumstance, worth recording,
once occurred to a friend of
ours,
whilst prowl-

92
MARINE EXCURSIONS.
ing about among the cliffs for this purpose.
He had dined-as people only can dine at
watering-places-and to prevent any unpleasant
effects from repletion, he had endeavoured to
promote digestion a by series of cool tumblers of
punch, and a long stroll out on the sands. It
had been a warm sunny afternoon, and, isolated
under the beetling brow of a craggy cliff, he
sat, in the fulness of his placid enjoyment,
dreamily musing over the strange variety of
shells he had picked up, and pondering on their
transformation into complicated cats, baskets,
and diminutive fish-women, usually fashioned
from these articles, amid other mantel-piece
montrosities. Whilst thus blandly blinking at
the setting sun, as its broad disc slowly sank
behind a fishing smack that loomed afar off in
the crimsoned horizon, he felt a drowsy sense
of harmony steal upon his ear, and surren-
dering himself to the influence of the time and
place, he became lost in a profound reverie.
Gently then arose from the beach a low
hushed strain of melody, like a whispered song,
-but gradually deepening to a bolder tone as
our friend bent his head more earnestly to
listen. He saw nothing-perchance his eyes
were dazzled by the ruddy glare of the sun on
the waves-but this was what he first heard :—
LAY OF THE LOBSTER.
Deep in the tangled sea-weed's cells,
Where emigrant sunbeams only settle,
The lingering lobster laughingly dwells,
The tenant-at-will of some old fish-kettle;
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
93
Crawl in, crawl out-what a motly rout,
Of bottle-nosed porpoises poke their snout
Into my home, but they go as they come,
For very few know what a lobster 's about!
Waddle and toddle through shingle and weed,
What a corkscrew life does a lobster lead!
And the crustaceous chorus echoed along the
cliffs-
66
Brawling and crawling through shingle and weed,
What a corkscrew life does a lobster lead!"
Then in a bland mellifluous strain of harmony
did our friend hear the cheerful.
CANZONET OF THE COCKLE.
I am a jolly cockle,
And a glorious life I lead;
Making my bed of shingle red
Under the green sea-weed.
Over the briny waves,
Under the slimy sand,
Where worms have battened on fishermen's graves,
Or delved their own in the Strand--
On I whirl-a son of the sea,
Carving my bright path joyously!
A respectable black is my garb,
Turned up with a white cravat,
And pilgrims long, as they tell in song,
Have borrowed my shape for a hat;
Whirl, and wind, and wobble,
Whisk, and wriggle as well,
Those who look in for a gobble,
Had better look out for the shell,
On I whirl, a son of the sea,
A jolly old cockle as ever could be!
And the crustaceous choristers took up the
refrain as before, until attention was solicited
by a tenor on a tour for the
SONG OF THE SHRIMP.
Twiggling twisting, twirling,
Wreathing my brow with the foam.
Where breakers are wildly whirling,
The scavenger shrimp is at home!
Twiggle and twist and twirl!
94
MARINE EXCURSIONS.
With head all feelers, and knees
Bedizened in forest of pikes,
A fishy chevauc-de-frise,
On a body impaled on spikes,
Chasing the light of the sunbeams bright,
Or hiding in sea-weed limp,
Wnat dandy so fine in our world of brine,
As the swaggering scavenger shrimp!
And again did the chorus reverberate along
the shore, and the wondering waves raised
their
green heads to listen as another shell-
fieh songster joined the vocal throng, and the
melody became wedded to this—the pensive
POETRY OF THE PERIWINKLE.
Adown the depths of ocean's halls,
Illumined by a sunless glow,
The Peri to her lover calls,
Inviting love to dwell below;
There in a bower with coral hung,
The winkle sings the live-long day,
And ever as to him she clung,
He thus would soothe her griefs away,
Fear not, dear, to dwell within,
For winkles here defy the pin !"
Love, the poets sung of old
In a roseate bower dwells,
But those bards we could have told,
Love, like lime, is found in shells;
And when the shining scales, that seem
Like stars of ocean, round us twinkie,
'Tis Paradise (well Moore might dream
So truly) and the Peri-winkle.
Pots may boil and pins may double,
Winkles won't repay the trouble.”
And at this touching allusion to their domestic
misfortunes a plaintive outcry—very like a
wail-burst from the dark abyss of the waters
beneath, and our friend awoke, listened, and
heard no more. The laughing lobster, the
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
95
convivial cockle, the swaggering shrimp, and
the pensive periwinkle, had again sunk into
the sand.
