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coachmen. To our fancy, the old oval-shaped mail was more stylish and sightly than the washing-tub shaped thing they latterly adopted, though certainly the tub was more comfortable to travel in. The glories of the General Post-office, the Peacock at Islington, Hatchett's, the Elephant and Castle, the Bricklayer's Arms, &c., are now shorn-bus, bus, bus, is all, or nearly all, that is seen. Again, with reference to olden times, how lively the streets sounded! what a foxhunting feeling it called up, as the guards hurried through in the mail carts to join their respective coaches, each blow, blow, blowing his horn like a huntsman getting away with his fox! There is something sweet in the sound of the old straight horn.

Whatever the mail-coachmen may say, however, about the influence of railways, we don't think the mail-guards have much to complain of in the way of change. Instead of being cut off from the world, as it were, and stuck in a little nest of a seat behind the coach, with no companionship but his horn, they have now fine, large sitting-rooms of caravans, in which they may sit and sort their bags, smoke, read, or sleep full length if they like. There is nothing to prevent a guard editing a newspaper or periodical (if he can), so easy and tranquil is his berth.

But to return to our traveller. His luggage being at length dived into the bottom of the front boot, or placed for the foundation of a pile on the roof, and the horse-keepers having got the horses put to, the elbow-squaring coachman, enveloped in orthodox neck-cloths, great coats, and so on, with a Mackintosh folded over his arm, enters the yard, whip in hand, and casting an eye over the " tackle," as they called the harness, at length accepts the unbuckled, proffered reins, as the pointers of the yard-clock point to a minute or two within his time. The yet-unsatisfied vultures of the inn-yard hover more pertinaciously round the coach, persecuting the departing travellers. “ Boots ! porter, porter ! boots, boots! porter ! Forgot the chambermaid, sir! please remember the chambermaid!" The coachman at length stops the palaver by touching his horses as the last stroke of the clock salutes his ear, and, requesting his outside passengers to "duck" under the gateway, and so avoid having their heads in their hands, turns into the busy thoroughfare of London.

The term of imprisonment is then commenced, and, however long the sentence was, we must candidly admit that the gaolers were latterly very punctual in their delivery; indeed, we think the accuracy of time-keeping was one of the remarkable features in coach travelling. Still, what could reconcile one to four inside, and "straw in the bottom?"

What could equal the torture of a journey from Edinburgh to London twenty years ago? Cooped up in a thing little bigger than a bucket for three weary days and a night, with one restless half-night passed at Newcastle, amid the blowing of horns, the knockings of boots, the mistakes of chambermaids, and the agony of inquietude; we glide as readily into improvement, and are so much handier at finding fault than commending, that, recent as is the introduction of railroad travelling, we find many people happier, as we said before, in picking holes, than thankful for the deliverance they are just approaching.

Coach travelling-at least, coach travelling for long distances-will soon be mere matter of history. Indeed, we think omnibuses will supersede them even for short distances. Notwithstanding the trouble gentlemen used to take to persuade themselves or friends that they preferred the outside of a coach to the in, now that omnibuses about equalize the fares, we do not find so many candidates for the exterior as there used to be. We have had many thousand miles both ways, but, on the "tottle of the whole," as Joe Hume would say, we cannot say that we think there was any very great economy in outside travelling. To say nothing of the damage it did one's clothes, the body corporate was very apt to suffer. Fancy getting drenched at the outset of a journey of three hundred miles, with never the chance of changing till you got to the far-end; and then, perhaps, you find your luggage soaked from want of a tarporling on the roof. The boxseat used to be the coveted berth, but, barring the pleasure of being the coachman's cad and holding the reins-ribbons they used to call them, though they were as thick as traces-when he got down to have his "hot stopping," we used to think it the worst on the coach. Were we to prick for a seat as a sailor does for the soft plank in a ship, we think we would prefer the centre of the roof, with a good pile of boxes at our back. Coachee and his cad would break the wind in front; and our neighbours, right and left, would perform that office at the sides, and also form supports. Fatness, which one would deprecate in an inside passenger, would be rather a recommendation to an outside one. The centre is rather objectionable if it should rain, and you happen to have no umbrella, for then you form a sort of waterbutt for the running of your companions' parapluies. But the box-seat is the place for catching that. How we have seen embryo-coachmen drenched by the roof-passengers, especially those real out-and-outers, whose sense of decorum was too great to allow of their hoisting an umbrella by the side of a coachman'

Tall people must have experienced inconceivable misery in coachtravelling. Four tall, or two tall and two fat, people inside a small coach, with those curses of coaching encroachments, two or three outside-passengers' hats, considerately stuck in the roof by the guard to be crushed, must have had a most unenviable time of it. Like the Siamese twins, they could not move without mutual consent. "Now, sir, if you'll have the kindness to let me put my legs under your seat!" or "Perhaps, madam, you'd be so obliging as cross your legs with mine?" We declare we did not recover an imprisonment of two days and a night in a coach under a week.

