Notes and Queries, Number 05, December 1, 1849. Various

travels. "Dass wir kaum 6 Stunden gefahren sind"–even supposing there is no misprint of a 6 for an 8 or 9, which is quite possible–will not, I apprehend, bear the meaning he collects from the words, viz. that the journey occupied no more than six hours, or less even than so much.

      In the first place, I believe it will be allowed by those familiar with German idioms, that the phrase kaum 6 Stunden, is not to be rendered as though it meant no more or less than 6; but rather thus: "but little more than 6;"–the "little more," in this indefinite form of expression, being a very uncertain quantity, it may be an hour or so.

      Then he says merely that they "kaum 6 Stunden gefahren sind," which may mean that the time actually spent in motion did not exceed the number of hours indicated, whatever that may be; and not that the journey itself, "including stoppages," took up no more. Had he meant to say this, I imagine he would have used a totally different phrase: e. g. dass wir binnen kaum mehr als 6 Stunden nach London schön gekommen sind; or something like these words.

      Making these allowances, the report is conceivably true, even of a period a century old, as regards the rate of day-travelling on the high road to Norwich, still at that time a place of much business with London. The second journey of the Pastor on the same road was, it seems, by night: but what perhaps is of more consequence to explain is the apparent difference between it and the other. It appears that in the second instance we are told when he arrived at his journey's end; in the former, nothing beyond the number of hours he was actually moving, may have been communicated to us.