"When Page's coach arrived at this dangerous spot, on the day in question, a lad with two horses happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Instead of retreating into one of the recesses made for the purpose, while the coach passed, the lad persisted in going on, and drove his horses between the vehicle and the cliff, one of the horses backing across the road in front of the coach, the horses in which took fright and fell, hanging over the precipice. With great presence of mind, the coachman cut the harness, and the horses, thus freed, fell through the brushwood down to the bottom of the precipice of which we have spoken.
"Fortunately for the occupants of the coach—Messrs. Wikborg and Rattray, who were on their way to George's Bay—the wheels caught in a log laid on the outside edge of the road, otherwise nothing could have prevented the coach and passengers from following the horses in their headlong fall, with what would almost certainly have been a fatal result. The horses, strange to say, were found almost uninjured, and an attempt was made to get them up the cliff again, but when one of the animals had succeeded in climbing about fifty feet from the valley, he slipped and fell to the bottom. Subsequently a track was cut by some of the natives of the district, and both horses were got out safe and sound."
CHAPTER X.
COACHING ACQUAINTANCES—STAGE-COACHMEN OF BYGONE AND MODERN DAYS—AMATEUR DRIVERS—REQUISITES FOR DRIVING—CRACK DRIVERS—A POPULAR DRAGSMAN—HIS PRIVILEGES—HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
CHAPTER X.
I once heard a man say that some of his pleasantest acquaintances were people he had picked up on stage-coaches; but I cannot say "ditto" to that. He must either have been singularly fortunate in his companions, or singularly unfortunate in his general acquaintances. A coaching acquaintance seldom—I should imagine—never ripened into intimacy; seldom, indeed, survived the occurrence that produced it. Had the above authority included stage-coachmen, to a certain degree I would have indorsed his opinion; for, in bygone days, I have sat beside many agreeable dragsmen; and, from the time that the heavy coach gave way to the fast one, there has been a wonderful improvement in the coachmen. The driver was formerly a man of enormous bulk, with a rubicund face, greatly addicted to strong ale, often indulging in language the reverse of parliamentary.