We do not say that every marine excur-
sionist may thus hear the songs of the shell-
fish, but certain we are, from what our friend
communicated to us, that strange sights and
sounds at sunset are not unusual with those
who linger late upon the beach. But as a
preparatory regimen is requisite, we advisedly
throw out a quiet hint that copious potations of
cold whisky punch on a hot day will be most
likely to produce the desired effect. At all
events it may be worth while to make the
experiment.
Marine excursions have latterly meant, in-
stead of a day's trip to Ramsgate, a fortnight's
tour to the Mediterranean. The passengers
are involved in a sort of marine pic-nic, and
pay pretty handsomely for their participation.
Scarcely have they however got out of sight
of the north Foreland, before sundry abdominal
disturbances begin to prevail, and they retire
to their berths with dreadful misgivings. For
any prospect they behold on their voyage an
incarceration in the Bow-street Station House
would be equally advantageous. Perhaps one
learned archæologist will recover about the
time they reach the Archipelago, and lay in a
stock of articles of vertu, bought at a reckless
outlay from one of the Greek vendors of such
2
96
MARINE EXCURSIONS.
relics. He will have them carefully stowed
away upon the deck, and pointing to the
fragment of a ruined column, will exclaim
delightedly to the captain :-
"Look! what I have bought-they cost me
so-and-so.'
99
And the captain will smile.
"What? do you not consider them genuine
originals ?"
And then the captain will reply :-" Per-
fectly original! I know the man that makes
them!"
And after that the archæologist will change
the destination of his marine excursions.

116
CHAPTER IX.
MINERAL WATERS.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes."
BEN JONSON.

LTHOUGH
we have oc-
casionally
wandered to
the continent
yet with the
waters of Ba-
den-Baden,
the Spas of
of
Aix, the hot
springs
Johannis-
berg, or the
colder products of Silesia's Græfenberg, we
have no intention of interfering. It neither
belongs to our province to analyse foreign
waters, nor the motives of those who drink
them. For ourselves, we have no partiality
for lucifer-boxes dissolved in water, nor do we
particularly admire the taste of diluted flat-
irons. The ocular process of imbibing recom-
mended by rare Ben Jonson in our motto, is
the only mode of drinking these potations
98
MINERAL WATERS.
We
once
a
which we patronise. We have frequently heard
the most eminent physicians earnestly recom-
mend a troublesome patient to "go to Bath; "
but we have never felt the slightest anxiety to
adopt the suggestion ourselves.
saw a gentleman's face after the first gulp of
the saline spring at Spa, and we have never
forgotten it. We attempted from memory to
make a sketch of it for an artist, but the very
sight of even our vague outline produced such
a disagreeable impression that he disappeared
immediately, and we have never
seen him
since. As, therefore, this is the only chapter
not warranted from personal experience of its
contents, we will merely confide to the reader
our firm and unalterable conviction that-
hush! whisper--our decided opinion that-are
you quite sure there is nobody listening ?-our
inflexible belief-have the kindness to double
lock the door--that the chief support of all
medicinal waters—will be found a pump.
a
CHAPTER X.
THE CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICER.
66
* England expects that every man,
This day will do his duty."
NATIONAL LYRIC.
USTOM-HOUSE offi-
cials can always
be recognized by
their physiognomy.
There is an identity
of visage with them
all which cannot be
mistaken. The eye
is a piercer, the nose
a note of interro-
gation, the mouth
a volcanic crater,
dreadful for curio-
sity to contemplate.
He is the Aphis
Vastator of the
coast,
whenever
he manifests his
presence the fruits
of a quiet trip to
the continent are destroyed. When he looks
upon a conscious contrabandist you feel the
glance dart diametrically through the fourth

100
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICER.
sessor.
button of your vest, and come, burning its way
out, on the other side. His nose, acute in
olfactory prescience, detects the two bottles of
Eau de Cologne that you have balanced per-
pendicularly in the tops of your capacious
Wellingtons, and the odour of a fraudulent
flask of cognac, or a surreptitious cigar, will
rise in unfailing judgment against the pos-
You never know the extent to which
that nose will run. You are stricken with dis-
may, and no longer let “concealment like a
worm i’ the bud” feed on your damask cheek.
