Then there are the sandy roads of the pine barrens . . the ridge road, running parallel with a part of Lake Ontario. . . Lastly there is the corduroy road, happily of rare occurrence, where, if the driver is merciful to his passengers, he drives them so as to give them the association of being on the way to a funeral, their involuntary sobs on each jolt helping the resemblance; or, if he be in a hurry, he shakes them like pills in a pill-box. I was never upset in a stage but once . ; and the worse the roads were, the more I was amused at the variety of devices by which we got on, through difficulties which appeared insurmountable, and the more I was edified at the gentleness with which our drivers treated female fears and fretfulness."[1]
Perhaps it was of the Virginian roads here mentioned that Thomas Moore wrote:
"Dear George! though every bone is aching,
After the shaking
I've had this week, over ruts and ridges,
And bridges,
Made of a few uneasy planks,
- ↑ Retrospect of Western Travel, vol. i, pp. 88–89.
