This freedom to choose one's company was a decided advantage for the traveller who rode, considering that murdering was far less exclusively a lower-class habit than it has since become. But he had to pay dearly for the increased respectability and pace. Horse-hire varied from a penny ha'penny to fivepence a mile, the maximum charge representing the cost of post-horses in France in the seventeenth century, the minimum the charge in Italy for a horse that was waiting for a return fare, an opportunity that might frequently be met with. The average was far nearer the maximum than the minimum rate, since it was often a case of post-horse or no horse, and post rates did not sink so very far below the French standard. According to Moryson, the English charged two shillings a day in London, one shilling a day in the provinces, for other than post-horses, but he was a native and the charges to foreigners probably exceeded the charges to natives throughout Europe in a greater degree then than now; an Englishman on the way from Calais to Paris complains that he had to pay £2 15s. where a Frenchman paid but three pistoles at sixteen shillings and eightpence each;[130] and that is not an isolated grievance. In fact, as a comment on Moryson's remark about England, when Lionello, a secretary of the Venetian ambassador, went post to Edinburgh and back in June, 1617, besides paying threepence a mile for each horse, he includes in his accounts as usual tips fourpence to the woman and sixpence to the horse-boy, at each stage.[131] In Italy, where several foreigners found the cost of riding less than the average, Villamont reckons that an écu [two guineas] a day per horse covered all horse-charges, while in passing from Germany to Italy the best plan was to buy a horse in Germany, where three pounds would be a fair price, and sell it in Italy, which could be done at double that price.
Travellers' evidence, however, as to horse-charges is less plentiful than might be expected, owing to what may be called the 'vetturino' system. The term 'vetturino' came to be applied, even outside Italy, to the horse-owner or carrier who contracted for the whole cost of a journey, food, lodging, transport, tolls. Their reputation is best illustrated by the tale of an abbé at Loreto about this time, who, in confessing, included among his transgressions a beating inflicted on a 'vetturino.' "Go on," said the confessor, "that doesn't count; they're the worst scoundrels in the world." Nevertheless, the method spread all over Europe during this period with striking rapidity, though far more readily on the road than on the water. The advantages to the stranger were recognised at once, the saving of the trouble and the expense which accompanied repeated bargaining in a state of ignorance as to where and how to do it, what inns to go to, what extras to put up with, what the legal dues really were, etc. However dishonest the 'vetturino' might prove, his victim probably paid no more to him in unintentional commission than his accomplices would have extorted on their own account otherwise. For the Lyons-Turin journey, at least, there soon came into use a regular formula for a written contract, a formula which has been preserved.[132] The system has its value for us, too, in enabling us to compare prices. While there are multitudes of figures apparently available for the purpose of reckoning cost, a large majority turn out to be, to use one of their own phrases, no more use than a wooden poker, the writer omitting one or more of the necessary data. If, for instance, he mentions the hire of four horses, it leaves us in the dark in reckoning personal expenses, inasmuch as four horses may equally well imply two, or three, or four persons. So likewise, to complete an account of a waggon-fare, it needs to be stated whether or no it was what the Germans called "maul frei," that is, whether the coachman paid for his own food or not. Or again, riding was so much the rule that the charge which the wayfarer gives for bed and breakfast often includes, probably more often than not, the "stabulum et pabulum" for his horse; it is only on the rare occasions when specific statement is made, or when a pedestrian gives prices, that there is any certainty about it. Now the vetturino's charge does away with all this uncertainty. Also as to whether a guide accompanied the party or not—another necessary which cost money; especially a satisfactory one, obtainable only, writes Sir Philip Sidney, "by much expense or much humbleness."
Here again the traveller by waggon went more cheaply than the horseman. What with the absence of sign-posts, the scarcity of persons to ask, the frequent indistinguishableness of the road from its margin and its surroundings, a stranger was practically forced to be guided. In 1648 this brought the cost of a journey from London to Dover to £1 15s. 10d.[133] [say, £8]. In a town this applied to every one who had no friends there. Every single feature on which one depends nowadays was absent, or, if present, present only in embryo,—visible street-names, printed suggestions other than historical, detailed plans, the wide, straight streets which allow the mystified to discover his whereabouts without climbing a church-tower. In short, what was worth seeing was mostly heard of only by word of mouth, and to find it one needed to be led there. Expenditure on guides reached its highest point when the Alps were snowbound; after a heavy fall he who wished to pass must wait till others had made fresh tracks or pay anything up to fifty crowns [£75] to have it done for him.
