Off we started, the rays of the lantern on the front of the _diligence_ above us streaming ahead on a team of eight white horses, and into the darkness beyond. There were two coachmen sitting on a bench immediately in front of us, considerably blocking up the small windows. These two individuals cracked their whips in a wonderful manner, until they almost played tunes therewith, giving tongue at the same time to a long duet of curious howls. Having thus relieved their feelings, they again cracked their long whips over their heads, making the eight white horses dash away amidst a peal of the little bells which were suspended all round them. On we rushed at a furious pace through the darkness, and through thick clouds of dust, rolling whitely upwards through the glare of the lamp. We passed a straggling collection of weird old trees, which nodded like passing ghosts, and disappeared in the gloom. With the earliest streaks of dawn, wild-looking mountains, dark and distant, arose in all directions, and great rocks, dilapidated villages, and mournful plains, dotted here and there by a solitary figure in uncouth garb, came in turn into the focus of the lamp. Now we swept round a sharp corner, and saw the eight white horses curving round after each other, apparently far off in the misty light, and the two coachmen, muffled up in their great shaggy coats, sitting side by side like a couple of brown bears erect on their hind quarters. We rattled and jumbled with a noise like that of near artillery over a gaunt wooden bridge, piled all over with stark black scaffolding, while the light of the lamp streamed in blood-red streaks on the dark flowing waters beneath. A group of unearthly-looking buildings on the opposite shore then came into view, hazy, indistinct, and undefined; and after passing under a high stone arch, we found ourselves in a long dark street. On each side were windows with black blinds, and the ghostly walls, reared high above us, seemed as if about to fall in ruins, and bury us in a mass of stones and rubbish. As we rattled on with a deafening noise, we turned the angle of a large edifice which looked like a mouldy fortress of other days. From the number of houses around us we must have been passing through some town or city; but no sign of life, human or animal, save ourselves, intruded upon the solitude; and night and loneliness reigned heavily over all. We at length passed with a succession of violent jerks over a crazy, neglected-looking drawbridge, and through some huge ramparts, and left the city behind us, with its deep black river flowing on in the silence. We hastened at a lively pace over brown open plains, encircled by jagged iron-like mountains, which, at first looming in the distant dawn, soon received us into their bosom. In a short space of time the jangle of bells diminished, while the whips exploded into a farewell fantasia. The drivers or coachmen climbed down from their perch, and