g above for parcels of every kind and size: a comfortable place,
less exposed to jolts than the _coupe_ even, and much to be desired, if
you could but make sure of a back-corner and an accommodating companion
opposite to you. Last of all was the _Rotonde_, with its entrance from
the rear, its seats length-wise, room for six, and compensating in part
for its comparative inferiority in other respects by leaving you free
to get in and out as you chose, without consulting the conductor. This,
however, was but the first story, or the rooms of state of this castle
on wheels. On a covered dicky, directly above the _coupe_, and thus on
the very top of the whole machine, was another row of passengers, with
the conductor in front, looking down through the dust upon the world
beneath them, not very comfortable when the sun was hot, still less
comfortable of a rainy day, but just in the place which of all others
a real traveller would wish to be in at morning or evening or of a
moonlight night. The remainder of the top was reserved for the baggage,
carefully packed and covered up securely from dust and rain.

I had taken the precaution to engage a seat in the _coupe_ the day
before I set out. Of my companions, I am sorry to say, I have not the
slightest recollection. But the road was good,--bordered, as so many
French roads are, with trees, and filled with a thousand objects full of
interest to a young traveller. There was the _roulage_: an immense cart
filled with goods of all descriptions, and drawn by four or five horses,
ranged one before another, each decked with a merry string of bells, and
generally rising in graduated proportions from the full-sized leader
to the enormous thill horse, who bore the heat and burden of the day.
Sometimes half a dozen of them would pass in a row, the drivers walking
together and whiling away the time with stories and songs. Now and then
a post-chaise would whirl by with a clattering of wheels and cracking of
whip that were generally redoubled as it came nearer to the _diligence_,
and sank again, when it was passed, into comparative moderation both of
noise and speed. There were foot travellers, too, in abundance; and as
I saw them walking along under the shade of the long line of trees
that bordered the road, I could not help thinking that this thoughtful
provision for the protection of the traveller was the most pleasing
indication I had yet seen of a country long settled.

While I was thus lo