seen in the streets of Paris, and in 1625 they appeared in London. Very few of them were allowed at first, but in 1634 an old sea-captain named Baily established a stand for hackney coaches near the Maypole in the Strand, and by the end of the century there were no fewer than eight hundred of these vehicles in the City and suburbs.

IN THE WILD WEST.

Stage coaches to carry both passengers and mails were the next innovation, and they were soon running regularly during summer on three of the principal high roads of England.

Nowadays, when we can travel from one end of the country to the other in a few hours, we should think the old conveyances very slow coaches indeed, but at the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth centuries they were thought marvels of swiftness. It took a week—only a week, people said then—to go from London to York, and the journey to Manchester could actually be made in four days.

In Hogarth's pictures we can see what an early stage coach was like, with its large, clumsy wheels, high roof, and an enormous basket at the back in which baggage was carried and where passengers who wished to travel cheaply could sit. Later on this basket developed into an extra back seat, and in a picture painted in 1834 there is a coach with no less than three separate compartments, besides having seats on the roof.

In 1784 sixteen coaches left London every day, and it was one of the sights of the City to see them start from the General Post Office on their journeys. Each vehicle had an armed guard, for those were the days of highwaymen, and it was no uncommon thing for travellers to be stopped and robbed by gentlemen of the road.

Dick Turpin was one of these thieves, and for a long time he terrorised Epping Forest and the outskirts of London, and another famous—or infamous—robber was the young Frenchman Claud Duval, about whom many romantic tales are told. On one occasion he returned the jewels that he had stolen from a beautiful lady, on condition that she would descend from her carriage and dance a measure with him on the open road.

It is difficult now to realise what our highways were like a hundred years ago and more, when coaching was at its height. Then the great roads were crowded with traffic, post-chaises, stage wagons, and pack-horses. Now it is sad to see the same roads narrowed to half their former width by broad borders of grass that have been allowed to grow.

In those days there were many private travelling carriages besides the public coaches. A most interesting one is now in London at Madame Tussaud's. This is the wonderful coach which belonged to Napoleon Buonaparte. In it the great emperor rode back from Russia after the burning of Moscow, and later on from Cannes to Paris on his triumphal progress through France in 1815.

It is said that Napoleon himself designed the fittings of this carriage, for it contained everything necessary for a long journey, and was intended to serve the purpose of a bedroom, a dining-room, and a kitchen. The coach was captured by a German officer after the Battle of Waterloo, the emperor making his escape on horseback; and having been purchased by a man named Bullock, it was exhibited through the whole of the United Kingdom.

Gradually, as time went on, railways superseded the picturesque old coaches. They continued to be used, however, in less civilised countries, and can still be seen in the wild forest districts of Australia, New Zealand, and America.

In the early pioneer days of the United States these coaches, with their loads of passengers and mails, sometimes encountered bands of Red Indians in their journeys across the prairies, and there are stories of terrible disasters and narrow escapes when the travellers were pursued and attacked by the savages.

Those exciting times have passed away now, but coaches have not entirely disappeared. In Hyde Park on Sunday mornings before the War we could see the beautiful vehicles of the Four-in-hand Club to remind us of how our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers travelled in the merry—but, perhaps, rather dangerous—days of old.

CHAPTER III
STRANGE VEHICLES OF EUROPE

It is not only in the far-away countries of the world that we must travel in order to discover curious conveyances. Some are to be seen quite near at home, even in England itself. We must remember that as a rule it is because things are unfamiliar that they seem quaint and curious, so let us try to imagine for a few moments that we are natives of some distant land who have come to pay a visit to Great Britain.

We land at Dover, perhaps, or Newhaven, and go along the coast until we come to Brighton. It is quite a commonplace seaside town, no doubt, but, in our characters of observant foreigners, we shall notice many interesting things, and among them are several extraordinary little vehicles which are drawn up in a row along the parade.

What can they be, these tiny carriages, each with its wheels, shafts, and box-seat complete? Then we see that instead of a pony or donkey, the little conveyances are drawn by shaggy, long-horned goats.

SEASIDE CARRIAGE DRAWN BY GOAT.

The stranger stares with amusement at the dainty goat-chaises as they drive away filled with merry loads of children. Then he travels up to London and goes for a stroll in one of the poorer districts of the great city.

It is a Bank Holiday perhaps, or a fine Saturday in the summer-time, and the costermongers are off in their donkey-carts for a day's outing on Hampstead Heath. What a noise and clatter there is as the heavily laden little vehicles trot past, the donkeys looking so smart with their well-groomed coats and bright harness, and the drivers in the festive costumes decorated with pearl buttons that, surely, no foreign city in the world can rival!

We leave Whitechapel or the Old Kent Road behind us now, and journey out into the country, where, in some narrow green lane or on a breezy common, we overtake a yellow-painted gipsy van, hung about with baskets and brooms, and drawn by a sturdy, sleepy old horse. The owner of the van walks at his horse's head, or sits comfortably on the shaft, and through a little muslin-curtained window we catch a glimpse of his wife's dark face and long earrings. The gipsy children, ragged, bright-eyed urchins, lag behind, gathering flowers from the hedges, or run through the dust of the road to beg for pennies.

Certainly England has its own share of strange vehicles, and there are others even more curious still to be seen in out-of-the-way districts. One of these is the two-wheeled cart used for farm-work in some parts of Wales, which, in shape, is almost exactly like the ancient chariots that were found in Britain by the Roman invaders when they landed between Walmer and Sandwich nearly two thousand years ago.

Across St. George's Channel the quaint-looking Irish jaunting car is to be found, and then we travel back again to the continent of Europe. If we landed at Ostend or Antwerp before the War, most likely the first