THE AGE OF TRANSITION

“IN the year 1790,” wrote Mr. William Felton in an account of the carriages of his day, “the art of Coach-building had been in a gradual state of improvement for half a century past, and had now arrived at a very high degree of perfection, with respect to the beauty, strength, and elegance of our English carriages.” And the most cursory glance at his carefully compiled, if technical book, is evidence enough of the truth of his statement. At this time, indeed, the old flamboyant ornamentation had all but disappeared from the carriages, which were in process of taking on the appearance they largely retain to this day. Most vehicles, it is true, were still hung far higher than those of the nineteenth century—a fact due to the curious, though mistaken, belief, “that a high and short load possessed some mysterious property which made it easier to draw than a long one,” but new principles were being adopted as the result of careful experiments. Prizes were offered by learned societies, and won. Men like Dr. Lovell Edgeworth, who had been experimenting so early as 1768, and had shown that springs—then but little understood—were at least as advantageous to the horses as to the passengers, were at work. But it was only in 1804, when Mr. Obadiah Elliott produced his patent elliptic springs, which rendered unnecessary the old heavy perch, that a definite period in the art of coach-building was clearly marked. Thenceforth the older, cumbrous machines disappeared from the roads and made way for the lighter and more comfortable carriages which were to be seen at the time of Queen Victoria’s accession.

The question of the roads, too, was receiving the attention of experts. Anstice and Edgeworth published the results of their investigations, but were both completely overshadowed by James M’Adam, who about 1810 started those metal roads which have proved so wonderfully successful. Before his time gravel and the like had formed the basis of road-material; M’Adam used granite and other allied substances, and produced such a surface as had not been seen since the Romans had constructed their vast highways hundreds of years before.

Methods of travelling, moreover, were altering. The stage-coaches, useful though they were, disappeared before Palmer’s mail-coaches, which held their supremacy until the era of steam revolutionised locomotion. Post-chaises were still in favour, and less dangerous than of old. Incidentally, the highwaymen were taking to less romantic pursuits. And what is true of England was also in a great measure true of Europe as a whole. North America, too, at this period was providing herself with coachbuilders, who produced distinctive vehicles peculiarly adapted to the conditions of that country.

It was, in fact, a transition period.

We may consider in the first place such types of carriages as already existed. There is a whole catalogue of them, and only one of the older carriages is conspicuously absent. This was the calash—“now almost obsolete for any purpose,” comments Leigh Hunt, and indeed there is hardly a reference to it. But the others still survived, and one characteristic is immediately noticeable; the wheels of almost every sort of carriage at this time were enormously large. Consequently the carriages were generally very long. Crane-neck perches were still used, and what was called an upright spring. A coach of this period, belonging to the museum at South Kensington, is now exhibited in Edinburgh. It was built for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. It has “a large body,” says Thrupp, describing it, “with deep panels, flat-sided, longer on the roof than at the elbow, with windows in the upper quarters; the carriage with two crane perches (easily seen in the accompanying photograph), Berlin fashion, whip springs, and very high wheels. There is no footboard, whilst a hammercloth for the footman is raised upon scroll ironwork, very well made.” Napoleon’s state coach, built at the time of his second marriage, and preserved at Vienna along with a chariot and barouche, is of a somewhat similar pattern. His travelling coach, with all its household contrivances, is now at Madame Tussaud’s exhibition, and must be familiar to all Londoners. Two Spanish coaches of the period are also to be seen at Madrid.

The Lord Chancellor’s coach was of course an exceptional carriage, and Mr. Felton is careful to give details of such lesser coaches as were being made. These he catalogues as a plain coach, a neat ornamental town coach, a landau, a travelling coach, an elegant crane-neck coach, and a vis-À-vis, which last, he says, “is seldom used by any other than persons of high character and fashion.” And, indeed, this particular carriage is to be seen in numerous plates and caricatures of the time.

Coming to the chariots and post-chaises, there is a good example of an English carriage of the kind at South Kensington. This apparently belonged to George III. The photograph gives but a poor idea of the great size of the original. The wheels are taller than an average man, and the length of the carriage is prodigious. The single window on either side is small, the panels are deep, and there is a small platform at the back of the body to carry luggage. A footboard still remains with supports for the driver’s seat that has disappeared.

