The most trying time for the coachmen and guards were the two first hours on the road. After that, few vehicles were moving about, but up to that time a large number of all sorts, many of which were without lights, were in motion, and not only was a very careful look-out by the former necessary, but the latter had often, especially on thick nights, to make a free use of his horn to avoid collisions. The roads for the first ten miles out of town, as far as Barnet to the north and Hounslow to the west, might, when the days were not at their longest, be said to be a blaze of light. Between the down mails leaving London and the day coaches arriving, none with less than three lamps, and many with five, and some even with six, it was a bad look-out for travellers who drove horses that were frightened at lights. Indeed, I have known some persons very nervous on this subject. They seemed to think that because the strong light dazzled them, it must have the same effect upon the coachman's eyes; and, when I have been driving a coach very strongly lighted, I have known men to leave the road and drive into a field to get out of my way. The presence of a number of coaches carrying powerful lights, and going both ways, probably does have the tendency of throwing small carriages without lamps into the shade, and so making it more difficult to see them. An aspiring costermonger, trying to thread his way with his donkey and cart among the numerous other vehicles, might be overlooked without much difficulty among such a brilliant company. CHAPTER III. ACCIDENTS. I have sometimes been asked, when I was driving coaches, whether I had ever had an accident, to which I was able to reply for a good many years, that, though I had been very near several, I had been fortunate enough to steer clear of them. I had experienced different things which might easily have ended in an accident, such as a leader's rein breaking, the bit falling out of a wheel horse's mouth, a fore wheel coming off, and similar things, but had always managed to pull up without coming to grief. The case of the wheel might have been attended with very serious consequences if we had been going fast at the time, but fortunately it occurred just when I had pulled up to go slowly round a corner.