j6thro Tall: his Life, Times, and 'feachinrj. 
9 
element outgrew the agricultural. Turn to the map of London 
in those days. To the north, cattle fed and men with dogs 
•wandered for sport over the site of Marylebone, Finsbury, and 
the Tower Hamlets. Islington was a solitude. To the south of 
the river, there was a mere fringe of houses and gardens, with 
the great Lambeth marsh. To the west, St. George's Hospital was 
in the fields. To the east, the London end of Whitechapel 
Street led at once into the country. Londoners, then as now, 
were gregarious : the gentleman about town talked of dining at 
his club— a tavern club ; and taverns and coffee-houses there were 
of every kind and degree. 
But in those days a wide line divided the town from the 
country. In our time, when the traveller bi-eakfasts in London 
and dines comfortably in Edinburgh, it is difficult to realise the 
conditions of locomotion in Tull's day. It was easy enough, as we 
have seen, to get out of London ; and then, in those pre-Macadam 
days, the highways were simply infamous — dry ditches in summer, 
and wet ditclies in winter. Gradients were unconsidered, the 
■way uninclosed from the fen or common over which it passed, and 
many deep-trodden tracks converged at a bridge or ferry, with 
inundations in which the traveller, floundering in darkneso, might 
have to swim for his life. In 172-3 Lord Cathcart mentions in 
his diary that he travelled north in June : the roads were full 
of water, there was the very greatest difficulty in crossing the 
rivers, and in his chaise he was completely wet through. In 
riding post there were constantly terrible falls. In January, 
1734, he writes: "All went well until I arrived within three 
miles of Doncaster, when, suddenly, my horse fell with a crash 
and with me under him. I fancied myself crushed to death. 
I got on a mile further, but was then obliged to send for a 
Doncaster surgeon, who bled me. I slept at Doncaster and had 
a bad night. I was so bad all day I could get no further than 
Wetherby. Next day I was all right again, and read the King's 
speech with great pleasure. I had another terrible fall between 
North Allerton and Darlington, but was not a bit the worse." 
Not only were the roads, and the chaises, and the post-horses dis- 
couraging to the traveller, but there was always the exciting 
prospect of meeting the highwayman or the footpad and of being, 
in the disagreeable encounter, mulcted of felonious toll. The 
one redeeming feature amongst all these drawbacks and dis- 
comforts was the roadside inn, which, more often than otherwise, 
was clean, warm, and comfortable. 
Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, 
"Where'er his stages may have been, 
May sigh to think he still has found 
His warmest welcome at an inn. 
