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Updated: May 23, 2025
There were no roads, in those days, along that valley of the upper Maumee, merely faint bridle-paths, following ancient Indian trails through dense woods or across narrow strips of prairie land; yet as I hung the gourd back on its wooden peg, and lifted my eyes carelessly to the northward, I saw a horseman riding slowly toward the house along the river bank.
The little trade which existed between one part of the kingdom and another was carried on by means of packhorses, along roads little better than bridle-paths. These horses travelled in lines, with the bales or panniers strapped across their backs. The foremost horse bore a bell or a collar of bells, and was hence called the "bell-horse."
We pushed on, following bridle-paths, and making toward Dinwiddie Court-House. Half an hour thus passed, and we were near the Roney's Bridge road, when, suddenly, the whole forest on our right blazed with shots. Loud shouts accompanied the firing. The woods crackled as horsemen rushed through them. An obstinate fight was going on in the darkness, between the Federal and Confederate cavalry.
He and Mary had bumped over fir roots and scuttled down bridle-paths in the pony-carriage, to avoid the rush of flame and smoke; had skirmished round at a hand gallop, in search of recruits to reinforce Ormiston, and Iles, and a small army of beaters, battling against the blazing line that threatened destruction to the fir avenue.
"We'd never see them here, if it were not for these sin verguenzas may a bad lightning split them! who take money to show them the bridle-paths," the country-man explained. "I'd like to guide them once. I'd lead them into a swamp and leave them to sink in the mud, then I'd go back and cut off their heads. Ha! That would be a satisfaction, now, wouldn't it?"
Whether Kensington Gardens, now sacred to nursery-maids and their charges, and a few loungers, couldn't be opened up with one or two good rides right across, and a few intersecting bridle-paths, after the fashion of the Bois de Boulogne, and thus relieve the monotony of the Row, which is getting more and more Rotten after every shower, and more and more crowded every summer?
In the South one would find plenty of bridle-paths, for there everybody goes horseback, and there are few passable roads; and the hunters and lumbermen of the North have their trails through the forest following a line of blazed trees; but in all my acquaintance with the country, the rural and agricultural sections, I do not know a pleasant, inviting path leading from house to house, or from settlement to settlement, by which the pedestrian could shorten or enliven a journey, or add the charm of the seclusion of the fields to his walk.
The trees are as thick as a canebrake, the avenues are lost in the dusk; there are lakes and canals almost hidden by the verdure of the banks; rustic bridges, the crossways of unfrequented bridle-paths, shady recesses; and over all a cool, refreshing shade in which one seems to breathe the air of virginal nature and to be far removed from the turmoil of the world.
The land was stern and forbidding: canons deep and damp raised dripping walls to the sky; bridle-paths skirted ledges that were bold and fearsome, or lost themselves in gloomy jungles as noisome as Spanish dungeons. Hidden away in these fastnesses, the rebel Government had established its capital.
From a high hill, from which the city was in plain view, I could see the San Juan Hill and the country about El Caney. The roads were very poor, and, indeed, little better than bridle-paths until the San Juan River and El Caney were reached.
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