You stop not to be taxed with the goods—you
confess, and let the goods be taxed for them-
selves. You think of the lace-bordered hand-
kerchiefs that you brought over the channel
and put under your cravat, and then you think
of the nose of the custom-house officer, and feel
assured that those fragile fragments of cambric
will be brought before it- that every handker-
chiet will be scented. And then you apologise
by the frequency of the custom for the evasion
of the duty--but all in vain; the Tamerlane
of the tariff, the Genghis Khan of carpet-bags,
smiles not upon the venial fraud, but with
one eye to the revenue and another to his
office, he regards your excuse as the “ baseless
fabric of a vision. and leaves not a wreck
behind.” When these gentry turn out the
trunks of a tourist we feel convinced it is with
the best possible intention. It is for the
>
66
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
101
purpose of humbling and correcting married
women who leave their husband's shirts un-
mended, and their wrists devoid of buttons.
// //

In the interior of France the examination of
passports is entrusted to the Gendarme of the
department, a high and mighty personage,
who combines in his own person the duties
of rural police, National Guard, and ex-
aminer of passports.
Well does the Gen-
darme know the policy of his government.
He is perfectly aware that a passport costs
two francs, and consequently the more heads
there are, the greater the number of francs
that will roll into the state exchequer. This
renders the Gendarme positively intractable
in the matter of passports,
102
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICER."
Amongst the millions of individuals who are
constantly travelling through the continent,
there are some thousands who possess mouths of
a middling size and noses of the same indefinite
character. It would be a perplexing task to
give verbal distinctions. In this opinion the
Gendarme perfectly coincides. In due form
he has said " Gentlemen, your passports ;” and
every one has tendered the page stamped with
the royal arms. His eye wanders over the
column descriptive of the party to whom it has
been granted, and as it would be utterly use-
less to consult it, since it is no description at
all, the Gendarme contents himself with looking
scrious, and humming so as not to be heard,
some fragment of a Gallic
song :-
“ Toujours Jamais certainement-
then he stops--glances from the column of
description to the face of the traveller, and
continues gazing on the paper and humming
as before :
“Toujours vive la Bagatelle"
a third glance from the bottom to the top and
again from the top to the bottom, and he takes
the passport from another traveller, and
recommences his Marseillaise of " Toujours
jamais” as before.
The best proof we can offer that the pass-
port resembles no one, and that no one re-
sembles his passport, is the embarrassment
which is experienced by the Gendarme when it
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
103
his papers.
is necessary for him to return to each person
The official loses himself in the
forest of black hair, gets entangled in the
maze of moderately-sized mouths and middling
noses, and absolutely bewildered by the mul-
titude of round chins. So, after shuffling
them up, he usually ends by asking each pas-
senger to select his own-a process not altoge-
ther unlike that of a conjuror, who spreads out
a pack of cards before you like a fan, and asks
you to take any card" for your amusement.
66
Science will in a few years abolish all this
absurdity of passport carrying and exhibiting.
It is this everlasting annoyance-this constant
concomitant of custom-house regulations-this
involver of delays of all kinds that makes a
traveller think of the snail-like examination
he will undergo by the folks at Folkestone,
and wishes himself again-at home.

CONCLUSION.'

66
-
UR pen hath travelled on-
ward to the last page, and
we here stop not for want of
matter, but for want of
space. Sterne has said,-
writing, when properly
managed as you may be
sure I think mine is-is but
a different name for con-
versation. As no one who knows what he is
about in good company would venture to talk all,
so no author who understands the just boun-
daries of decorum and good-breeding, would
presume to think all ;-the truest respect which
you can pay to the reader's understanding is
to halve this matter amicably, and leave him
something to imagine in his turn as well as
yourself." Need it be added, that we are
quite of the opinion of Sterne. VALE!

104
PAGES
from
WILLOUGHBY
AMEN&CORNER
PATERNOSTER ROW
LONDON
LIST OF ILLUSTRATED WORKS,
PUBLISHED BY WILLOUGHBY & CO.,
8, AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW.
In demy 8vo., Elegantly Bound in Embossed Cloth,
Ornamented Gold Backs, well adapted for Presents,
School-gifts, and Exportation,
F
* Whenever a ranting old Tory Peer or Member rises in his
seat in Parliament, and denounces cheap literature, we hope that
some liberal champion of that portion of the press which is so
condemned, will exhibit some of Mr. Willoughby's admirable
reprints, to aid the refutation of an opponent's argument.'
Dispatch, Feb. 9th 1845.
