On other occasions, when he rode horseback, his diary is rich with picturesque incident. He finds the waters out on the road between Ware and Cheshunt, and waits until he and a party of other horsemen can be guided across by a safe way, and so avoid the pitiful fate of a poor higgler, who blundered into the raging torrent where the road should have been, and was swept away and drowned. He loses his way frequently on the high-road; shudders with apprehension when crossing Witham Common, near Stamford, “the place where Sir Ralph Wharton slew the highwayman”; and, with a companion, has a terrible fright at an inn at Topcliffe, where they miss their pistols for a while and suspect the innkeeper of sinister designs against them. Hence, at the safe conclusion of every journey, with humble and heartfelt thanks he inscribes: “God be thanked for his mercies to me and my poor family!” In 1715, when John Gay wrote his entertaining poem, _A Journey to Exeter_, describing the adventures of a party of horsemen who rode down from London, things were, we may suppose, much better, for the travellers found amusement as well as toil on their way. They took five days to ride to Exeter. The first night they slept at Hartley Row, 36 miles. The second day they left the modern route of the Exeter Road at Basingstoke, and, like some of the coaches about that time, struck out along the Winchester road as far as Popham Lane, where they branched off across the downs to Sutton and Stockbridge, at which town they halted the night, after a day’s journey of 30 miles. The third morning saw them making for Salisbury. Midway between Stockbridge and that city their road falls into the main road to Exeter. That night they were at Blandford. The fourth day took them to Axminster, and the fifth to Exeter:--