EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS
1778 to 1793, Ferdinand opened various carriage roads for traffic between province and province and from the interior to the sea. But these were only main thoroughfares. In fact, throughout all the rest of the kingdom cross-roads and means of intercommunication were lacking almost everywhere.
Sicily was, if possible, even worse provided with means of communication: "There were, in 1852, just 750 miles of carriage-road in the whole island. Even the two chief cities, Palermo and Messina, were not linked by any continuous highway, for the middle part of the connexion was 'a mule track 42 miles long.' Travellers, therefore, went from the east to the west of the island by sea, except a few of the richer and more adventurous English tourists, who rode over the rough tracks, taking their own tents and provisions, for the food and lodging that could be obtained from the natives appear to have been more intolerable than they are to-day."[1]
The state of the roads in Sicily may be judged by a single significant fact. In 1734, Charles of Bourbon had occasion to go from the mainland to Palermo, but he proceeded all the way by sea, "as the proposal of a land journey was frustrated by the rugged nature of the country, which was wild and almost uninhabited."[2] Obviously, the average eighteenth-century tourist could not hope to travel more easily than a prince in his own dominions.
IV
Germany
The roads of Germany were notoriously bad. Complaints about them were incessant; and although much labor was spent upon them in the later years of the eighteenth century,[3] there was so much to be done that the comments of tourists were justly severe.[4] In the eighteenth century, as in our time, Germany had great and splendid cities, but not until 1753 was the first scientifically constructed road
49
- ↑ Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, p. 146.
- ↑ Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734–1843, i, 49.
- ↑ Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 405.
- ↑ Incidents like the following were common, and this is from the year 1794, on the road between Coblenz and Ems: "Turning short by the corner of a hedge, one of our horses fell into a deep slough, in which the wheels of our carriage on the left side were instantly buried." Cogan, The Rhine, ii, 78.
