COUNTRY ROADS. 243 



merce and social life flowed, without impediment, not only along 

 the great arteries, but through every by-way of the Roman body 

 politic. And from all these roads came, in very great degree, 

 Rome's power, wealth and civilization ; while this power, this 

 wealth, this civilization, and her roads disappeared together. 



Upon this side of the Atlantic we also discover the same re- 

 lationship existing between roads and civilization. The ancient 

 empires of Mexico and Peru, as the}^ were destitute of beasts of 

 burden, carried their foot roads to a marvelous degree of per- 

 fection. Those of Peru extended for three thousand miles 

 through one of the most mountainous countries on the globe. 

 There were galleries, says Prescott, along the face of precipices, 

 tunnels through living rocks, ravines bridged with masonry, and 

 torrents crossed by suspension bridges made of ozier or the 

 tough fibre of the aloe ; all which was accomplished by a people 

 ignorant of the use of iron. Such roads were built for the pur- 

 poses of war and commerce, and without their aid these Indian 

 empires never could have attained, as they did, to a civilization 

 so greatly in advance of the barbarism of the thousand roadless 

 tribes, who occupied the rest of America. 



Again, in a large part of Asia, although beasts of burden were 

 always abundant, we find that civilization was in harmony with 

 the roads, miserable when the latter were miserable. Even now 

 the roads of India are so poor that she secured very little profit 

 from tlie new cotton market that was thrown open to her at the 

 commencement of our civil war. Not much of her cotton could be 

 got to the seaboard without consuming, in transportation, the 

 great price it brought when once in the market of the world. 



Again, with the revival of civilization in Europe, better roads 

 were among the first signs indicative of that revival. The Cru- 

 sades forced upon those who were called to lead vast armies, a 

 conviction that good roads were absolutely necessary for the 

 speedy movement of troops. Once more men began, after the 

 manner of the old Romans, to build roads for war and conquest ; 

 then commerce proceeded gradually to use them and to build new 

 ones. So it may be justly said that war, from oft furnishing the 

 first incentive to the construction of good roads, has largely pro- 

 moted the civilization of the world in one direction at least, 

 though retarding it in other directions. 



Thus does history, by its great examples, teach us the great 

 value of roads ; and the declaration of Lord Macaulay is fully 