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
By Daniel Defoe, embellished with Three Hun.
dred engravings, after designs by J.J. Grandville.
The most extensively illustrated and complete
edition of this work yet published. demy 8vo.
7s.
“ The most romantic of books; the text and woodcuts in this
edition are exceedingly beautiful.”—Morning Advertiser.
“Oh the delight with which we first devoured the pages of
Crusoe; and oh! how that delight would have been enhanced
had we at that day possessed the illustrated book before us! The
plates are from Engravings on Wood, and are extremely well
executed." - Britannia.
“ The paper and type are of the first quality, and the nume-
rous wood-cuts admirable."- Era.
“ How happy that this, the most moral of romances, is not only
the most charming of books, but the most instructive.”-Å.
Chalmers.
“No fiction in any language was ever better supported than
these Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” - Dr. Blair.
Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver
Goldsmith, M. B., with a Life of the Author, by G.
Moir Bussey. With Two Hundred engravings.
demy 8vo.
66
58.
“ This tale is the lasting monument of Goldsmith's genius, his
great legacy of pleasure to generations past, present, and to
come "
Eraminer.
2
Advertisements.
Life of the Duke of Wellington ; By
Col. J. Montmorency Tucker. Illustrated with a
Portrait, and near One Hundred and Fifty en-
gravings. demy 8vo. 78.
Life of Napoleon ; with Five Hun-
dred Engravings, after designs by Horace Vernet,
and Twenty Portraits, by M. Jacque, two volumes
in one. demy 8vo. 12s. 6d.
Adventures of Gil Blas; Translated
from the French of Le Sage. With near Five
Hundred engravings, after designs by Gigoux.
demy 8vo. 108.
“ The cleverest picture of real life and manners that ever has
been drawn."-J. G. LOCKHART. Quarterly Review. (No, CXL.
p. 67.)
“All the designs are full of spirit, and descriptive of the re-
markable passages in this fine satire on the policy, drama, litera-
ture, and domestic habits of the Spaniards.”—Morning Advertiser
Asmodeus, the Devil on two Sticks ;
A newly-revised translation by an eminent author,
allowed by critics to be the best edition extant.
With Two Hundred engravings, after designs by
Tony Johannot. demy 8vo. 58.
“It is Asmodeus who speaks, and the judicious reader will
find strokes of the crutches, which he may improve to his ad-
vantage and edification.”-Old Preface.
“The engravings, though worked in with the type, are, through
care and skill, as clear and distinct as plates intended for sepa-
rate publication.”—Literary Gazette.
Mythology of the Ancients; with
Two Hundred Engravings, by first-rate
Artists. demy 8vo. 58.
“A proper as well as an acceptable present to the young.
This we are sure will be no slight recommendation to those who
are in the habit of objecting to works treating of similar sub-
near
Advertisements.
3
The Adventures of Telemachus;
Translated by Dr. Hawkesworth, embellished with
near Two Hundred Engravings. demy 8vo. 7s.
"The publishers have rendered good service to literature and
the public, by presenting, in a cheap and popular form, a work
occupying such a proud position in the literature of the world."-
City Chronicle.
Who would be without an illustrated Telemachus when it can
be had on such terms! The translation is by Dr. Hawkesworth,
and is unexceptionable both in elegance of style, and fidelity to
the original."-Conservative Journal.
Fables, Original and Selected. (A new
edition) with an introductory dissertation on the
History of Fable, and comprising Biographical
notices of the most eminent Fabulists, by G. Moir
Bussey, embellished with numerous Engravings, by
J. J. Grandville. demy 8vo.
"To the lovers of Fables-that is to say, to every one who has
imagination and the moral sense-this publication ought to be a
welcome and grateful offering."—Allas.
"The engravings are superb, both as regards their design and
execution. The work is beautifully got up, and is sold remark-
ably cheap-even for this age of cheap printing. We cordially
recommend it to our readers."-Satirist.
"The selection has been made with care and attention; it is
characterised by a total absence of everything gross."-Morning
Advertiser.
---
"We can confidently recommend this work to our readers, as
one of the cheapest and best of its class." -Court Gazette.
The Life of our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST, Being a correct and general
history of our Glorious Redeemer, from his birth
to his ascension into heaven; with the lives of the
Holy Apostles and Evangelists. By the Rev.
John Fleetwood, D.D. Embellished by splendid
Engravings, in outline, after the old Masters, and
reprinted, without abridgment, from the best
foner cloth สน
10.
4
Advertisements.
