THE GENESIS OF ROADS.
TN the chorus of criticism of our roads uttered by the owners of autoca,rs at the present moment no place has been found for philosophising on the subject of roads in the abstract. The British public looks on them as part of the machinery of Nature which we are bound to keep in repair, but were not responsible for in the first instance, a view for which we are perhaps indebted to the promiscuous and eccentric course of the roads themselves, which in their windings and absence of directness certainly do not remind as that they are human creations, but resemble far more some
such natural highway as a river or mountain defile. If they ran straight, as most roads do in France, we should be less in danger of forgetting that they are the work of men's hands. The Saxons must, we fear, be held almost entirely responsible for the spoiling of the Roman road system, which they "took on" as a going concern, just as other conquerors of portions of the Empire did. The "brig frith" just kept the Roman bridges in repair, for which they raised one of the few taxes which the happy Anglo-Saxon landowner had to pay ; but it is pretty certain that they never made any new good and straight roads on the old model, or we should have some record. As a matter of fact, the Saxon was a most inveterate path-maker, almost as bad as the natives of Central Africa, who have netted all Central Africa with their foot- paths without making one single road. In the typical Saxon villages, such as those under the Berkshire Downs, this passion for path-making and dislike of anything straight in the nature of a road is shown most clearly. The villages lie near water, not near any old road at all as a rule, and every two or three houses form a separate block, scattered anyhow, round and between which run so many little paths, tracks, and footways that the plan of the village roads is like nothing so much as those " mazes " which children amuse themselves by drawing on slates.
The genesis of the road is an attractive subject of inquiry. In the abstract it is not an idea which presents itself as a rule till carriages are in use. Yet the waggon-driving nations, from the Scythians to the Boers, never made roads, and never will. Their great object is to get off, not the road, for there is none, but the regular track, which is generally in worse condition for traffic than the ground adjacent. A Boar" road" is a mile wide. But the evolution of the present form of highway can be traced historically, with some approach to probability. Doubtless the footpath is the parent of the road. It is so still, for wherever roads are obviously badly laid out the inevitable "trespass path" is made. So, when a new line of railway is run through any district, footpaths, originally made by trespass, are begun at once to reach the stations from the nearest point on the old roads. This may be seen at the present time on the new light railway up the Lambourn Valley. Footpalls are what roads are not, natural productions, just as the paths made by hares, deer, and elephants are. No one really makes a footpath ; that is, no one improves it. What is true of Central Africa is true of England. "The native paths," wrote Professor Drummond, "are the same in character all over Africa" (he has previously mentioned that you are almost never " off " one of these paths). "They are veritable footpaths, trodden as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the level of the forest by centuries of native traffic. As a rule, these footpaths are marvellously direct. Like the roads of the old Romans, they run straight on through every- thing, ridge and mountain and valley, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to breathe. Yet within this general straightforwardness there is a singular eccentricity and indirectness in detail. Although the African footpath is, on the whole, a bee line, no fifty yards of it are ever straight. And the reason is not far to seek. If a stone is encountered no native will ever think of removing it. Why should he ? It is easier to walk round it. The next man who comes by will do the same. He knows that a hundred men are following him ; he looks at the stone ; a moment, and it might be unearthed and tossed aside, but no, he holds on his way. It would no more occur to him that that stone is a displaceable object than that felspar belongs to the orthoclase variety. Generations and generations of men have passed that stone, and it still waits for a man with an altruistic idea." This is perhaps the locus classic us on the true inwardness of footpaths.
In other places than Central Africa the genesis of the road idea begins at some particular part of a footpath, and the act of transformation is the removal of some natural difficulty like a stone, or some other improvement of the natural track. The process may still be seen, even in England. The path crosses a place which is wet or boggy after rain. Some one throws down a big stone or two, and makes rough stepping-stones. In time this becomes a little causeway, or a plank bridge is set up. The transition from track to road where horses or wheeled vehicles are in use is particularly well marked where such a tracks pass through forest. As long as there are plains or prairies to sprawl over even tracks axe disregarded. They are, as we have said, com- monly the worst ground to be found. • They are deeply rutted, and there is no feed on them. Every one who respects his cattle or his vehicle pulls out from the track. It is noted by the editor of the portions of Defoe's works contained in the
Carisbrooke Library" that at the time at which he wrote his essay, "Of the Highways," "if a road was trampled into hopeless ruts and pools of mud, the owner of the adjacent land might plough it up and provide another track." The reason probably was that the travellers had already made a new track, after deserting the old one. But in a forest this is not possible. Hence if vehicles are to go through it a road must be made, and that is nearly always and in all countries what is called a cord road, made by felling the trees, and laying the trunks side by side at right angles to the track. It is the simplest and first of paved roads, or rather it supplies the idea of a pavement. But in tropical countries forest roads, whether corded or not, must be con- stantly in use, otherwise this very track in a few years pro- duces a denser growth of jungle than any other part. Perhaps the most curious case of the vanity of human wishes in this respect is the famous Stevenson Road in Central Africa between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. Forty-six miles were made, full of cuttings and skilfully executed gradients, in a way which would have done credit to an English con- tractor. The African savages who made it kept regular hours for regular pay, and altogether it was a great triumph of British ideas and energy. Only unfortunately there was no traffic to keep it in order. Recent travellers have described how they journeyed, not by the Stevenson Road, but beside it. It makes a magnificent hedge or indicator of the route, being a mass of tall, dense, impenetrable bush, marking in the most definite manner the direction to be taken, and likely to be useful for many years as a geographical or territorial mark. Roads and bridges are now almost inseparably connected in thought, and the association has found expression in the title of the county Boards which look after both. But there is reason to believe that bridges, the most beautiful feature of the roads of civilised man, were rather a late addition, never contemplated when the road idea was quite clearly defined. Fords (the South African drifts are only fords) were used wherever it was possible, and often when it was very unsafe to do so. Where this was impossible a ferry seems almost invariably to have preceded the bridge and to have been worked for centuries.
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