VI. SCHAFFHAUSEN AND MILAN 109

inhabitants of the villages and towns traversed on the day’s journey, that persons of distinction were honouring them by their transitory presence. If everything was right, the four horses were driven by one postillion riding the shaft horse; but if the horses were young, or the riders unpractised, there was a postillion for the leaders also. As a rule, there were four steady horses and a good driver, rarely drunk, often very young, the men of stronger build being more useful for other work, and any clever young rider able to manage the well-trained and merry-minded beasts, besides being lighter on their backs. Half the weight of the cavalier, in such cases, was in the his boots, which were often brought out slung from the saddle like two buckets, the postillion, after the horses were harnessed, walking along the pole and getting into them.

126. Scarcely less official, for a travelling carriage of good class, than its postillions, was the courier, or properly, avant-courier, whose primary office it was to ride in advance at a steady gallop, and order the horses at each post-house to be harnessed and ready waiting, so that no time might be lost between stages. His higher function was to make all bargains and pay all bills, so as to save the family unbecoming cares and mean anxieties, besides the trouble and disgrace of trying to speak French or any other foreign language. He, farther, knew the good inns in each town, and all the good rooms in each inn, so that he could write beforehand to secure those suited to his family. He was also, if an intelligent man and high-class courier, well acquainted with the proper sights to be seen in each town, and with all the occult means to be used for getting sight of those that weren’t to be seen by the vulgar. Murray, the reader will remember, did not exist in those days; the courier was a private Murray, who knew, if he had any wit, not the things to be seen only, but those you would yourself best like to see, and gave instructions to your valet-de-place accordingly, interfering only as a higher power in cases of difficulty needing to be overcome by money or tact. He

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