26 DRIVING. 



describing the glories of a chariot adorned with ivory, with 

 gold and silver, and with precious stones. The discomforts of 

 a journey in any of the early vehicles can, however, be imagined 

 when one remembers that carriage springs are of comparatively 

 modern invention, and that even in cities of the first consequence 

 the art of road-making was in its infancy. The Appian Way, 

 B.C. 331, may have been fairly good for vehicles ; but as a 

 rule the rate of progress must have been so slow that the 

 chariot was comparatively as far behind the modern coach as 

 the best-horsed vehicle is in speed behind the express train ; 

 accidents in the nature of a break-down were surely common, 

 and the fatigue of a journey must have been great from the 

 jolts and bumps which marked every pace. 



Over these periods, however, we must not linger. Ad- 

 vancing at a bound to the middle ages a necessarily shifty 

 date, but near enough for the purpose of the present dis- 

 cussion we find that little use was made of wheeled vehicles. 

 The country was less enclosed than at present, of course, but 

 there were few roads along which heavy carriages could make 

 good way. Me Adam was not to appear for several centuries, 

 and it must have been terribly hard work for horses to pull 

 loads, as we may say, practically across country. A man could 

 get on incomparably better on horseback than in a carriage, and 

 goods were chiefly carried on pack-horses. About the thirteenth 

 century the use of carriages became somewhat common among 

 the higher nobility, though it seems to have been considered 

 effeminate for men to use them, and women usually pre- 

 ferred the saddle or the pillion. We can easily understand 

 that carriages must have been slow and uncomfortable, and 

 liable to accident, notwithstanding that the exceedingly 

 moderate pace would prevent such accidents from being of 

 a very dangerous description. That carriages were, if not 

 easy, at any rate gorgeous, is shown by the author of the 

 poem called ' The Squyr of Low Degree,' written certainly 

 before the time of Chaucer. A passage from this writer 

 runs : 



