ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



CHAPTER I. 



EARLY COACH TRAVELLING. 



The classical era of coachmanship is well described, and 

 details concerning the mode of putting horses together at 

 that period are given, in Nimrod's and Youatt's treatises ; 

 and but little real advance seems to have been made in 

 the science of the road until the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. Gibbon certainly records an instance of early 

 post travelling which almost transcends the brightest 

 achievements of our English service, even in the palmiest 

 days of mail coaches. Csesarius, a magistrate of high 

 rank in the time of the Emperor Theodosius, went post 

 from Antioch to Constantinople. He began his journey 

 at night, was in Cappadocia, 165 miles from Antioch, on 

 the ensuing evening, and arrived at Constantinople on 

 the sixth day about noon ; the whole distance being 725 

 Roman, or 665 English miles. It is worthy of mention 

 that Cicero, writing to a friend in Britain, remarked that 

 there was nothing worth brin^ino; out of the island but 

 chariots, of which he wished to have one for a pattern. 



B 