To pass Mont Cenis cost in the ordinary way the equivalent of about £4 10s.; that is, about half what the 'vetturino' would want to take each one of several from Lyons to Turin—six crowns, which latter sum is about ten times as much as the second-class fare to-day. But then the journey takes twelve hours now and took seven days then, with food all the while at travellers' prices.
The length of journeys stands out as the chief factor in the comparative costliness. Take a typical case, that of the five middle-class men[134] who left Venice on February 20, 1655, who wasted no time on the way, reached England on March 29, and spent one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Reckoning this as equalling £625, this works out as the equivalent of £125 each for thirty-seven days, or £3 7s. 7d. a day. If a man left Venice now on February 20, he might break the journey at Bâle, to do things comfortably, and arrive in London at 5.38 A. M. on February 22. Second-class fare would be £5 10s. 7d.; add £2 for meals and incidentals, £7 10s. 7d. in all, an average of £3 3s. a day. The other thirty-four and a half days of the thirty-seven his food would be paid for at home rates, say 2s. 6d. a day, £4 6s. 3d., which, added to the £7 10s. 7d., gives £11 16s. 10d. Now the daily average of about 7s. higher in the cost of travel apart from food, as above represented,—mainly accounted for by the relative cost of horses and guides as against railway fares,—only comes to £13 in thirty-seven days. On this basis the journey from Venice to London two hundred and fifty years ago cost between nine and ten times as much as it would to-day, solely on account of the difference in speed. That the expenditure of these five middle-class men was very reasonable is easily verifiable, as, for example, by the accounts of Muscorno,[135] another Venetian secretary, whose bill for coming to England, for himself and a servant, comes to three hundred and two ducats [£385]. If there was one place where travelling ought to have worked out relatively cheaply, it was Muscovy, seeing that on the sledges a peasant would take a passenger fifty leagues for three or four crowns; but it does not seem to have lowered the expenses of one Dr. Willes, whose overland journey thither in 1600 cost eighty pounds, including payments to guides. His own share may be reckoned as equivalent to two hundred and forty pounds as compared with the fifteen pounds the same route would cost to-day.
Luggage would frequently entail the same fare as the owner, since an extra horse would be needed to carry a box. Leather trunks were to be purchased which might be carried in front of the rider, but these did not protect the contents against rain. As to what carriers took as free luggage and what as "excess," there is no evidence but that of one Englishman[136] who found he was entitled to five pounds free on the Calais-Paris road and paid ten shillings surcharge on the rest without comment. Any advice the experienced have to offer as regards reduction of luggage for economy is in view far less of carriage than of customs-duties. In Italy the exactions were severest; almost every day's journey would take one over some boundary and at every bridge there were two or three quattrini [twopence] to pay; at every gate six or eight soldi [one shilling], besides baggage dues. Any article carried through Italy would cost its price over again in dues; a sword, for instance, you had to give up at the gate, pay a man to carry it to the inn, where the host took care of it till your departure, when you had to pay again for its carriage to the gate. The Papal states had the lowest scale of charges, yet on crossing their boundary, there was a giulio [3s. 6d.] to pay for the smallest hand-bag; and at Florence even your corpse would be taxed a crown [£1 10s.] if it went in or out of the city for burial. In Germany, where the burden was lighter, Sir Thomas Hoby, coming down the Rhine in 1555, paid toll at twenty-one custom-houses between Mainz and Herzogensbosch to fourteen authorities. As a rule, too, the taxes were farmed, which increased the tourists' sufferings from them, inasmuch as they were exacted with greater rigour and it was the harder to get redress in cases of extortion, especially when, as in Poland and Spain, the 'farmers' were Jews or of Jewish blood. Bribery, however, was often practicable, and where practicable, economical; one of the best guides to Spain repeats concerning every custom-house that the traveller should say he has nothing to declare and tip the officials only if they take his word, that is, if they do not do their duty. It is true there were passes to be obtained from a central authority, overriding the right of search, such as the imperial pass in Germany, and the indefinite rights of ambassadors, but how far these were respected seems to have been mainly a matter of bluff. Navagero, in Spain early in the sixteenth century, ambassador though he was, had to pay duties even on the rings on his fingers.