It was in such a chariot, though even larger than George III’s, that the unhappy King and Queen of France attempted to escape from Paris—that “miserable new Berline,” as Carlyle calls it, which was the very last carriage to be used for such a purpose.

“On Monday night, the Twentieth of June, 1791,” runs Carlyle’s own wonderful account, “about eleven o’clock, there is many a hackney-coach and glass-coach (carrosse de remise), still rumbling, or at rest, on the streets of Paris.” Into one of these glass-coaches steps “a hooded Dame with two hooded Children, a thickset Individual, in round hat and peruke.” The coachman is Fersen himself.

“Dust shall not stick to the hoofs of Fersen: crack! crack! the Glass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on the right road? Northeastward, to the Barrier of Saint Martin and Metz Highway, thither were we bound; and lo, he drives right Northward! The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; but right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant, through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, or the Longhaired Kings went in Bullock-carts, was there such a drive. Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal, dormant; and we alive and quaking! Crack, crack, through the Rue de la ChaussÉe d’Antin,—these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau’s. Towards the Barrier not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost North! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands what he is about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment at Madame Sullivan’s: ‘Did Count Fersen’s Coachman get the Baroness de Korff’s new Berline?’—‘Gone with it an hour-and-half ago’ grumbles responsive but drowsy porter. ‘C’est bien.’ Yes, it is well;—though had but such hour-and-half been lost, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then Eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do!

The Lord Chancellor of Ireland’s Coach

The Lord Chancellor of Ireland’s Coach
(Now in Edinburgh)

“Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping Paris is now all on the right-hand of him; silent except for some snoring hum: and now he is Eastward as far as the Barrier de Saint-Martin; looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff’s Berline. This Heaven’s Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six Horses, his own German Coachman waiting on the box.... The august Glass-Coach fare, six Insides, hastily packs itself into the new Berline; two Bodyguard Couriers behind. The Glass-coach itself is turned adrift, its head towards the City; to wander whither it lists,—and be found next morning in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with its brave new hammer-cloths; flourishing his whip; he bolts forward towards Bondy. There a third and final Bodyguard Courier of ours ought surely to be, with post-horses already ordered. There likewise ought that purchased Chaise, with the two waiting-maids and their band-boxes, to be; whom also her Majesty could not travel without....

“Once more by Heaven’s blessing, it is all well. Here is the sleeping Hamlet of Bondy; Chaise with Waiting-women; horse all ready, and postilions with their churn-boots, impatient in the dewy dawn. Brief harnessing done, the postilions with their churn-boots vault into the saddles; brandish circularly their little noisy whips....

“But scouts, all this while, and aides-de-camp, have flown forth faster than the leathern Diligences....”

The grand new Berline has been seen in the Wood of Bondy.

“Miserable new Berline!” apostrophises Carlyle. “Why could not Royalty go in some old Berline similar to that of other men? Flying for life, one does not stickle about his vehicle. Monsieur, in a commonplace travelling-carriage, is off Northwards; Madame, his Princess, in another, with variation of route; they cross one another while changing horses, without look of recognition; and reach Flanders, no man questioning them....

“All runs along, unmolested, speedy, except only the new Berline. Huge leathern vehicle:—huge Argosy, let us say, or Acapulco-ship; with its heavy stern-boat of Chaise-and-pair; with its three yellow Pilot-boats of mounted Bodyguard Couriers, rocking aimless round it and ahead of it, to bewilder, not to guide! It lumbers along lurchingly with stress, at a snail’s pace; noted of all the world.”

It has indeed been seen, and soldiers rush after it, and the huge Berline is brought back to Paris in what was surely the most terrible procession ever witnessed....

