How the World Travels

								

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 medi�val 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.


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 medi�val 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