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At Mud Springs, a village a few miles from Placerville, they met a large delegation of the citizens of Placerville, who had come out to meet the celebrated editor, and escort him into town. There was a military company, a brass band, and a six-horse wagon load of beautiful damsels in milk-white dresses representing all the States in the Union.
Carriers' men were harnessing the freshly groomed bays to the pole. The brass rings on the high collars of the stallions jingled loudly and merrily, and long whiplashes cracked over the four and six-horse teams which were beginning the day's journey along the highroad.
The riding-masters, the led horses, the equipages, the shabracks and caparisons, attracted every eye; and the sixteen six-horse gala-wagons of the imperial chamberlains, privy councillors, high chamberlain, high stewards, and high equerry, closed, with great pomp, this division of the procession, which, in spite of its magnificence and extent, was still only to be the vanguard.
It was thirty-five feet wide, thoroughly macadamized, and had no grade of above five degrees. Over parts of this road no less than 150 six-horse teams passed daily, besides four or five four-horse mail and passenger coaches.
Machine after machine appeared; and Annixter, drawing to one side, remained for nearly ten minutes watching and interested, while, like an array of chariots clattering, jostling, creaking, clashing, an interminable procession, machine succeeding machine, six-horse team succeeding six-horse team bustling, hurried Magnus Derrick's thirty-three grain drills, each with its eight hoes, went clamouring past, like an advance of military, seeding the ten thousand acres of the great ranch; fecundating the living soil; implanting deep in the dark womb of the Earth the germ of life, the sustenance of a whole world, the food of an entire People.
She delayed her departure as long as she could, despite the instances of d'Ancenis, who at last presented his hand to her, and politely, but firmly, said she must go. She found at her door two six-horse coaches, the sight of which much shocked her. She was obliged, however, to mount.
In her house and in many others Alfieri began to give almost public readings of his plays; trying to persuade himself that his object in so doing was to judge, from the expression of face and even more from the restlessness or quiescence of his listeners on their chairs, how his work might affect the mixed audience of a theatre; but admitting in his heart of hearts that the old desire to be remarked had as much to do with these exhibitions as with the six-horse gallops which used to astonish the people of Turin and Florence.
About the same period a six-horse coach took six days to perform the journey between Edinburgh and Glasgow and back. To accomplish fifty miles or thereabouts in two days with a six-horse stage-coach, was considered good work and high speed about the beginning of last century.
The stage of a rival line left at the same time. There was great excitement: a race between two six-horse teams, with coaches decorated with flags, and the governor on the box of one of them. They had to creep through the heavy sands to the mission, but beyond there they struck the hard road, and away they went, horses at a gallop, passengers shouting and singing.
Then came the wild ride up the side of the mountain, in a six-horse stage driven at a reckless rate of speed by its indifferent driver, whirling around curves where the outer wheels had scarcely an inch to spare, while we looked fearfully down upon the tops of the tall trees in the canyon far below.
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