The Korff Berline was probably not built so high as some of the English posting chariots of the time. The perch of these was often more than four feet from the ground. According to Felton you could buy a plain post-chaise for £93, or a neat town chariot for £91. Or you might have a landaulet, a demi-landau, or a sulky, which at this time was “a light carriage built exactly in the form of a post-chaise, chariot, or demi-landau,” and like the vis-À-vis was “contracted on the seat, so that only one person can sit thereon, and is called a sulky from the proprietor’s desire of riding alone.” The landaulet was to the landau as the chariot was to the coach. It was simply a chariot made to open. The hood was of “greasy harness leather, disagreeable to the touch or smell, and continually needing oil and blacking” rubbed into it to keep it supple and black.

Then there was the phaeton, which had lost none of its popularity, and was built as lofty as ever.

“The handsomest mixture of danger with dignity,” wrote Leigh Hunt, “in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with respect in our childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for its name, and partly for the show it makes in the prints to novels of the period. The most gallant figure which modern driving ever cut was in the person of a late Duke of Hamilton; of whom we have read or heard somewhere, that he used to dash round the streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his hounds barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration of the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to witness nothing higher than a lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a mule.”

But far more conspicuous a figure than this Duke of Hamilton was Colonel (Tommy) Onslow, afterwards Lord Cranley, of whom there is a caricature by Gillray, with the following once famous lines:—

The Colonel, however, was surpassed, as we have seen, by Sir John Lade, who drove six greys. George IV, when Prince of Wales, was satisfied with a pair, but his horses were “caparisoned with blue harness stitched with red,” their manes “being plaited with scarlet ribbons, while they wore plumes of feathers on their heads.”

The structure of these phaetons differed. Gillray’s picture shows the body hung midway between the two axles, though he may not have troubled to be exact in this respect. The commonest form was the perch-high phaeton, in which the body was hung directly over the front axle, the hind wheels being much larger than those in front, and the bottom of the body being five feet from the ground. Others were less lofty. In the one-horse phaeton the body was hung over the back axle with “grasshopper” springs, and “was joined to the forecarriage, which was without springs, by wooden stays”—a very different carriage. This in time led to the pony phaeton used by George IV in 1824. Here all idea of great height had been abandoned so as to allow His Majesty to enter his carriage without the fatigue of climbing several steps. Queen Victoria’s pony phaeton was a similar vehicle, and indeed it was from such a carriage that the victoria was evolved at a rather later date.

“What connexion there could be,” wrote Bridges Adams some forty years later in a passage not altogether devoid of epithets, “between this vehicle and the fabled car of the Sun-God, to obtain for it such a title, it is difficult to conceive.... The vehicle looked like a mechanical illustration of the play of Much Ado about Nothing. It was a contrivance to make an enormously high and dangerous seat for two persons, inconvenient to drive from, and at the same time to consume as much material and mix as many unsightly and inharmonious lines as possible. The framework of the carriage was constructed with two iron perches, the outline of which was hideously ugly; but the camel-like hump had at least the mechanical advantage of permitting a higher fore wheel than could otherwise be used. The shape of the body was as though the rudest possible form capable of affording a seat had been put together. An ungraceful form of upright pillar or standard was first selected, into which was framed a horizontal ugly curve for a seat, connected at the top by an ungainly-looking elbow, and a formal serpentine curve behind, from which was projected like an excrescence an ugly leathern box called a sword-case. The front of the upright pillar was continued into a most formal curve, and from its point rose an ungraceful bracket, to support a footboard, on the extreme edge of which was coiled an ugly piece of leather called an apron. The construction of the body was such that it could not possibly hold together by the strength of its own framing; and to remedy this, a curved iron stay was introduced in the worst possible taste.... The fore springs rather resembled the flourishing strokes made by a schoolmaster, when heading a copy-book or Christmas piece, than any legitimate mechanical contrivance; and the motion must have been detestable, rendering the act of driving difficult, and lessening the power of the drivers over their horses. The servant’s seat behind”—not always present—“placed on curved blocks without any springs, completed this extraordinary-looking vehicle. To sit on such a seat, when the horses were going at much speed, would require as much skill as is evinced by a rope-dancer at the theatre.”

Which shows that in 1837, at any rate, people’s ideas had undergone a considerable change with regard to a really fashionable equipage.

The only other four-wheeled vehicle I need mention here was the sociable which, according to Felton, was “merely a phaeton with a double or treble body.” It was made with or without doors, and with or without a driving seat. A good example of this carriage is shown in Gillray’s print The Middlesex Election of 1804.

