The little trade which existed between one part of the kingdom and

another was carried on by means of packhorses, along roads little
better than bridle-paths. These horses travelled in lines, with

the bales or panniers strapped across their backs. The foremost
horse bore a bell or a collar of bells, and was hence called the

"bell-horse." He was selected because of his sagacity; and by the
tinkling of the bells he carried, the movements of his followers

were regulated. The bells also gave notice of the approach of the
convoy to those who might be advancing from the opposite direction.

This was a matter of some importance, as in many parts of the path
there was not room for two loaded horses to pass each other, and

quarrels and fights between the drivers of the pack-horse trains
were frequent as to which of the meeting convoys was to pass down

into the dirt and allow the other to pass along the bridleway. The
pack-horses not only carried merchandise but passengers, and at

certain times scholars proceeding to and from Oxford and Cambridge.
When Smollett went from Glasgow to London, he travelled partly on

pack-horse, partly by waggon, and partly on foot; and the
adventures which he described as having befallen Roderick Random

are supposed to have been drawn in a great measure from his own
experiences during; the journey.

A cross-country merchandisetraffic gradually sprang up between the
northern counties, since become pre-eminently the manufacturing

districts of England; and long lines of pack-horses laden with
bales of wool and cotton traversed the hill ranges which divide

Yorkshire from Lancashire. Whitaker says that as late as 1753 the
roads near Leeds consisted of a narrow hollow way little wider than

a ditch, barely allowing of the passage of a vehicle drawn in a
single line; this deep narrow road being flanked by an elevated

causeway covered with flags or boulder stones. When travellers
encountered each other on this narrow track, they often tried to

wear out each other's patience rather than descend into the dirt
alongside. The raw wool and bale goods of the district were nearly

all carried along these flagged ways on the backs of single horses;
and it is difficult to imagine the delay, the toil, and the perils

by which the conduct of the traffic was attended. On horseback
before daybreak and long after nightfall, these hardy sons of trade

pursued their object with the spirit and intrepidity of foxhunters;
and the boldest of their country neighbours had no reason to

despise either their horsemanship or their courage.*[19]
The Manchester trade was carried on in the same way. The chapmen

used to keep gangs of pack-horses, which accompanied them to all the
principal towns, bearing their goods in packs, which they sold to

their customers, bringing back sheep's wool and other raw materials
of manufacture.

The only records of this long-superseded mode of communication are
now to be traced on the signboards of wayside public-houses.

Many of the old roads still exist in Yorkshire and Lancashire; but
all that remains of the former traffic is the pack-horse still

painted on village sign-boards -- things as retentive of odd bygone
facts as the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans.*[20]

Footnotes for Chapter II.
*[1] King Henry the Fourth (Part I.), Act II. Scene 1.

*[2] Part of the riding road along which the Queen was accustomed
to pass on horseback between her palaces at Greenwich and Eltham is

still in existence, a little to the south of Morden College,
Blackheath. It winds irregularly through the fields, broad in some

places, and narrow in others. Probably it is very little different
from what it was when used as a royal road. It is now very

appropriately termed "Muddy Lane."
*[3] 'Depeches de La Mothe Fenelon,' 8vo., 1858. Vol. i. p. 27.

*[4] Nichols's ' Progresses,' vol. ii., 309.
*[5] The title of Mace's tract (British Museum) is "The Profit,

Conveniency, and Pleasure for the whole nation: being a short
rational Discourse lately presented to his Majesty concerning the

Highways of England: their badness, the causes thereof, the reasons
of these causes, the possibility" target="_blank" title="n.不可能办到的事">impossibility of ever having them well mended

according to the old way of mending: but may most certainly be
done, and for ever so maintained (according to this NEW WAY)

substantially and with very much ease, &c., &c. Printed for the
public good in the year 1675."

*[6] See Archaelogia, xx., pp. 443-76.
*[7] "4th May, 1714. Morning: we dined at Grantham, had the annual

solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed the road in
May), and the coachman and horses being decked with ribbons and

flowers, the town music and young people in couples before us; we
lodged at Stamford, a scurvy, dear town. 5th May: had other

passengers, which, though females, were more chargeable with wine
and brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein we had

neither; but the next day we gave them leave to treat themselves."
--Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 207.

*[8] "May 22, 1708. At York. Rose between three and four, the
coach being hasted by Captain Crome (whose company we had) upon the

Queen's business, that we got to Leeds by noon; blessed be God for
mercies to me and my poor family."--Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 7.

*[9] Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. i.,295.
*[10] Waylen's 'Marlborough.'

*[11] Reprinted in the 'Harleian Miscellany,' vol. viii., p. 547.
supposed to have been written by one John Gressot, of the

Charterhouse.
*[12] There were other publications of the time as absurd (viewed

by the light of the present day) as Gressot's. Thus, "A Country
Tradesman," addressing the public in 1678, in a pamphlet entitled

'The Ancient Trades decayed, repaired again,--wherein are
declared the several abuses that have utterly impaired all the

ancient trades in the Kingdom,' urges that the chief cause of the
evil had been the setting up of Stage-coaches some twenty years

before. Besides the reasons for suppressing; them set forth in the
treatise referred to in the text, he says, "Were it not' for them

(the Stage-coaches), there would be more Wine, Beer, and Ale, drunk
in the Inns than is now, which would be a means to augment the

King's Custom and Excise. Furthermore they hinder the breed of
horses in this kingdom [the same argument was used against Railways],

because many would be necessitated to keep a good horse that keeps
none now. Seeing, then, that there are few that are gainers by them,

and that they are against the common and general good of the
Nation, and are only a conveniency to some that have occasion to go

to London, who might still have the same wages as before these
coaches were in use, therefore there is good reason they should be

suppressed. Not but that it may be lawful to hire a coach upon
occasion, but that it should be unlawful only to keep a coach that

should go long journeys constantly, from one stage or place to
another, upon certain days of the week as they do now"-- p. 27.

*[13] Roberts's 'Social History of the Southern Counties,' p. 494.
Little more than a century ago, we find the following advertisement

of a Newcastle flying coach:-- "May 9, 1734.--A coach will set out
towards the end of next week for London, or any place on the road.

To be performed in nine days,--being three days sooner than any
other coach that travels the road; for which purpose eight stout

horses are stationed at proper distances."
*[14] In 1710 a Manchester manufacturertaking his family up to

London, hired a coach for the whole way, which, in the then state
of the roads, must have made it a journey of probably eight or ten

days. And, in 1742, the system of travelling had so little
improved, that a lady, wanting to come with her niece from

Worcester to Manchester, wrote to a friend in the latter place to
send her a hired coach, because the man knew the road, having

brought from thence a family some time before."--Aikin's 'Manchester.'
*[15] Lord Campbell mentions the remarkable circumstance that

Popham, afterwards Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Elizabeth,
took to the road in early life, and robbed travellers on Gad's