"The mail coaches destined for the transport of letters are carriages with four inside and six outside places. Behind the coach the guard is seated, with a blunderbuss and a pair of pistols before him. These coaches travel at the rate of ten miles, or four leagues an hour; but their small size (for the English, in general tall and thick, appear to have little regard to their personal proportions in the size of their carriages), and the short time they stop to refresh, render them very unpleasant modes of conveyance. "Stage coaches are very elegant carriages, built to carry fifteen or eighteen travellers, and a considerable weight in packets, but on admirable roads. This is an indispensable condition. Without it, the height of the carriages, the arrangement of the whole of the luggage on the imperial, and the lightness of the body and the axletree, would give rise to frequent accidents. "The inside of the coach contains only four places. The seat of the coachman, and another seat placed immediately behind it, admit of six persons, and two seats facing each other, at the hind wheels, afford places for six or eight more. These seats are fixed over boots or boxes for stowing away the luggage. Such parcels as these cannot contain are placed on the imperial. "The desire to breathe the fresh air, rather than economical considerations, induce even the richest English to give a preference to outside places. They only go inside when compelled by bad weather. The place most in request--one knows not wherefore--is to the left of the coachman; it is considered as the place of honour, and is reserved for fashionables, and even for lords, who do not disdain to travel thus. The sole advantages, which such a station appeared to me to present, were the being placed near a well-dressed coachman, and the escaping the chance of travelling by the side of a butcher, a shoemaker, or some other individual of that class. Each time the coachman descends from his box, his neighbour has the advantage of being made the forced depositary of his reins and whip. These are placed in your hands, as they are taken out of them again, without the least ceremony.