We do not think there is any great economy in night-travellingeconomy of time we mean. People say they gain a day, but we think they lose both a day and a night. It unfits a man for pleasure, and must unfit him doubly for business. One has a nasty, tired, headaching sort of feel all the day, even though one undergoes the seclusion of a few hours between the sheets. The ladies, who are great protectors of looks, and consequently understand the best means of promoting and preserving them, always talk of beautiful sleep as a thing had before twelve; and, without going that length, we think we may say that sleep at other than a man's usual time wont do him

much good. What one gets by going to bed in the morning is not sleep in fact; it is a sort of self-delusion-a sort of saying to one's self, "Now I will go to sleep," just as nurses whip children and bid them go to sleep. It is a nervous, anxious, watching, snatching sort of sleep; one starts at every sound, are continually on the fret lest one sleeps the clock round, and so lose the day we have travelled all night to gain.

But we are jumping to our journey's end rather too fast. We have the pleasures of the road, coach breakfasts, coach dinners, coach teas, coachmen and guards, country inns, and we don't know how many other pleasures to discuss; but, as our paper is used up, and our pen jibbling, we will just keep our victim in the coach till next month, after which, we will be bound to say, he will never have the impudence to rail at railways any more.

Yours and his till then,

W.

HOURS IN THE HIMALAYAS.

BY TOHO.

What have I been doing worth recording since I last addressed you? Not much. Had a little row, and been obliged to take a fort near here, called Khytul, which affair your papers call a rather serious engagement. Uncommonly! Its most serious feature consists of some 200 Seikhs taking enough opium, to establish a proper fund of Dutch courage, then coming to attack our camp; but, unfortunately, either the night was too cold, or the distance too far, or the dose not strong enough, for they bolted when about six miles from us. How very amusing all the discussions at home are about the Somnath gates. I managed to poke a bit of them off with my sword, at immense risks, the aforesaid pieces of antiquity being guarded by some dozen sentries on purpose to prevent filching. This I sent home-and any one may gratify his curiosity by going to my governor's residence, in Northamptonshire. My opinion is, that half the natives out here were in blessed ignorance even of the existence of such a place as Somnath, far less knew or cared aught about its gates; I am sure the other half would as soon see them burnt as any thing else. Believe me your niggers have not such fine religious scruples, and as to their regarding them as trophies-Walker!

That place Khytul abounds with game; among which I may mention the Neel Gye, or blue cow. The bulls are splendid fellows -very like our short-horns at home, but of a slate colour. They are not difficult to get near, but, if only wounded, show splendid fight. But, ah! the shooting is bison. I need scarce describe them,

