the rain happens to be coming down in torrents, to get this covering
unshipped, and travel without it. When used, it painfully curtails the
little freedom of movement that you enjoy, and when you are shot upwards
by some obstruction on the road it is apt to arrest your ascent by
giving you a violent blow on the top of the head.

It is to be hoped that you are in no hurry to start, otherwise your
patience may be sorely tried. The horses, when at last produced, may
seem to you the most miserable screws that it was ever your misfortune
to behold; but you had better refrain from expressing your feelings, for
if you use violent, uncomplimentary language, it may turn out that you
have been guilty of gross calumny. I have seen many a team composed of
animals which a third-class London costermonger would have spurned, and
in which it was barely possible to recognise the equine form, do their
duty in highly creditable style, and go along at the rate of ten or
twelve miles an hour, under no stronger incentive then the voice of the
yamstchik. Indeed, the capabilities of these lean, slouching, ungainly
quadrupeds are often astounding when they are under the guidance of a
man who knows how to drive them. Though such a man commonly carries a
little harmless whip, he rarely uses it except by waving it horizontally
in the air. His incitements are all oral. He talks to his cattle as he
would to animals of his own species--now encouraging them by tender,
caressing epithets, and now launching at them expressions of indignant
scorn. At one moment they are his "little doves," and at the next they
have been transformed into "cursed hounds." How far they understand and
appreciate this curious mixture of endearing cajolery and contemptuous
abuse it is difficult to say, but there is no doubt that it somehow has
upon them a strange and powerful influence.

Any one who undertakes a journey of this kind should possess a