Coming to the two-wheeled vehicles, the chief of these were the curricle, the gig or chaise, and the whiskey. As a general rule it may be taken that when a gig had two horses it was called a curricle, and when there was only one, a chaise. In the Prince Regent’s time the curricle was “the most stylish of all conveyances.” In shape nearly all these gigs were identical, though one reads that the notorious “Romeo” Coates drove in one whose body was shaped like a shell.44 They were of various heights, a particularly lofty one being known in Ireland as the suicide gig. The caned whiskey was a gig whose body, “fixed upon the shafts—which again were connected with the long horizontal springs by scroll irons,” had a movable hood. The Rib Chair was similar to the whiskey, but without springs. It is really only possible to differentiate properly between these light carriages and the other hybrids, so soon to appear, by means of prints and photographs. To the non-technical mind they are almost identical with each other.

“The prettiest of these vehicles,” Leigh Hunt writes, after confessing that he has no ambition to drive tandem, as was so often done, or to run into danger with a phaeton, “is the curricle, which is also the safest. There is something worth looking at in a pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of steel laid across them. It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmonious course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful gentility. The driver, to all intents and purposes, had better be on the horse.”

I need say very little of the public carriages. There is, however, one point in connection with the later stage-coaches which bears upon the question that was only solved by Obadiah Elliott in 1804. On September 20, 1770, according to the Annual Register, there was an accident to one of them which was growing increasingly common.

“It were greatly to be wished,” runs this account, “the stage coaches were put under some regulations as to the number of persons and quantity of baggage. Thirty-four persons were in and about the Hertford Coach this day when it broke down by one of the braces giving way.”

No wonder it broke down! It is interesting to note, however, that even the more humane stage-coachmen, so far from objecting, as you might imagine they would have done, to such overcrowding, actively encouraged it and for a very odd reason. At this time springs of a kind were being applied to the coaches, which consequently travelled with greater ease than before, but the coaches themselves happened also to be built very high, like all other vehicles, and nothing could convince the silly coachmen that the easy running was not due to a heavy load being applied to the top of a high carriage. It became necessary, therefore, to pass legislation, which was accordingly done in 1785 and again in 1790, restricting the number of passengers allowed.

At this time, too, Mr. John Palmer’s first diligence, or mail-coach, had appeared as a quick and cheap method of carrying letters, and these mail-coaches very rapidly took the fancy of passengers. Palmer, however, was a man with great powers of organisation, and before the new century had dawned, had his coaches running upon every high road in the country.45

“The mail coaches,” wrote a French nobleman after visiting this country at the beginning of the new century, “afford means of travelling with great celerity into all parts of England. They are Berlins, firm and light, holding four persons; they carry only letters, and do not take charge of any luggage. They are drawn by four horses, and driven by one coachman; they travel never less than seven to eight miles an hour.”

One or two particular inventions may also be noted. This same nobleman, continuing his account, says:—

“Stage Coaches are very numerous, they are kept in every City, and even in small towns; all these carriages have small wheels, and hold six persons, without reckoning the outside passengers. About twenty years ago a carriage was invented in the form of a gondola; it is long, and will hold sixteen persons sitting face to face; the door is behind, and this plan ought to be generally adopted, as the only means of escaping a great danger when the horses run away. What adds to the singularity of these carriages is, that they have eight wheels; thus dividing equally the weight, they are less liable to be overturned, or cut up the roads; they are, besides, very low and easy.

“When these long coaches first appeared at Southampton, a City much frequented in summer by rich inhabitants of London, who go there to enjoy sea bathing, they had (as every new thing has) a great run, so that it was nearly impossible to get a place in them.

“One of the principal Innkeepers, jealous of this success, set up another, and, to obtain the preference, he reduced the fare to half-price, at that time a guinea. In order to defeat this manoeuvre, the first proprietor made a still greater reduction, so that, at last, the receipts did not cover the expenses. But the two rivals did not stop here; for one of them announced that he would take nothing of gentlemen who might honour him by choosing his Coach, but he would beg them to accept a bottle of Port before their departure.”

