terror, and
kept viciously reasoning in a circle. What a show of faces at all the
windows then! A shriek still accompanied us as we clattered, and
thundered, and lightened along; and, unless our ears lied, there were
occasional fits of stifled laughter, and once or twice a guffaw; for
there was now a ringing of lost stirrups--and much holding of the
mane. One complete round was executed by us, first on the shoulder
beyond the pommel; secondly, on the neck; thirdly, between the ears;
fourthly, between the forelegs, in a place called the counter, with
our arms round the jugular veins of the flying phenomenon, and our
toes in the air. That was, indeed, the crisis of our fever, but we
made a wonderful recovery back into the saddle--righting like a boat
capsized in a sudden squall at sea--and once more, with accelerated
speed, away past the pillared front of St. George's church!

The castle and all its rocks, in peristrephic panorama, then floated
cloud-like by--and we saw the whole mile-length of Prince's-street
stretched before us, studded with innumerable coaches, chaises,
chariots, carts, wagons, drays, gigs, shandrydans, and wheel-barrows,
through among which we dashed, as if they had been as much
gingerbread--while men on horseback were seen flinging themselves off,
and drivers dismounting in all directions, making their escape up
flights of steps and common stairs--mothers or nurses with broods of
young children flying hither and thither in distraction, or standing
on the very crown of the causeway, wringing their hands in despair.
The wheel-barrows were easily disposed of--nor was there much greater
difficulty with the gigs and shandrydans. But the hackney-coaches
stood confoundedly in the way--and a wagon, drawn by four horses, and
heaped up to the very sky with beer-barrels, like the Tower of Babel
or Babylon, did indeed give us pause--but ere we had leisure to
ruminate on the shortness of human life, we broke through between the
leaders and the wheels with a crash of leathern breeching, dismounted
collars, riven harness, and tumbling of enormous horses that was
perilous to hear; when, as Sin and Satan would have it--would you
believe it?--there, twenty kilts deep at the least, was the same
accursed Highland regiment, the forty-second, with fixed bayonets, and
all its pipers in the van, the pibroch yelling, squeaking, squealing,
grunting, growling, roaring, as if it had only that very instant
broken out--so, sudde