successful generals when they rode in triumph through Rome to celebrate their victories. This triumphal car was usually drawn by four white horses, but very often by lions, elephants, tigers, bears, leopards, or dogs.

ROMAN TRAVELLING CARRIAGE.

Other vehicles for more everyday use were to be seen in the streets of ancient cities, and in the paved roadways of Pompeii are deep ruts made by the wheels of chariots nearly two thousand years ago.

ROMAN LITTER AND MOUNTING STOOL.

Litters were also used at that time, and Pliny calls them "travellers' chambers." They were borne on shafts, and special slaves used to act as bearers. Roman ladies often travelled in covered carriages called carpenta, which were gorgeously decorated.

During the mediæval ages carriages fell into disuse, or were only employed by women and invalids, or by kings and princes on ceremonial occasions. Charlemagne had a wonderful vehicle with richly ornamented wheels and an inlaid roof supported by columns, and the Crusaders on their march had with them large wagons for their baggage.

In the fourteenth century new conveyances called whirlicotes and charettes were used. When King Richard II. married Anne of Denmark, the new queen entered London accompanied by her maids of honour, who drove in charettes, which were wagons with benches, painted red and lined with scarlet cloth. On London Bridge were crowds of people anxious to see the royal bride. In the confusion, one of the charettes was overturned and the ladies thrown to the ground.

Litters very much like those of Roman days were still to be seen in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At her coronation Queen Elizabeth of York, dressed in white and with her golden hair loose over her shoulders, was carried through London in a rich litter, with a canopy over her head borne by four Knights of the Bath.

Anne Boleyn, in 1553, was carried to her coronation in a litter covered with cloth of gold, and the two horses that supported it were clothed in white damask.

EARLY SIDE-SADDLE.

During the Middle Ages vehicles were so few because the roads were very bad, and in many places there were only rough bridle-paths from one town to another. Riding was, therefore, the principal means of transit, and horses, mules, and donkeys were used. Very large horses, the ancestors of our present cart-horses, were ridden by the knights, for a warrior in heavy mail could only be carried by a strong animal. This was especially the case when it was necessary for the horse itself to be also clothed in metal armour.

The ladies also rode, and side-saddles were first introduced into England by Anne of Bohemia, the wife of Richard II. These saddles were very different from those of the present day, for they were like chairs placed sideways on the horses' backs.

Pack-horses were much used in mediæval times, and pictures show us long trains of these animals, each with its heavy load, wending their way along the rough, narrow pathways of old England.

CHAPTER II
COACHING DAYS

Coaching days! The words carry us back a hundred years or more, and bring to our minds gay, romantic pictures of scarlet-clad postilions, prancing horses, and a rosy-faced driver with his long whip and quaint three-tiered cape. We seem to hear the merry sound of the horns, the ring of hoofs, and the rattle of harness, as the coach, with its passengers and piled baggage, clatters along a broad high road or draws up at the open door of some old-fashioned English inn. Those are the eighteenth-century days that we call to mind, the days when coaching was at its height, but we must go further back than that if we want to find the origin of this form of conveyance, and to see how it developed out of the clumsy wagons and quaint whirlicotes and charettes of mediæval times.

We first hear of coaches in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and they are said to have been introduced into England in 1594 by a coachman who was a native of Holland.

There is an old picture of the great queen riding in one of her new equipages on some state occasion. It was open at the sides, had a high roof decorated with waving plumes, and was drawn by two richly caparisoned horses.

A MEDIÆVAL COACH.

At first, it appears, coaches were reserved for the use of royalty, but Stowe tells us that "after a while divers great ladies made them coaches and rid in them up and down the country, to the great admiration of all beholders." He goes on to say that within twenty years coach-making became an important trade in England.

AN OLD FAMILY COACH.

These coaches were very different from those of later times, for they were open at the sides and the wheels were very small and low. In shape they were not unlike the state coach that is still used at coronations and other great occasions.

RIDING PILLION FASHION.

During the seventeenth century many alterations and improvements took place in coach-building both in England and France, and in 1620 we find Louis XIV. driving in a carriage with glass sides. In the reign of this monarch, too, a curious light two-wheeled conveyance was introduced. It was called a flignette and very much resembled a modern dog-cart.

SEDAN CHAIR.

In the eighteenth century greater progress was made as roads improved. Sedan chairs came into use, and ladies rode pillion fashion, sitting on a cushion behind the saddle of the horseman.

POST-CHAISE.

Hired carriages, too, began to be