But not even such a temptation seems to have made these long coaches a success.

The other innovation, though properly belonging to a slightly later date, was the patent coach invented by the Reverend William Milton. He explained his coach in a letter to Sir John Sinclair.46

“Permit me, Sir, to explain, in a few words, the nature of my invention.—In a stage-coach, an overturn is rendered much less likely to happen, by placing as much as possible of the heavy luggage of each journey, in a luggage-box below the body of the carriage; the body not being higher than usual. This brings down the centre of gravity of the total coach and load (a point which at present, at every inequality of the road and change of quarter, vacillates most dangerously), it brings it down to a place of great comparative safety.

“To prevent the fatal and disastrous consequences of breaking down, there are placed, at the sides or corners of this luggage-box, small strong idle wheels, with their periphery below its floor; ready, in case of a wheel coming off or breaking, or an axle-tree failing, to catch the falling carriage, and instantly to continue its previous velocity; thereby preventing that sudden stop to rapid motion, which at present constantly attends the breaking down, and which has so frequently proved fatal to the coachman and outside passengers.—The bottom of this luggage-box is meant to be about twelve or thirteen inches from the ground, and the idle wheels seven, six, or five. If at a less distance still, no inconvenience will result; for when either of them takes over an obstacle in the road, it instantly, and during the need, discharges its respective active wheel from the ground, and works in its stead.”

Several coaches were built to Mr. Milton’s specifications, but like so many other patent coaches they were speedily forgotten.

It is only necessary to add here that about 1800 “outside passengers were first enabled to ride on the roofs of coaches without incurring the imminent hazard of being thrown off whenever their vigilance and their anxious grip relaxed.” For it was then, says Mr. Harper, “that fore and hind boots, framed to the body of the coach, became general, thus affording foothold to the outsides. Mail coaches were not the cause of this change, for they originally carried no passengers on the roof. We cannot fix the exact date of this improvement,” he adds, “and may suppose that in common with every other innovation, it was gradual, and only introduced when new coaches became necessary on the various routes. The immediate result was to democratise coach-travelling.”

On the other hand, it became a common practice amongst the smart youths of the day to drive the stage-coaches themselves. So we read in a paper of this time:—

“The education of our youth of fashion is improving daily: several of them now drive Stage Coaches to town, and open the door of the Carriage for passengers, while the coachman remains on the box. They farm the perquisites from the Coachman on the road, and generally pocket something into the bargain.”

Which was, according to the writer, “a fit subject for ridicule on any stage.”

The post-chaises were as ubiquitous as ever. The French nobleman, from whose book I have already quoted, entered one so soon as he landed at Dover.

“The Post,” he records, “is not, as on the Continent, an establishment dependent upon the Government; individuals undertake this business; most of the inns keep Post Chaises; they are good Carriages with four wheels, shut close, the same kind as we call in France diligences de ville. They hold three persons in the back with ease are narrow, extremely light; well hung, and appear the more easy, because the roads are not paved with stone. The postilions wear a jacket with sleeves, tight boots, and, altogether, their dress is light, and extremely neat; and they are not only civil, but even respectful. On your arrival at the Inn, you are shown into a good room, where a fire is kept in winter, and tea is ready every hour of the day. In five minutes at most, another Chaise is ready for your departure. If we compare these customs with those of Germany, or particularly in the North, where you must often wait whole hours to change horses, in a dirty room, heated by an iron stove, the smell of which is suffocating; or even those of France, where the most part of the post-houses, not being Inns, have no accommodation for travellers, it is evident that the advantage is not in favour of the Continent.”

Indeed, England at this time was superior to most European countries so far as her posting-carriages and roads were concerned. Leigh Hunt, in expressing his delight of them, was only following in the wake of Johnson and the others who had always enjoyed their cross-country rides.

“A post-chaise,” he says, “involves the idea of travelling which, in company of those we love, is home in motion. The smooth running along the road, the fresh air, the variety of scene, the leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the clatter through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the hearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise waiting only upon your own movements), even the little contradictions to home-comfort, and the expedients upon which they set us, all put the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the road of life. If anything could grind us young again, it would be the wheels of a post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the postilion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a box, and his affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its exquisite want of accommodation. But some have given the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and flattened it a little into something obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat.”