Alfred; or the Adventures of a
FRENCH GENTLEMAN; By G. W. M. Rey.
nolds, Esq. author of " Pickwick Abroad.” With
Fourteen Steel Engravings. demy 8vo. 58.
A cheap, useful, and valuable present for a child. Just.
Published, a second edition, with upwards of One Hun-
dred Illustrations, 1s. 6d.
The Pictorial Reader; Compiled from
the most approved authorities. Copiously illus-
trated from the most graceful and animated designs,
which bring the image of almost every scene and
object mentioned immediately before the reader,
and, by appealing to the eye, prepare the mind to
receive the strongest impressions.
The Works of Josephus. Translated
by W. Whiston, A. M., with a life of the author,
and numerous engravings. , Crown 4to. 10s.
The Historic Gallery of Portraits
AND PAINTINGS, with Lives of the most cele-
brated men of every age and country. With
Beautiful Engravings in Outline. In three vols.
demy 8vo. £l 7s.
History of America, From its disco-
very by the Northmen to the present time, by John
Frost, A. M. Embellished by numerous Engra-
ings, which consist of highly-finished Wood-cuts,
illustrating the most important and striking events
in the annals of that nation, and so numerous as to
enable the reader to follow the course of events by
simply turning over the leaves, and passing from
incident to incident and from character to character,
exciting in the young and uninstructed an earnest
desire to read the connecting narrative; with a
Advertisements.
5
"What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed? and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?
Masterly done.
Shakspeare.
Sculpture Illustrations. With Thirty-
seven Embellishments, both ancient and modern,
and a "Dissertation on Sculpture," by R. W.
Sievier, Esq., F.R.S. demy quarto. 12s.
"In exterior adornment, it successfully rivals the handsomest
of the self-styled Beauty Books of the season; whilst by the
legitimate, lofty, and complete intention and execution of its
contents-the elegance and profusion of its embellishments; the
easy and graceful style in which their accompanying letter-press
descriptions are written; the perfectness of the printing and the
paper,-it thoroughly cripples, and well nigh annihilates, nine
tenths of those ephemeral and gaudy receptacles of petty pretti-
ness."-British Friend of India Magazine.
"This is one of the most beautifully-illustrated books hitherto
introduced to the public; and, to add to its value, the letter-press
descriptions given are written by masterly hands, and convey a
large amount of important information. The work contains
nearly fifty illustrations, comprising the finest subjects in the art
of sculpture, both antique and modern; and the engravings,
which are executed in outline, have a light and graceful appear-
ance. To the young student this work will prove of great ad-
vantage; its engravings, and its sound practical instruction,
presenting to him materials for thought and action which few
other works on this divine art could offer. The book is printed
in strict keeping with the illustrations-neat, chaste, and
elegant."-London Mercury.
TRAVELLERS
Will find at J. LIMBIRD'S 143, Strand, close to the
Electric Clock, an extensive assortment of Tourist's
Companions, Travelling writing Desks, and Dressing
Cases, Work boxes, Wellington and Soufflet Cases,
Patent Safety Ink-cases for travelling; and every
article in Stationery of the best quality and lowest
prices. Every article marked with plain figures,
Recollect! J. LIMBIRD's, betweer. Somerset House
and Waterloo Bridge.
UNITED KINGDOM ARTESIAN
WATER COMPANY.
Capital, 500,000l., in 50,000 shares of 10
each: Deposits, 7s. 6d. per share.
Provisionally registered, pursuant to 7th and 8th Vic-
toria, chap. 110; and Notices and specifications, &c.,
for an Act of incorporation served on the Woods and
Forests, and Land Revenues, pursuant to 9 and 10
Vic. c. 106.
PATRONS.
The Most Noble the Marquis of Northampton, Belgrave
Square.
The Right Hon. Lord Ashley, Upper Brook-street,
Grosvenor-square.
TRUSTEES.
Lord Charles Beauclerk, Lowndes-street, Lowndes-
square.
Wm. Alexander M'Kinnon, Esq., M. P. Hyde Park
place.
Benjamin Bond Cabbell, Esq., M. P. Portland-place.
Luke James Hansard, Esq., Southampton-street,
Bloomsbury-square.
MANAGING DIRECTORS.
John Bond, Esq., M.D.,M.R.C.S. L. and E., George-
street, Portman-square.
Edward Smith, Esq., R.N., John-street, Adelphi.
Gerard Barry, Esq., M.D., M.R.C.S., L., Charles-street,
St. James's-square.
