hailed from the shore by the familiar cries of Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho! and their ranks furnished at least one writer who has been designated by the courtesy of time a poet.
Though I have referred to the improvement of roads they were still in many parts of the country little better than uninclosed tracks, frequently rutted by the lumbering wheels of the recently introduced coaches, muddy, and full of holes. Travel was often altogether prohibited by flooded rivers. Besides the new coaches, horse litters and carriers' carts were occasionally to be met upon the road. In general, however, goods were transported upon pack-horses, and people fared from place to place in the saddle. A man accompanied by wife or daughter carried her behind him on a pillion. Travel, too, was unsafe, for the road was likely to be infested by robbers. Men rode together in parties for mutual protection, each accompanied by one or more domestic servants, all the party fully armed and ready to draw at a moment's notice. On arrival at an inn each person had to look with care to the provision of his horse and the bestowal of his luggage; for only too often the drawers and other domestic servants of country inns were in league with the neighbouring highwaymen.
From an account published about 1610 (see
