the necessity of their sandy soil, had anticipated the 

 Romans by some centuries, and, according to some 

 authorities, Carthage had been anticipated by Egypt. I 

 believe that it is undisputed that the earliest road-maker 

 of whom we have any account was an Egyptian Pharaoh, 

 who constructed by forced labor a gigantic causeway to 

 convey materials for the erection of a pyramid. 



The excellence of the Roman roads can be estimated 

 by the fact that travellers upon them could, it is said, 

 accomplish with ease a hundred miles a day. No less an 

 authority than Pliny relates that a Roman nobleman, in a 

 case of great emergency, drove two hundred Roman miles 

 in twenty-four hours. It has been cited as evidence of 

 the barbarism of succeeding centuries, that these roads, 

 constructed by consummate skill, were abandoned to the 

 destructive agencies of time and of the elements. When 

 the unity of the Imperial Power had been broken, the 

 unity of action in preserving the means of intercourse 

 between distant regions began to decay, and the mutual 

 independence of the governments which followed was 

 unfavorable to that concerted effort which might have 

 wrought to the great advantage of all. 



In the course of centuries, however, the love of gain 

 and religious ardor manifested respectively in expanding 

 commerce and in long pilgrimages, made their demands 

 for improved means for traffic and travel. It is probable 

 that the spirit of the crusades may have done something 

 in this direction, in which the Roman love of conquest 

 had achieved so much ten centuries before. The prevail- 

 ing purpose of each epoch made the military chieftains 

 appreciate the value of good roads for the march of 

 armies. There seems, however, to have been little uni- 

 formity of system, and small progress in the art of road- 

 making until near the beginning of the present century. 



