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He might be seen any day after school standing in the field beside the station, waiting for them to pass; mecanicien and conducteur were the commonest words in his whole vocabulary. When possible he passed the time of day with both of these important personages, or from the field he waved his hand and took his cap off.
I took my friend Zaleâ to the Rais, who is a native of Seenawan, and much respected by all. The camels of the giant left to-day for Ghat, his giantship himself waits to be conducteur of our caravan.
In accordance with this custom, our conducteur entered the shed-like building I have mentioned, to lay his way-bill and his passports before the officials within. In the interim, we took our places in the vehicle. The conducteur was in no hurry to return, but I dreaded no evil.
My bed-fellow the Italian took up a position for the night by throwing himself, as he was, on the top of the bed-clothes. Not approving of either mode, I slipped off both greatcoat and coat, and, covering myself with the blankets, soon forgot in sleep all the mishaps of the day. The voice of the conducteur shouting at the door of our apartment awakened us before day-break.
The road is very neat and agreeable: the Forest of Soignies here and there interposes pleasantly, to give your vehicle a shade; the country, as usual, is vastly fertile and well cultivated. A farmer and the conducteur were my companions in the imperial, and could I have understood their conversation, my dear, you should have had certainly a report of it.
The appearance of that which I saw at Calais was much against it; the one I met with here proved a very tedious conveyance, not going in general above three or four English miles an hour; which, however is as much as could be expected from a carriage which is scarcely less laden than many of our waggons. It was drawn by five horses, all managed by one postilion, mounted on one of the wheel horses, and furnished with a vast and unwieldy pair of boots, cased with iron, and a long whip, which he is perpetually employed in cracking. Another important personage is Monsieur le Conducteur, who has the care of the luggage, &c. The French in general adhere to old customs, as well as the postilions to their antiquated boots; their hour of dinner in general being from eleven to twelve o'clock, and seldom so late as one. This in England would be considered only as a Déjeûner
Muttering a heavy curse upon the weather, he thrust them in upon us en masse, and, banging the door to, called out to the conducteur, "en route." Again we rumbled on, and, ere we cleared the last lamps of the town, the whole party were once more sunk in sleep, save myself.
The merchant set out arrived at the barrier of Paris; the diligence was stopped, and a gentleman whom he had never seen before, accosted him by name, and desired him to alight. The merchant was a good deal surprised at this; but you may judge of his alarm, when he heard an order given to the conducteur to unloose numbers one, two, three the trunks, in which was contained his whole fortune.
There sat next me in the banquette a young Savoyard, who travelled with us as far as Chamberry, in the heart of the Alps; and on the other side of the Savoyard sat the conducteur. This last was a Piedmontese, a young, clever, obliging fellow, with a voluble tongue, and a keen dark eye in his head.
When one gets his name inserted in an Italian way-bill, he delivers up his passport to the conducteur, who makes it his business to have it viséed at the several stations which are planted thick along all the Italian routes, the owner, of course, reckoning for the charges at the end of the journey.
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