Prints of these post-chaises are common. Rowlandson, in particular, loved to draw them. Gillray, too, shows the post-chaise in Scotland and Ireland, where apparently things were not quite so easy as in England. The Scottish post-chaise is shown breaking to pieces, and the Irish chaise is little better than a wreck, with the body held together by a piece of rope, with hardly a spoke left to the wheels, and a roof put roughly together of thatched straw. The unfortunate lady inside has put one foot through the panelling and another through the floor, which reminds one that it was of an Irish post-chaise that the famous story of the poor man who had to run with the carriage because the bottom had fallen out was originally told.

It remains to consider a few particular eighteenth-century carriages of other countries.

Mr. Stratton thinks that the Indians of North America had rude litters at an early date. The Incas of Peru certainly possessed magnificently decorated sedans or palanquins, in which they progressed through their kingdom. It was not, however, until the seventeenth century that wheeled carriages appeared in America. Sir Thomas Browne quotes from an English traveller’s book, which states that by the middle of this century there were at least twenty thousand coaches in Mexico, and possibly this was true. But into North America carriages filtered but slowly. There had been coaches in Boston so early as 1669, and in Connecticut in 1685. William Penn, writing to Logan in 1700, bids his servants have the coach ready. The calash was also known at that time, but being “clumsy” was less popular than the French cabriolet or gig, which had been brought over by the Huguenots, and rapidly transformed into the well-known one-horse shay, which in its turn was supplanted by the more comfortable and certainly more distinctive buggy.

Bennet, travelling in America in 1740, saw many carriages in Boston.

“There are several families,” he records, “in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so common in London.... The country carts and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according to the distance, or the burden they are laden with.”

A Boston advertisement of 1743 mentions “a very handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroidered with silver, and a silk fringe round the seat.” This was offered for sale by John Lucas, a local coachbuilder, and had most probably been built by him.

At this time several stage-coaches were running, and the shay was being used by even the poorer folk. A Philadelphian advertisement of 1746 speaks of “two very handsome chairs, with very good geers,” and at this time, too, the Italian chairs and curricles were also popular. They were generally driven tandem.

Even more distinctive than the shay, however, was the coachee, which is described by Isaac Weld in his travels (1795):—

“The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There are two seats in it for passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let down from the roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The light wagons are in the same construction,” he adds, “and are calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The wagon has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they can over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally for stage-coaches.”

The American stage-waggon is also described by another Englishman, Thomas Twining, who visited the country in 1795.

“The vehicle,” says he, “was a long car with four benches. Three of these in the interior held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was seated by the side of the driver on the front bench. A light roof was supported by eight slender pillars, four on each side. Three large leather curtains suspended to the roof, one at each side and the third behind, were rolled up or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. There was no place nor space for luggage, each person being expected to stow his things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in front over the driver’s bench. Of course, the three passengers on the back seat were obliged to crawl across all the other benches to get to their places. There were no backs to the benches to support and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing journey over a newly and ill-made road.”

The body of these public carriages was high, and the back wheels were larger than those in front. A somewhat similar conveyance is still used to-day in some of the northern districts of Australia.

The commonest vehicle in Russia at this time seems to have been the taranta, which is described as “a travelling carriage whose body resembles a flat-bottomed punt.” The natives apparently considered that it was a very comfortable carriage, and it certainly could hold a great quantity of luggage and wraps, but the foreigners using it did not always express a similar opinion.

“We travelled certainly with speed,” says Madame Pfeiffer of the taranta, in her Journey round the World, “but any one who had not a body of iron, or a well-cushioned spring carriage, would not find this very agreeable, and would certainly prefer to travel slower upon these uneven, bad roads. The post-carriage, for which ten kopecs a station is paid, is nothing more than a very short wooden open car, with four wheels. Instead of a seat some hay is laid in it, and there is just room enough for a small chest, upon which the driver sits. These cars naturally jolt very much. There is nothing to take hold of, and it requires some care to avoid being thrown out. The draught consists of three horses abreast; over the centre one a wooden arch is fixed, on which hang two or three bells, which continually made a most disagreeable noise. In addition to this, imagine the rattling of the carriage, and the shouting of the driver, who is always in great activity urging on the poor animals, and it may be easily understood that, as is often the case, the carriage arrives at the station without the travellers.”

