THE OLD ROADS 99 



situations, where the flow of streams or rain-water 

 has brought hquid earth to settle upon the deserted 

 sites of an ancient civiHsation. This has occurred 

 notably at such places as Dartford, Rochester, and 

 Canterbury, all situated in deep valleys, where 

 springs and storms have united to bring mud, sand, 

 and gravel down from the hillsides, and thus to 

 equalise in some measure the ancient irregularities 

 of the scenery. While the hollows have thus been 

 rendered less profound, the hill-tops and table-lands 

 have remained very much as they were, and it is 

 in these elevated situations that the line of Watling 

 Street can most readily be traced, or could have been 

 had not the stone pavings that composed the road 

 been long ages ago abstracted. 



This long neglect of the roads made country journeys 

 exceedingly difficult and dangerous. Travellers' tales 

 in England during six or seven centuries are concerned 

 with two great evils ; highway robbery and the 

 shocking state of the roads ; and so deep and dangerous 

 were some of the quagmires that, rather than attempt 

 to cross them, coachmen would drive through wayside 

 fields, and thus make a road for themselves. It was in 

 this way that ancient highways became diverted, and 

 the pedestrian Avho finds the route between two towns 

 to be extraordinarily circuitous must often look to 

 these circumstances for an explanation. The southern 

 counties bore a bad reputation for impassable roads 

 until about se^'enty years ago, and Kentish miles were 

 long linked with Essex stiles and Norfolk wiles as 

 prime causes of begu'.lement ; while the fertility of 

 Kentish soil is joined with the muddy character of 

 Kentish roads in two old county proverbs. Thus, 

 " Bad for the rider, good for the abider,' expressed 

 truths obvious enough to those who came this way 

 a hundred years ago ; and " There is good land where 

 there is foul way " would have said much for the 

 excellence of Kent, where all the ways were foul. 

 But if the traveller was not a landed gentleman, 



