last we broke from our leafy shelter into it,
but with little advantage that I could discover; for, though our heads
were in less peril, our necks, I considered, required more especial
looking after than ever. We certainly had here wider space, and a free
choice of ruts or tracks, for there were several; but not one of them
less profound than those we had hitherto ploughed through. In one or two
places, the road was deeply trenched in every direction, and the edges
of these cuts so glazed with new-formed ice that I expected my friend
who was pilot would pass the box and back out. But no such thing, faith!
he steered round all impediments as coolly as the wind that whistled
through the half-frozen reins he held.

Finding one place in the road quite impassable, he cast his eyes about
him for a moment, and chose the best part of the right bank; when,
gathering up his leaders, he first vexed them a little with the whip,
and then, putting them fairly at it, gained its summit, drove along for
a hundred yards, crashing through a thick cover of shrubs growing
breast-high, when having thus turned the impracticable bit of highway,
he coolly dropped down into it again. On looking back, I saw each team
taking in succession the line we had thus led over.

This was all performed clumsily enough, as far as appearance went, I
allow; but cleverly and confidently, though with leaders hardly within
calling distance: and four snaffle-bits, and a pig-whip, being the only
means of dictation and control possessed by the coachman. The more I see
of these queer Whips the better I like them: it assuredly is impossible
to conceive anything more uncoachmanlike than their outward man; but
they grapple with the constantly occurring difficulties of their strange
work hardily and with superior intelligence.

I have seen a pass on the high-road between Albany and New York, where a
descending driver perceiving that collision with a coming carriage was
from the slippery condition of the hill unavoidable, and also being
aware that such an event would be fatal to both parties, on the instant
turned his horses to the near bank, and dashed down into the bed of the
Mohawk, a descent of more than a hundred feet, as nearly perpendicular
as may well be. His presence of mind and courage saved both his own
passengers and those in the other vehicle, with the loss of his coach
and one of his horses only. The man was publicly thanked and rewarded,
and, I believe, y