Even less “genteel” than the taranta was the kibitka, “a common posting-waggon,” according to Stratton, “consisting of a huge frame of unhewn sticks, fastened firmly upon two axles, the fore part of it having underneath a solid block of hard wood, on which it rests, elevating it so as to allow the wheels to play.”

Other Russian carriages were the teleka, the telashka, and the better-known droitzschka, or, as it was known in England, drosky—an improvement originally of the sledge by the mere addition of springs and wheels. In Norway the carriole was very similar to the original French gig, and like the char-À-cote of Switzerland, was long and narrow and peculiarly adapted for mountainous countries. But in nearly all the colder regions, wheel carriages were scarcely used at all, the snow making some kind of sledge far more convenient. Captain King, in his Journey across Asia, gives a detailed description of the sledges then in use (1784) in Kamtschatka.

“The body of the sledge,” he says, “is about four feet and a half long and a foot wide, made in the form of a crescent, of light, tough wood, strongly bound together with wicker-work; which in those belonging to the better sort of people is elegantly stained of a red and blue colour, and the seat covered with bear-skins, or other furs. It is supported by four legs, about two feet high, which rest on two long flat pieces of wood, extending a foot at each end beyond the body of the sledge. These are turned up before, in the manner of a skate, and shod with the bone of some sea animal. The fore part of the carriage is ornamented with thongs of leather and tassels of coloured cloth; and from the cross-bar, to which the harness is joined, are hung links of iron, or small bells, the jingling of which they conceive to be encouraging to the dogs. They are seldom used to carry more than one person at a time, who sits aside [? astride], resting his feet on the lower part of the sledge, and carrying his provisions and other necessaries, wrapped up in a bundle, behind him. The dogs are usually five in number, yoked two and two, with a leader. The reins not being fastened to the head of the dogs, but to the collar, have little power over them, and are therefore generally hung upon the sledge, whilst the driver depends entirely on their obedience to his voice for the direction of them.... The driver is also provided with a crooked stick, which answers the purpose both of whip and reins; as by striking it into the snow, he is enabled to moderate the speed of the dogs, or even to stop them entirely.... Our party consisted in all of ten sledges. That in which Captain Gore was carried, was made of two lashed together, and abundantly provided with furs and bear-skins; it had ten dogs, yoked four abreast, as had also some of those that were heavy laden with baggage.”

In Europe and North America these sledges were also used, and could be highly ornamented. Two of this kind, narrow and low, may be seen at South Kensington. They are mentioned by several travellers. Edward Wright, visiting Amsterdam in 1719, had seen “several coach-bodies drawn upon sledges,” and explained that the inhabitants did not use wheels “to avoid shaking the foundations of the houses.” Holcroft, too, at the end of the century, journeyed from Hamburg to Paris by way of Holland, and did not hide his surprise at the appearance of these sledges.

“And pray, sir, what are you?” he asks in the Shandean manner. “We never saw so staring or so strange an animal before.”

“’Tis a tropical bird, on a mast.”

“Can it be? A coach without wheels? Yes: dragged on a sledge by a single horse, and a lady in it.”

Holcroft also noticed in Amsterdam what he called “a travelling haberdasher’s shop with wheels, rolled through the streets by its master.” This appears to have been some sort of light travelling booth. In Paris itself, he records, “there is scarcely a street which is not so narrow as to be extremely dangerous to foot passengers. They are rendered more so at some times by the extreme carelessness, and at others by the brutal insolence, of coachmen. There is no foot pavement; and the only guard against carriages is formed by large stones placed at certain distances, but close to the wall.” In Germany, too, he found little to please him, and warns Englishmen against bringing English-built carriages into that country, for of a surety they will be “broken up.” England, indeed, about this time, seems to have been by far the most progressive country as regards locomotion.