It appears, however, that in 1608, one Timothy Pont, a young man
without fortune or patronage, formed the singularresolution of

travelling over the whole of Scotland, with the sole view of
informing himself as to the geography of the country, and he

persevered to the end of his task through every kind of difficulty;
exploring 'all the islands with the zeal of a missionary, though

often pillaged and stript of everything; by the then barbarous
inhabitant's. The enterprising youth received no recognition nor

reward for his exertions, and he died in obscurity, leaving his
maps and papers to his heirs. Fortunately, James I. heard of the

existence of Pont's papers, and purchased them for public use. They
lay, however, unused for a long time in the offices of the Scotch

Court of Chancery, until they were at length brought to light by
Mr. Robert Gordon, of Straloch, who made them the basis of the

first map of Scotland having any pretensions to accuracy that was
ever published.

*[11] Mr. Grant, of Corrymorry, used to relate that his father,
when speaking of the Rebellion of 1745, always insisted that a

rising in the Highlands was absolutely necessary to give employment
to the numerous bands of lawless and idle young men who infested

every property.--Anderson's 'Highlands and Islands of Scotland,'
p. 432.

*[12] 'Lord Hailes Annals,' i., 379.
*[13] Professor Innes's 'Sketches of Early Scottish History.' The

principal ancient bridges in Scotland were those over the Tay at
Perth (erected in the thirteenth century) over the Esk at Brechin

and Marykirk; over the Bee at Kincardine, O'Neil, and Aberdeen;
over the Don, near the same city; over the Spey at Orkhill; over

the Clyde at Glasgow; over the Forth at Stirling; and over the Tyne
at Haddington.

CHAPTER V.
ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND TOWARDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY.

The progress made in the improvement of the roads throughout
England was exceedingly slow. Though some of the main throughfares

were mended so as to admit of stage-coach travelling at the rate of
from four to six miles an hour, the less frequented roads continued

to be all but impassable. Travelling was still difficult, tedious,
and dangerous. Only those who could not well avoid it ever thought

of undertaking a journey, and travelling for pleasure was out of
the question. A writer in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' in 1752 says

that a Londoner at that time would no more think of travelling into
the west of England for pleasure than of going to Nubia.

But signs of progress were not awanting. In 1749 Birmingham
started a stage-coach, which made the journey to London in three

days.*[1] In 1754 some enterprising Manchester men advertised a
"flying coach" for the conveyance of passengers between that town

and the metropolis; and, lest they should be classed with
projectors of the Munchausen kind, they heralded their enterprise

with this statement: "However incredible it may appear, this coach
will actually" target="_blank" title="ad.事实上；实际上">actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and

a half after leaving Manchester!"
Fast coaches were also established on several of the northern

roads, though not with very extraordinary results as to speed.
When John Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, travelled from

Newcastle to Oxford in 1766, he mentions that he journeyed in what
was denominated "a fly," because of its rapid travelling; yet he

was three or four days and nights on the road. There was no such
velocity, however, as to endanger overturning or other mischief.

On the panels of the coach were painted the appropriate motto of
Sat cito si sat bene--quick enough if well enough--a motto which

the future Lord Chancellor made his own.*[2]
The journey by coach between London and Edinburgh still occupied

six days or more, according to the state of the weather. Between
Bath or Birmingham and London occupied between two and three days

as late as 1763. The road across Hounslow Heath was so bad, that
it was stated before a Parliamentary Committee that it was

frequently known to be two feet deep in mud. The rate of
travelling was about six and a half miles an hour; but the work was

so heavy that it "tore the horses' hearts out," as the common
saying went, so that they only lasted two or three years.

When the Bath road became improved, Burke was enabled, in the
summer of 1774, to travel from London to Bristol, to meet the

electors there, in little more than four and twenty hours; but his
biographer takes care to relate that he "travelled with incredible

speed." Glasgow was still ten days' distance from the metropolis,
and the arrival of the mail there was so important an event that a

gun was fired to announce its coming in. Sheffield set up a
"flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760: it "slept" the

first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at
the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks,

Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s.,
and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But the principal part of the

expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not
to mention the fees to guards and drivers.

Though the Dover road was still one of the best in the kingdom, the
Dover flying-machine, carrying only four passengers, took a long

summer's day to perform the journey. It set out from Dover at four
o'clock in the morning, breakfasted at the Red Lion, Canterbury,

and the passengers ate their way up to town at various inns on the
road, arriving in London in time for supper. Smollett complained

of the innkeepers along that route as the greatest set of
extortioners in England. The deliberate style in which journeys

were performed may be inferred from the circumstance that on one
occasion, when a quarrel took place between the guard and a

passenger, the coach stopped to see them fight it out on the road.
Foreigners who visited England were peculiarly observant of the

defective modes of conveyance then in use. Thus, one Don Manoel
Gonzales, a Portuguese merchant, who travelled through Great

Britain, in 1740, speaking of Yarmouth, says, "They have a comical
way of carrying people all over the town and from the seaside, for

six pence. They call it their coach, but it is only a wheel-barrow,
drawn by one horse, without any covering." Another foreigner, Herr

Alberti, a Hanoverian professor of theology, when on a visit to
Oxford in 1750, desiring to proceed to Cambridge, found there was

no means of doing so without returning to London and there taking
coach for Cambridge. There was not even the convenience of a

carrier's waggon between the two universities. But the most
amusing account of an actual journey by stage-coach that we know

of, is that given by a Prussian clergyman, Charles H. Moritz, who
thus describes his adventures on the road between Leicester and

London in 1782:--
"Being obliged," he says, "to bestir myself to get

back to London, as the time drew near when the
Hamburgh captain with whom I intended to return had

fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as
far as Northampton on the outside. But this ride from

Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.
"The coach drove from the yard through a part of the

house. The inside passengers got in from the yard,
but we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in

the street, because we should have had no room for
our heads to pass under the gateway. My companions on

the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man very
decently dressed, and a black-a-moor. The getting up

alone was at the risk of one's life, and when I was
up I was obliged to sit just at the corner of the

coach, with nothing to hold by but a sort of little
handle fastened on the side. I sat nearest the wheel,