II
The history of travelling, from the Creation to the present time, may be divided into four periods—those of no coaches, slow coaches, fast coaches, and railways. The “no-coach” period is a lengthy one, stretching, in fact, from the beginning of things, through the ages, down to the days of the Romans, and so on to the era when pack-horses conveyed travellers and goods along the uncertain tracks, which in the Middle Ages were all that remained of the highways built by that masterful race. The “slow-coach” era was preceded by an age when those few people who travelled at all went either on horseback, with their women-folk clinging on behind them, or else were wealthy enough to be able to afford the keep or hire of a “chariot,” as the carriages of that time were named. That sinful old reprobate, Samuel Pepys, lived in the last days of the “no-coach” period, and saw the arrival of the slow coaches. He was one of those who used a chariot, and his “Diary” is full of accounts of how, on his innumerable journeys, he lost his way because of the badness of the roads, which then ran through vast stretches of unenclosed, uncultivated, and sparsely inhabited country, and were so fearfully bad that in many places the drivers did not dare to attempt such veritable “sloughs of despond,” but drove around them over the hedgeless fields, thus making new tracks for themselves. In this way the origin of the winding character which many of our roads still retain is sufficiently accounted for.
THE “FLYING MACHINE”
The “slow-coach” era was, absurdly enough, that of the “flying machines,” and in that era, with the year 1667, the coaching history of the Bath Road may be said to begin, when some greatly daring person issued a bill announcing that a “flying machine” would make the journey. It is not to be supposed that this was some emulator of Icarus or predecessor of the ambitious folks who for the last hundred years, more or less, have been trying to navigate the air with balloons or mechanical flying machines. Not at all. This was simply the figurative language employed to convey to those whom it might concern the wonderful feat that was to be attempted (“God permitting,” as the advertiser was careful to add), of travelling by road from the “Bell Savage,” on Ludgate Hill, to Bath in three days. But here is the announcement:—
“FLYING MACHINE.
“All those desirous to pass from London to Bath, or any other Place on their Road, let them repair to the ‘Bell Savage’ on Ludgate Hill in London, and the ‘White Lion’ at Bath, at both which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the Whole Journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets forth at five o’clock in the morning.
“Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each, who are allowed to carry fourteen Pounds Weight—for all above to pay three-halfpence per Pound.”
The rush of fashionables to take the waters, and see and be seen, had obviously not then commenced, since one crawling “flying machine” sufficed to accommodate the traffic; and it was not until thirty-six years later that it did begin, when Queen Anne (who, alas! is dead) resorted to “the Bath” for the benefit of the gout. What says Pope?
“Great Anna, whom Three Realms obey,
Does sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tay.”