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For thousands of years, in the roadless stages of man's development, the difficulties arising from the wearing of the hoof were not serious, for the creatures trod either on turf-covered plains or on the soft ways of the desert.
Our commissary wagon was supplied with flour, bacon, coffee, tea, sugar, rice, salt, and so forth; rations estimated to last for five or six months, if necessary; also medical supplies, and whatever else we could carry to meet the probable necessities and the possible casualties of the journey; with the view of traveling tediously but patiently over a country of roadless plains and mountains, crossing deserts and fording rivers; meanwhile cooking, eating and sleeping on the ground as we should find it from day to day.
There is no guide-book to Morocco, and no way of knowing, once one has left Tangier behind, where the long trail over the Rif is going to land one, in the sense understood by any one accustomed to European certainties. The air of the unforeseen blows on one from the roadless passes of the Atlas.
In a roadless country, where labour is scarce and dear, the conveyance of goods from place to place is a difficult matter. It can be done, of course, but the cost of it is frightful. Our old schoolfellow, who, by the way, will be known under the appellation of "Old Colonial" in these pages, had apparently had some experience of new-chums before.
Under primitive conditions, with lands almost roadless and communications slow, difficult and costly, the various districts of any country had of necessity to produce articles of food and clothing to satisfy their requirements, or they had to go without. With the progress of invention, and with the opening up of the world by roads and canals, a totally different state of things presents itself.
How many men pass me on the road bound on missions of life or death, yet serene and placid as the mediæval saints who stand in their niches in some cathedral at home. Let me recall a few fellow-wayfarers and pass along the roadless way in their company once again.
Samar has scarcely any other means of communication besides the navigation of the coast and rivers, the interior being roadless; and burdens have to be conveyed on the shoulders. A strong man will carry an arroba and a half daily for a distance of six leagues for a whole week.
Now there is a highway cometh into this road from out of the tilled country and Appleham, a good town, and goeth through it toward the tillage, and the City of the Bridges and the liberties thereof; and all the land is much builded and plentiful; but, if thou wilt, we will not take either highway, but wend over the downland which lieth north-east of Upham, and though it be roadless, yet is it not ill- going, and I know it well and its watering-places, little dales and waters therein all running north-east, wherein be certain little thorps here and there, which shall refresh us mightily.
On we travelled from day to day, meeting with such difficulties and dangers as are common on roadless veld in Africa, but no more, for the grass was good and there was plenty of game, of which we shot what we wanted for meat.
The fence did not put in its appearance, neither did a house nor a path, nor anything else which would make it different from the sky-covered plain that it was. It persisted in being itself, world without end, amen. But there was nothing to do but walk; and she kept on with her footsteps till the operation became monotonous. Still that roadless scene was unmoved.
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