We were obliged to be guided out of London with torches

We were obliged to be guided out of London with torches

We were obliged to be guided out of London with torches

Before concluding, I will relate some of the difficulties we had to encounter in foggy weather. We were obliged to be guided out of London with torches, seven or eight Mails following one after the other, the guard of the foremost Mail lighting the one following, and so on till the last. We travelled at a slow pace, like a funeral procession. Many times I have been three hours going from London to Hounslow. I remember one very foggy night, instead of my arriving at Bagshot (a distance of thirty miles from London, and my destination) at eleven o’clock, I did not get there till one in the morning. I had to leave again at four the same morning. On my way back to town, when the fog was very bad, I was coming over Hounslow Heath when I reached the spot where the old powder-mills used to stand. I saw several lights in the road, and heard voices, which induced me to stop. The old Exeter Mail, which left Bagshot thirty minutes before I did, had met with a singular accident; it was driven by a man named Gambier; his leaders had come in contact with a hay-cart on its way to London, which caused them to turn suddenly round, break the pole, and blunder down a steep embankment, at the bottom of which was a narrow deep ditch filled with water and mud. The Mail Coach pitched on to the stump of a willow tree that over-hung the ditch; the coachman and outside passengers were thrown over into the meadow beyond, and the horses went into the ditch; the unfortunate wheelers were drowned or smothered in the mud. There were two inside passengers, who were extricated with some difficulty; but fortunately no one was injured. I managed to take the passengers, with the guard and mail-bags, on to London, leaving the coachman to wait for daylight before he could make an attempt to get the Mail up the embankment. They endeavoured to accomplish this, with cart-horses and chains. They had nearly reached the top of the bank when something gave way, and the poor old Mail went back into the ditch again. I shall never forget the scene; there were about a dozen men from the powder-mills trying to render assistance, and, with their black faces, each bearing a torch in his hand, they presented a curious spectacle. This happened about thirty years ago. Posts and rails were erected at the spot after the accident. I passed the place last summer; they are still there, as well as the old pollard willow stump.