The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-08-28
Travel in we OIden Days.

=
was reading in the current Economic
Review" an intensely interesting article by
Mrs. Law. which shows what has been
done in improved facilities for travel,
writes Robert Porter While we were talk
ing of fortnightly excursions from Lon
don to Peking or Toxic, over the Great
Siberian railroad, it may be worth while
to contemplate how our ancestors logged
along. After pictur:ng the towns and roads
OF England in the thirteenth century. Mrs.
Law reviews some Of the royal journeys
made by three successive kings of Eng
land. John, Henry III, and Edward l.,
sketching out the probable routes taken.
When considering the England OF that
wonderful thirteenth century, Mrs-gnm a
wonderful thirteenth century-the greatest
and the most interesting century, perhaps,
OF the whole Christian crave must dis
miss absolutely from our minds the Eng
land of today. We must, as Mrs Law,
quoting William Morris. reminds US. for
get six centuries, o'erhung With smoke,
and 1.-THE h.deous spreading of the town"
and rather think of the 'pack-horse on the
down. and of a London small and clean
ard white" England was in that age
thickly-ooded, weli-watered country. h;Iiy
and difficult of access, studded over
wherever wood, water and pasture anord-
ed especial facilties-ith immortal or mon
ast!c Industrial settlements. and sparseiy
fringed round the coast with numoer OF
poor fishing hamlets, "a fe OF whicn
rose 10 the dignity OF small seaport towns,
whose burghers ere spirited enough TO lay
their complaints before parliament itself.
II was a land covered with forest, green
with mass upon mass of waving woodland,
to
ern marches and northern borders. and
with huge swamps an fens between Cam
bridge and the North Sea. Men Travelled
In companies, for they were afraid both
of wild beasts and Of the robbers who
lurked on lonely heath or dark thicket.
There were no mail or turnpike roads,
scarcely any bridges, except where here
and there a rich man had caused one to
be built, with injunctions that masses
should be offered for the repose OF his soul
in some little sanctuary on the bridge II
self Travellers VINO went more than mile
or two beyond their "burgh" had TO ride,
and very rough riding it must generally
have been.
OF the three sovereigns who reigned In
England throughout the thirteenth centu-
~. Henry III. did not travel much, out
John went up and down the land win
perpetual restlessness, and Edward /. may
he said to have resembled the Emperor
William III. and to have been a Kind OF
thirteenth century "reise-Kaiser" on
small scale He could not get to Norway
in a steam yacht or run down to the Adri-
ATTIC but he took the then far more DIM
cult journey to Berwick-on-Tweed. and,
indeed, he was constantly on the march.
John took eight days to go from BRISTOL
- e.. 4-.@
TO Winchester, which was his faVorite
place of residence. He also took eight days
to go from Marlborough to Stockton, IN
winter. while from Battle to Corfe in sum-
mer he took nine days. Henry III. took
very awkward cross-country journey from
Huntington to Worcester, which occupied
sixteen days What turnings and twistings
what strain;ngs of the traces and breack-
neck plunges, and uncertain conjectures.
and terrible joltings from side to side a
Journey of this kind must have enta;led.
we can imagine Edward I. made success
i've journeys from Hereford to Shrews-
bury, thence to chester, thence to York in
mid-winter, which must have been, in the
language Of Truthful James, "far. far from
CAV" Edwards journey of 12S1 was for
those days what journey to California or
Farther India ould be now, only far long
er and more troublesome. 1t was from
Amesbury to Berwick, and he went by An |
DOVER and Derbyshire, and Welbeck, and |
York Northallerton, Darlington, Newcas- |
tie and Alnwick, his actual travelling &C. |
cupying two-and-a-half months. The trite |
reflection, of course, arises how luxurious |
and comfortable life has become when the |
poorest em.grant, with few shsllings in |
his pocket can command comforts and con- !
veniences not dreamed Of by the English |
Justinian." But everything. as has been |
truly said. has its price; and in the hell |
holes of English industrial districts, and |
the overwhelming expansion of London |
dreariness and ugiiness, We see the terms |
On which Nature permits us to have our |
modern improvements. Even in the lux
nry of the swift-gliding express We almost |
sigh for those green. waving forests and |
bright flashing streams of the older Eng
and.