e
curiosity and excitement prevailed, and, though the weather was
uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road,
shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. What
with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the
tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits
rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so
much as the first hour of our progress. I had been unluckily
separated from my mother in the first distribution of places, but
by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make she rejoined
me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was considerably
damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and intent upon
nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation which
appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself and
all her traveling companions. While I was chewing the cud of this
disappointment, which was rather bitter, as I had expected her to
be as delighted as myself with our excursion, a man flew by us,
calling out through a speaking-trumpet to stop the engine, for that
somebody in the directors' carriage had sustained an injury. We
were all stopped accordingly, and presently a hundred voices were
heard exclaiming that Mr. Huskisson was killed; the confusion that
ensued is indescribable: the calling out from carriage to carriage
to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which were sent back
to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once, and the
repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance, created a
sudden turmoil that was quite sickening. At last we distinctly
ascertained that the unfortunate man's thigh was broken. From Lady
W----, who was in the duke's carriage, and within three yards of
the spot where the accident happened, I had the following details,
the horror of witnessing which we were spared through our situation
behind the great carriage. The engine had stopped to take in a
supply of water, and several of the gentlemen in the directors'
carriage had jumped out to look about them. Lord W----, Count
Batthyany, Count Matuscenitz, and Mr. Huskisson among the rest were
standing talking in the middle of the road, when an engine on the
other line, which was parading up and down merely to show its