as most of my readers possess Buffon, probably; however, they are of a very dark colour, white legs, and the bulls sometimes stand twenty-one hands; they have long horns. Their haunts are among broken ravines, where a very long grass grows. Having secured some native who knows their locality, and who will also serve as a guide (for without one your chance of ever finding your way out, when once well among these jungles, would be but slender), and put on a dress as near the colour of the grass as possible, you proceed. A low bellow or a fierce snort warns you that the herd is near and now for nerve. Once let that old bull, who looms in sight like a 74, catch a glimpse of you, and its all U. P. Scarce draw breath, and trust to the colour of your dress. The herd again lower their heads, and pick the scanty food the jungle affords. You creep on, stopping at every symptom, however slight of alarm, till within about thirty yards. Now he's in a splendid position! Slowly the heavy double rifle comes up. A sharp report follows: the immense brute bounds madly up, and falls with a crash, beneath which the ground almost seems to tremble-a purple stream from his forehead showing the nicety of your aim. But, look! the affrighted herd come rushing wildly towards you. Should there be a stump of a tree near, drop behind it if not, down on your face, and trust to chance. One rush, and swift as the sirocco, they are over you, bounding onward to some remoter track of this boundless waste, where no intruder can "molest their ancient reign." Oh, Indian sporting is superb! Much as game has been thinned, still there are parts where white man's foot has never trod. Go there, and commune with nature. The change from a dull cantonment to the unlimited expanse of wild jungle, is in my opinion perfection of human bliss. Scarce a step but some new denizen shows itself; scarce a tangled brake but some venomous reptile lurks-from the mighty boa down to the venomous whip snake. You see one of your natives suddenly start aside with a shriek, and at a glance the black wrinkled head and broad hood of the deadly cobra, his eyes literally darting fire as he moves his repulsive neck backwards and forwards, is discerned. Then the fishing! To get this, visit the Dhoon-a large plain under the Himalayas. It is about two thousand feet higher than the plains-one wild jungle, teeming with game; but I must again fancy myself standing on the peak of one of my lofty favourites at Lundour to paint the Dhoon to advantage. The evening is in May, when the atmosphere has been clarified by a heavy fall of rain. The Dhoon, stretching below far as the eye can reach, looks like one beautifully-executed map-one mighty level, chequered with black patches of jungle. The two sister streams-the Jumna and Ganges-whose sources are in these mountains, can be traced curling their tortuous way in an almost parallel line; their immense size mellowed by distance into the dimensions of two purling rivulets. The range of hills, which run parallel with the Himalayas, and divide the Dhoon from its sister plains, looks one gilded mass of radiance-catching the rays of the sun as it slowly sinks beneath the distant horizon. The clear sky, dappled by masses of pale fleecy clouds, floating many hundred feet below you, shows as a blue

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curtain, forming a back ground to the lovely landscape. As regards fishing, the principal object of sport is the Marseer. should like to know the largest size they have ever been taken; an old fisherman told me he once hooked one, which broke away after having plagued him upwards of two hours, and which he was sure did not weigh an ounce under 80lbs. Our crack Dhoon fishermen kill most with a huge yellow fly, more like a bunch of yellow feathers; or an imitation of a large grasshopper, which is a splendid fellow. The deception is very complete as it tops the ripples of the waves: but green, indeed, must be the fish who sees any resemblance to any specimen of entomology in the former. Nothing under 150 yards of strong line will stand a chance with these monsters. This time of the year is very slack as regards sporting, rain quail being the only game procurable, and (blush for me, reader) here an awful bit of poaching is committed. They come in to breed, but whence no one knows, principally arriving on moonlight nights, and are often shot in the act of depositing their eggs. The number that may be shot of them is incredible e; their resort is the long grass, and I have frequently known sixty brace killed in a morning in a piece of grass not twenty acres; indeed, you have only to load and fire as fast as you can. They are very similar to the common quail, and, in my opinion, scarce worth eating; indeed, the only way to make them palatable is to boil them; then use melted butter and hot chilis ad libitum. Black and grey partridges might be got now, as I have seen some coveys very strong; but although out here we are not tied down by the gamelaws, still no sportsman would shoot them till October. Oh, would they but finish that aerial monster, and just pick me up here and drop me for Sept. 1, in old Northamptonshire! for noble as our sport out here undoubtedly is, still I would prefer a quiet stroll through our green turnip-fields and mellow-looking stubbles, to all the fierce excitement of tracking the tiger to his almost impervious retreat, where every step may plunge you into some lurking monster's grasp, or bring a quieter, though no less deadly fate, by the slimy coil of the rattlesnake, or the venomous bite of the loathsome cobra.

Though as yet far from "the sere and yellow leaf," I have tried most sports in my native land. I have fished on the treacherous banks of Newfoundland, and have assisted in landing the ravenous tyrant of the deep in the mighty bay of Bengal: the backwoods of North America-her stalwart sons, wielding their ponderous rifles, are familiar to me; as are the almost trackless and slippery paths of the mighty Himalayas, or the jungles in parts of British India, whose very charm consists in their death-dealing vapours, deterring all but ardent sportsmen from visiting them. Still, had I my choice, I would pursue the life I so love in my native land; and bygone sports in a foreign clime-noble as they are-and the memory of auld lang syne, should serve but to raise in my breast a thrill of joy for triumphs achieved, or of dread and gratitude for dangers escaped in lands far, far away!

Kurnaul, Aug. 7, 1843.

T.

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