Joshua Stopford, Esq., East India Chambers, City.
Charles Blunt, Esq., Montagu-place, Russell-square.
W. H. Mayne, Esq., M.D., M.R.C.S., L., Howland
street, Fitzroy-square.
Ellice Price Sutton, Esq., Great Ormond-street.
(With power to add to their number.)
BANKERS.
London Joint Stock Bank, Princes-street, Bank
Commercial Bank, Lothbury.
SECRETARY.-Joshua Stopford.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY.-Richard St. George Graham,
21, East India Chambers, Leadenhall-street.
S
SIAN
7
Advertisements.
i.
s of
d 8th
ations,
Woods
9 and
1, Belgr
ook-stree
Lownde
7de Pr
-place.
Con-street
Georg
es-stree
City.
uare.
owland
ank
Graham
PROSPECTUS.
When we look to the vast population, and consider the
eminence, the trade, the enterprise, the great manufac-
turing and commercial interests of this metropolis, it be-
comes a matter of no little surprise that the most active
means have not, long since, been taken to obtain a better
supply of water, and to get rid of the mud-and-water mo-
nopoly which has so grievously existed for many years
past.
The subject is one upon which so much has been said,
and such universal complaints made, that it is altogether
unnecessary to dilate upon the crying evil, or to offer a
single remark beyond that which is rendered so self-
evident to every disinterested and dispassionate mind.
Of the eight companies supplying London with water,
the New River is the most extensive. It was constructed
by Sir Hugh Myddelton, at an expense of about 150,
oool. When, in 1834, the public were much excited in
consequence of the bad water supplied, a parliamentary
inquiry on the subject took place, and commissioners
were appointed. From the evidence then given it ap-
peared that the capital invested by the New River Com-
pany was 1,116,9647.; by the other companies, 2,127,
5951.; making a total of 3,224,5591. Although the New
River Company paid an enormous bonus (three hundred
per cent. on the paid-up capital) yearly to the share-
holders, there was a balance of 157,2061. 10s. 6d. re-
maining, which is more than the original cost of con-
struction. The average number of houses supplied in
1834, according to the minutes of evidence, was 196,
492, at the annual value of 276,2001., about 17. 10s.
yearly per house. Pure water can be supplied for one
third that sum, and leave a profit to the capitalists who
invest in this speculation more enormous than that of
the New River Company.
Hence the opportunity has presented itself for the for-
mation of a Company for the supply of pure water at an
inconsiderable outlay, and upon those sure and unerring
principles of Artesian Springs which have been so gene-
rally adopted on the Continent--unfailing and success-
8
Advertisements.
fully established to the satisfaction of the most sceptical
individuals.
With reference to supplying London with pure spring
water, let it be understood that the surface of chalk on
which London is built receives and retains rain on an
average of twenty-one inches
per annum.
This chalk
bed or basin has an extent of 12,000 square miles. Each
square mile contains, allowing one-third for evaporation,
no less than 3,208,228 hogsheads of water per annum,
or, on a hundred square miles, one-twelfth of the sur-
face, 320,822,800 hogsheads. The supply of water
last year by the different companies was 314,553,012
hogsheads. Thus the London bed is capable of supply-
ing more than twelve times the quantity needed, suffi-
cient for all the towns in Great Britain and Ireland.
So certain and conclusive have been the experiments
tried, that the most successful result has attended every
instance in procuring water upon the principle stated.
The metal pipes, as now used by the London Water
Companies, will not be adopted by the United Kingdom
Artesian Water Company. Glass, and other such tubes
as cannot be corroded, will only be in use; the recent
repeal of the duty on glass and porcelain make such
pipes cheaper than metal.
Shareholders shall be protected from all responsibility
beyond the actual amount of shares taken.
All applications for Shares must be addresssed to the
Secretary of the United Kingdom Artesian Water Com-
pany, at the Offices, East India Chambers, Leadenhall
street, City, London.
FORM OF APPLICATION FOR SHARES
SIR-I hereby request you to allot me- -Shares, of
101. each, in the United Kingdom Artesian Water Com-
pany; and I guarantee to pay, when called on, a deposit
of 7s. 6d. per Share for such--Shares, or any lesser
number that you may allot to me, and to sign the deed
of Partnership when necessary.
Name
Residence
Profession or Business
Names of two References
tical
ring
on
an
m,
ur-
ter
12
V-
fi-
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​+

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