BY LAND.

"Well, Charles, how do you purpose to go to the city to-day? The paper this morning contains some news that ought to interest you. There was a washout at Turk's Bridge last evening, and it will be several hours yet before trains can run."

This question was asked by Mrs. Barlow, one morning during the great street-car strike when the motormen and conductors had refused to run cars until their demands were granted.

"I see but one way left open for me," replied her husband. "The roads must be very muddy, and I cannot go on my bicycle. I suppose that I shall be compelled to walk. That was the original mode of traveling, and I imagine that in this case of necessity I can try it again. I am not used to so long a walk, but I see no other way. In one respect I am better off than my ancestors were, for I have good level side-walks, most of them paved, instead of rough paths, partly trodden down. I will start to walk, anyway."

Mr. Barlow did not own a horse, and could not drive to the city. He did not feel able to hire a public carriage, as, since the street-car strike began, so many desired to ride that the drivers charged very high prices. But he felt that he must attend to his business in the city that day, and immediately after breakfast he started on his five-mile walk. He was very tired before he reached the office, and the walk home in the afternoon wearied him still more. He was therefore greatly pleased the next morning to find that the strike was over, the railroad bridge repaired, the muddy roads nearly dry, and a choice open to him to travel either by steam cars, electric street cars, or bicycle.

Mr. Barlow learned an interesting lesson by this one day's experience. He obtained something of an idea of the life of his ancestors, who were compelled to walk whenever they had business to transact. He realized more than ever before what improvements had been made in the last three centuries in the means for travel. His thoughts were turned directly to these changes, and for several weeks he studied histories and scientific works to learn the ways in which these improvements came about. Let us note some of the results of his study.

Nearly three hundred years ago, Captain Newport, with a few small vessels, sailed up the James River, in Virginia. After some weeks the fleet returned to England, leaving about one hundred men, the colonists of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. Here was a little village, with the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of miles wide, separating the colonists from all their friends and acquaintances. The great forest which covered the entire Atlantic coast contained now this clearing on the banks of the James River. North of the settlement dense woods extended in every direction; no white men lived nearer than the French colonies of Quebec and Nova Scotia. To the south also spread the forest; the nearest European settlement was the Spanish colony of Saint Augustine. Westward for hundreds and thousands of miles the almost uninhabited wilderness extended to the Pacific Ocean, the very existence of which was scarcely suspected by white men. Thus was the Jamestown colony almost entirely shut off from the world of civilization, a feeble band of Europeans surrounded by savage red men.

What interest had these colonists in travel? Tossed on the ocean as they had been for many weeks, worn with seasickness and lack of nourishing food, few had any desire to see more of the world. Besides, if they had wished to travel, where could they have gone? Roads through the forests were unknown; rivers were spanned by no bridges; swamps and marshes extended in every direction. The most remote houses were at easy walking distance. The little church was not far even from the last house in the village. If need for firewood or lumber led any one into the forest, he must go afoot. If any necessity arose for communication with the Indians, the journey must be made on foot. Thus we see that in the early days of Virginia what travel there was by land was limited to walking.

Thirteen years after the building of Jamestown a second English colony was planted in America. Another band of a hundred persons began a settlement at Plymouth in New England. The colony of Virginia had become well established by this time, yet it could be of but little help to Plymouth. Many hundred miles distant, it seemed hardly nearer than old England itself. The Pilgrims at Plymouth lived by themselves, as had the Virginia colonists, and for some years what travel they had was also on foot.

Time passed on in both colonies. New settlers came over the ocean to Virginia, and other villages were built at some distance from Jamestown. Thus arose reasons for journeys—desire to see friends in other villages—necessities of trade or commerce between the settlements. At first, of course, as travel by foot within a village was common, so journeys between villages were made in the same way.

An easier means of communication was provided when horses were brought over from England. These came in small numbers at first; there were but six horses in Virginia when the settlers had been there nine years. Thousands of years ago wild horses ranged in great numbers over the whole continent of America. But, for some reason or other, these had all perished, and when Columbus discovered the new world the red men were wholly unacquainted with these animals or their use. Therefore, when the white settlers in America desired horses they found it necessary to bring them in vessels from Europe.

