One after another
the tapers were extinguished. The kneeling figures rose; and shadowily
we flitted forth, as from some gorgeous cave of grammarye.
Saturday, June 25. Lyons to Geneve. As this was our first experience
in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every peculiarity. A
diligence is a large, heavy, strongly-built, well-hung stage,
consisting of five distinct departments, - coupe, berline, omnibus,
banquette, and baggage top.
[Illustration: _of a diligence coach drawn by four horses._]
After setting up housekeeping in our berline, and putting all "to
rights," the whips cracked, bells jingled, and away we thundered by
the arrowy Rhone. I had had the idea that a diligence was a rickety,
slow-moulded antediluvian nondescript, toiling patiently along over
impassable roads at a snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at
finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway
momentum and imperturbable equipoise of mind.
Down the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace; up the
hills we trotted with six horses, three abreast; madly through the
little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled
streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well
considered the fact that we were out of Lyons, we stopped to change
horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump,
whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another change,
and another.
