ROADS 



the whole country-side and save the traveller 

 from sudden attack. In another place they will 

 creep under a hill and hide themselves between 

 high banks, so that the wayfarer could pass 

 along them unseen. There are wide roads, 

 narrow roads, steep roads, and hidden roads, 

 but we never come across a straight road that 

 has been made under natural circumstances. 

 If we look at a path which is to-day being 

 worn across a field, or an expanse of freshly 

 fallen snow, we shall see that it is not straight ; 

 people take advantage of the little rises and falls 

 in the ground, they avoid a stone, a puddle or 

 a flower. Whatever the reason may be, no 

 natural road is straight. 



Let us think for a few minutes how the 

 different kinds of roads must have arisen. 

 First of all must have come tracks where men 

 could walk one at a time. Then these tracks 

 would become wider as they were used to ride 

 or to drive cattle and sheep along. The inven- 

 tion of wheels would again alter our roads, for 

 even the rough carts of our ancestors would 

 require firmer surfaces and broader ways than 

 a horseman or a flock of sheep. When the 

 Romans came with their chariots and organised 

 armies and their luxurious civilisation, theymade, 

 or in some cases re-made, the great roads which 

 still run straight across the country in all direc- 

 tions, and paved them so well that the work 

 they did nearly two thousand years ago is still 



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