To the first and most common mode of travel, by foot, was thus added the second method, namely, on horseback. In the old world this use of horses had existed for thousands of years. In fact, three hundred and four hundred years ago, at the time of the discovery and settlement of America, it was almost the universal means for land travel. It was natural then that it should be the first form taken up in America. Besides, the making of a bridle path through the woods, that is, a path wide enough for a man on horseback, was a comparatively simple matter. To build a carriage road would have been a much more difficult task.

In New England, as well as in Virginia, the population rapidly increased. The Plymouth colonists began to build other villages. A new colony was founded on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, but thirty miles from Plymouth. Here were established the towns of Salem, Charlestown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Newtown, and Boston. Other towns were soon built and clearings were made in every direction. Travel by horseback became common among those who could afford to keep horses. Those who were too poor must still travel on foot.

Most of the traveling was done by men. We read that Queen Elizabeth was an accomplished horsewoman; but as a rule few women were accustomed to hold the reins, and few side-saddles were in use. The horses of those days were very strong. They were trained to carry heavy burdens on their backs rather than to draw loaded wagons. They frequently carried more than one person; it was not unusual to see a man riding horseback, and behind him his wife, sitting sideways and holding on to her husband to keep from slipping off. For her comfort a pillion was used, which was a pad or cushion fastened to the saddle.

Not only was Massachusetts Bay rapidly settled, but villages were built fifty and even a hundred miles from Boston. Providence, Newport, and Portsmouth were founded, forming the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor were established on the Connecticut. Dover and Portsmouth in New Hampshire, New Haven and Saybrook in Connecticut were built, and the village of Agawam, now Springfield, was founded.

All of these new settlements needed some connection with Boston, or the Old Bay Colony as it was called. The roads were mere paths, however, and over them carriages could not have passed, if there had been any. In a story written by J. G. Holland, called "Bay-Path," he described life in Agawam more than two and a half centuries ago, and his description of the roads and travel in those days is well worth reading.

"The principal communication with the Eastern settlement was by a path marked by trees a portion of the distance, and by slight clearings of brush and thicket for the remainder. No stream was bridged, no hill graded, and no marsh drained. The path led through woods which bore the marks of centuries, and along the banks of streams that the seine had never dragged. The path was known as 'the Bay-Path,' or the path to the bay.

"It was wonderful what a powerful interest was attached to the Bay-Path. It was the channel through which laws were communicated, through which flowed news from distant friends, and through which came long, loving letters and messages. That rough thread of soil, chopped by the blades of a hundred streams, was a bond that radiated at each terminus into a thousand fibers of love and interest and hope and memory.

"The Bay-Path was charmed ground—a precious passage—and during the spring, the summer, and the early autumn hardly a settler at Agawam went out of doors or changed his position in the fields, or looked up from his labor, or rested his oars upon the bosom of the river, without turning his eyes to the point at which that path opened from the brow of the wooded hill upon the East. And when some worn and wearied man came in sight upon his half-starved horse, or two or three pedestrians, bending beneath their packs and swinging their sturdy staves, were seen approaching, the village was astir from one end to the other.

"The Bay-Path became better marked from year to year as settlements began to string themselves upon it as upon a thread. Every year the footsteps of those who trod it hurried more and more until, at last, wheels began to be heard upon it—heavy carts creaking with merchandise. A century passed away and the wilderness had retired. There was a constant roll along the Bay-Path. The finest of the wheat and the fattest of the flocks and herds were transported to the Bay, whose young commerce had already begun to whiten the coast.

"The dreamy years passed by, and then came the furious stagecoach, traveling night and day—splashing the mud, brushing up the dust, dashing up to inns, and curving more slowly up to post-offices. The journey was reduced to a day. And then—miracle of miracles—came the railway and the locomotive. The journey of a day is reduced to three hours."