lps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I
that my early resolve to do so was not shaken.

The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been
described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into the _coupe_ or
foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on
each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle
apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach;
and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap
travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of
baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the
driver's seat, is the _banquette_, a single seat across the top,
calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in
fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of
rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the
country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four
good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road
to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east.

The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and
traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass,
Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either
side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless
skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but
wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in the darkness to
be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c.
Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of
small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming
more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French
side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from
Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny and _vise_, and
we were compelled to wait from 2 1/2 till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian
officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the
latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the
Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian
sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court
of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the
rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared
and went at it