How vividly do these words recall the many wet and snowy journeys which I have experienced, both as coachman and passenger, in years gone by, and, strange as it may appear to most people now-a-days, with no unpleasurable associations, though no doubt it was rather trying at the time. Snowstorms, in particular, were very detrimental to coachmen's eyes, particularly when accompanied with high winds. A good look out forward could on no account be relaxed, and that placed the eyes in such a position as was most favourable for the large flakes to fall into them. One coachman on the Holyhead mail, I forget his name, lost his sight from the effects of a snowstorm in the pass of Nant Francon, but probably his eyes had already been weakened by previous experiences of the same nature. I don't think my own have even quite recovered the effects of three winters over the base of Cader Idris. But, notwithstanding all the bad weather I have been exposed to, I cannot call to mind having ever been wet through outside a coach; but then I always took care to be well protected by coats, and all other contrivances for withstanding it. I have, however, seen a fellow-passenger, when he dismounted from a coach at the end of an eighty miles' journey, performed in soaking rain, whose boots were as full of water from the rain having run down him, as if he had just walked through a brook. I never had the misfortune of being regularly snowed up, though I have had some experience of snowdrifts. One of the winters that I drove the "Harkaway" was accompanied by a good deal of snow, and the road for part of the journey, which ran over high and exposed ground, became drifted up, preventing the coach running for two days. On the third, however, as a slight thaw had set in, it was determined to try and force a way through, especially as the road surveyor had sent some men to clear away the snow. As far as the coach road was concerned, however, these men might nearly as well have stayed at home, as they had confined their attention to letting off the water where it had melted, and when the coach arrived at the spot the drifts remained very much as they had been. Under these circumstances, instead of the proverbial three courses there were only two offered to us--namely, to "go at it or go home." I chose the former alternative, and, catching the horses fast by the head, sent them at the first drift with such a will, that, between the force of the pace and a struggle or two besides, the coach was landed about half way through, when it stuck fast. The workmen now came to our assistance, and dug us out, and I had then only to do the same at the other two drifts, and we managed to catch a train at Machynlleth, though not the right one, as it had taken us two hours to cover a distance of one mile and a half.