revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny
candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. The main cargo
consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing--besides my travelling
wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer--some books,
and my railway-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a
double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by
cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I
carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by
good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of
carriage than from any thought that I should want it on my journey. For
more immediate needs I took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais,
an empty bottle to carry milk, an egg-beater, and a considerable quantity
of black bread and white, like Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only
in my scheme of things the destinations were reversed.

Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had agreed in
threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death
in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal
practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. Yet
in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was left out. Like
Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by the way. Before telling my
own mishaps, let me in two words relate the lesson of my experience. If
the pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full length--not
doubled, for your life--across the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe.
The saddle will certainly not fit, such is the imperfection of our
transitory life; it will assuredly topple and tend to overset; but there
are stones on every roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting
any tendency to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone.

On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; by six, we began