Passports, for one purpose or another, may be said to have been as much the rule then as they have since become the exception; an Englishman must pay five shillings for leave to travel and another five shillings if he wished to take his horse with him. A Frenchman at Milan speaks of getting a passport, stating his destination and the colour of his hair; and so on. But few mention such expenses being entailed as does one Italian,[137] leaving Dover in 1606. Apparently he had to pay for separate passports for each of his suite as well as himself, as these cost forty reals. The "real of eight" was nearly equal to five shillings English. The captain of the vessel demanded copies which "cost very dear" and the harbour-keeper, furthermore, who had exacted two giuli [six shillings], (each person?) on arrival, required double at departure.
Guide-books seem to have been from two to four times the price of Baedekers, a minor item, but considerable, like food and lodging. It may seem, at first sight, as if food and lodging were far from minor items, and that truly, of course, if only the total expenditure is considered. But in considering, as is being done here, relative cost only, that is, the cost of travel in so far as it has altered since three centuries ago, it has to be borne in mind that the average cost of food and shelter never alters; it is only standards of living that alter. If any one took the average price of meals, say, in Europe then and average prices now, and showed a difference of net cost between them, his calculations must either be based on misleading information, or else would prove that the figure he was multiplying with to equate values was a wrong one. This, of course, refers to necessaries; luxuries must be ruled out for two reasons: first, all attempts to fix a standard or strike an average breaks down for lack of a basis; second, they do not test what any one is called upon to spend but only how much he can spend if he is fool enough to try. Thus, for example, when Montaigne tells us that the charges at the "Vaso d'Oro" at Rome would be about twenty crowns [£35] a month, we may conclude that if we ascertain what the average charges would be for the same accommodation at a first-rate hotel to-day, it is a more reasonable plan to take the difference as the difference between their money-values and ours than to accept a surplus in either, according to the usually accepted multiplying figure, as defining an increase or decrease in hotel charges.
Yet for all this, something remains to be said. A modern tourist often finds himself in the position of drawing his income from a locality where money is cheaper or dearer than in the districts where he is making his payments. Now, three hundred years ago, he would have met with these fluctuations more frequently and more suddenly than would be the case to-day; and when met with, they would often have been more violent. In so far as this was the case, so far is the relative cost affected. The causes of these fluctuations may be divided into (1) local custom, (2) insufficient linking-up of supply and demand. Hungary may be taken as an example of the latter, Germany of the former, cause; Poland and Spain of districts where social and economic forces jib at separate classification. In Hungary and the districts southeast of it the most seasoned traveller never failed to be astonished at the ideal natural conditions; "wheat," as Sir Thomas Browne's son said of Transylvania in particular a little later, "had no value in relation to the subsistence of a human being." There was no outlet for its products; the continual state of war kept commerce paralysed; Vienna had little need of it, Constantinople none at all; what the fertility of the soil produced so abundantly was thus available for local consumption only. Especially was this the case with products that needed no human tending; the man who ate a whole penn'orth of fish risked bursting. In Germany prices ruled low, yet so excessive was the drunkenness, and so general, that it was a moral impossibility to live cheaply without cutting one's self off from human society. Supper over, for instance, the "schlafftrinke" was set on the table, and whoever touched a drop of it had, by custom, to pay an even share with those who drank till morning.
The Spanish diet, which was such a trial to the inside if the stranger did conform to it, was equally a trial to his pocket if he did not. One tried both ways on one day in 1670.[138] At noon he shared the landlord's dinner, paying a real [2s. 6d.] for vegetables, dried fish, fruit; but when in the evening he was one of six who dined on four fowls and neck of mutton, his bill came to the equivalent of £1 5s. not including wine. Poland, on the contrary, being the granary of Europe and exporting much else besides grain, rich in serf labour, and with its retail trade in the hands of denationalised aliens who were well under control, could afford to import plenty of luxuries and enjoyed abundance of necessaries: a goose or a pig for the equivalent of 1s. 6d., a loin of mutton for 1s.—such were prices in Poland.