THE STAGE-WAGGONS 107 



not at once retrieve them from their desperate 

 condition. Wheeled traffic had heen unknown 

 until the early stage- waggons appeared, and those 

 few who travelled otherwise than afoot or on 

 their own horses were content to mount the pack- 

 saddle of a patient and long-suffering pack-horse, 

 themselves only a degree less long-suffering 

 and patient. Then the etymology of the words 

 "travel" and "journey" was ahundantly justi- 

 fied ; for it was sorrow and hard lahour to leave 

 one's own fireside, and a day's journey Avas — what 

 the word " journey " imj^lies — the j^assing from 

 place to place within the hours of daylight. No 

 one dared travel tlie roads when night had fallen, 

 and it was not until the eighteenth century had 

 dawned that coaches began to run by night as 

 well as day. 



In far parts of the country and on the by-roads 

 the pack-horse train lasted an incredible time. 

 Wheeled conveyances of any kind Avere, generally 

 speaking, imj)ossible on any but the principal 

 roads. The farmers and higglers who had occa- 

 sion to transport heavier loads than it was possible 

 for horses to carry, used a primitive kind of sledge, 

 formed of tree-trunks, of Avhicli the light tapering 

 ends formed the shafts and the heavy bodies of the 

 trunks the runners. Thus the building materials 

 Avere of old often carried or dragged, Avitli much 

 friction and Avaste of effort, to their destination. 

 Tn Devon and CornAvall these truly savage make- 

 shifts were called by the peculiarly descriptive 

 name of " truckamucks," 



