The Life of Thomas Telford | Page 5

in the course of his life, were the great highways constructed by him in North Wales and the Scotch Highlands, through districts formerly almost inaccessible, but which are now as easily traversed as any English county.
By means of these roads, and the facilities afforded by railways, the many are now enabled to visit with ease and comfort magnificent mountain scenery, which before was only the costly privilege of the few; at the same time that their construction has exercised a most beneficial influence on the population of the districts themselves.
The Highland roads, which were constructed with the active assistance of the Government, and were maintained partly at the public expense until within the last few years, had the effect of stimulating industry, improving agriculture, and converting a turbulent because unemployed population into one of the most loyal and well-conditioned in the empire;-- the policy thus adopted with reference to the Highlands, and the beneficial results which have flowed from it, affording the strongest encouragement to Government in dealing in like manner with the internal communications of Ireland.
While the construction of the Highland roads was in progress, the late Robert Southey, poet laureate, visited the Highlands in company with his friend the engineer, and left on record an interesting account of his visit, in a, manuscript now in the possession of Robert Rawlinson, C.E., to whom we are indebted for the extracts which are made from it in the present volume.
London, October, 1867.
EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING.
CHAPTER I.
OLD ROADS.
Roads have in all times been among the most influential agencies of society; and the makers of them, by enabling men readily to communicate with each other, have properly been regarded as among the most effective pioneers of civilization.
Roads are literally the pathways not only of industry, but of social and national intercourse. Wherever a line of communication between men is formed, it renders commerce practicable; and, wherever commerce penetrates, it creates a civilization and leaves a history.
Roads place the city and the town in connection with the village and the farm, open up markets for field produce, and provide outlets for manufactures. They enable the natural resources of a country to be developed, facilitate travelling and intercourse, break down local jealousies, and in all ways tend to bind together society and bring out fully that healthy spirit of industry which is the life and soul of every nation.
The road is so necessary an instrument of social wellbeing, that in every new colony it is one of the first things thought of. First roads, then commerce, institutions, schools, churches, and newspapers. The new country, as well as the old, can only be effectually "opened up," as the common phrase is, by roads and until these are made, it is virtually closed.
Freedom itself cannot exist without free communication,--every limitation of movement on the part of the members of society amounting to a positive abridgment of their personal liberty. Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providing the greatest possible facilities for locomotion and information, are essential for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest as well as the richest.
By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce the inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizing the price of commodities, to that extent they render them accessible to all. Without their assistance, the concentrated populations of our large towns could neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumentality an immense range of country is brought as it were to their very doors, and the sustenance and employment of large masses of people become comparatively easy.
In the raw materials required for food, for manufactures, and for domestic purposes, the cost of transport necessarily forms a considerable item; and it is clear that the more this cost can be reduced by facilities of communication, the cheaper these articles become, and the more they are multiplied and enter into the consumption of the community at large.
Let any one imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads, railways, and canals of England. The country would be brought to a dead lock, employment would be restricted in all directions, and a large proportion of the inhabitants concentrated in the large towns must at certain seasons inevitably perish of cold and hunger.
In the earlier periods of English history, roads were of comparatively less consequence. While the population was thin and scattered, and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently answered their purpose. Yet even in those districts unencumbered with wood, where the first settlements were made--as on the downs of Wiltshire, the moors of Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire--stone tracks were laid down by the tribes between one village and another. We have given here, a representation of one of those ancient trackways