i have sometimes wondered whether it might not be possible to have guide-books written for the great routes of modern travel—i mean of modern pleasure-travel—which should make the whole road a piece of history; for history enlarges everything one sees, and gives a fulness to flat experience, so that one lives more than one's own life in contemplating it, and so that new landscapes are not only new for a moment, but subject to centuries of varieties in one's mind.
it is true that those who write good guide-books do put plenty of history into them, but it is sporadic history, as it were; it is not continuous or organic, and therefore it does not live. you are told of a particular town that such was its roman name; that centuries later such a mediæval contest was decided in its neighbourhood. if it is connected in some way with the military history of this country you will be given some detailed account of an action fought there, and that is particularly the case in spain, which one leaves with the vague impression that it was created to serve as a terrain for the peninsular war.
[pg 129]
all knowledge of that sort interests the traveller, but it hardly remains, nor does it "inform" in the full sense of that word. now, to be "informed" is the object, and the process of it is the pleasure, of learning. to give life to the history of places there must be connection in it, and it so happens that with our travel to-day—especially our pleasure-travel—a connection stands ready to the writer's hand: for we go in herds to-day along the great roads which have made europe. it is the railways that have done this. before they were built the network of cross-roads—already excellent in the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth—tempted men of leisure in every direction; towns that had something curious to show were visited as easily, whether they lay on the main roads or no. the fruit of that time you may see in the great inns which still stand, though often half deserted, in places eccentric to modern travel. it may be that this old universality of travel will return with our new ease of going wherever there is a good surface for wheels—it has in part returned—but still much the most of us go along the lines laid down fast for us by the first great expenditure upon railways, and this was invested, necessarily, along some at least of the immemorial tracks which—from long before history—were the framework of western society.
if you are from the north and go to the riviera—from thence on, down the coast to rome, you go[pg 130] mile for mile along the central highway that bound together the roman empire, the road that hadrian went and constantine descended. york, london, dover, boulogne, laon, dijon, lyons, marseilles are the posts strung along it, and the same long line is the line of advance which the creed took when christianity came up northwards from the mediterranean. it is the line the second advent of that influence took when st. augustine brought it back to this island after the breakdown of the empire. or if you will consider that short eight hours of tearing speed which so many thousands know, the main line from london to paris, see what a thick past there is gathered all along it. the crossing of the darent, where stood one of the string of canterbury palaces, and just to the left of your train the field where edmund ironside met the danes, further on wrotham, another of the archbishops' line of houses, and on the hills above and in the plain below the sacred monoliths that the savages put up for worship before letters or buildings were known, and beyond the valley kit's coty house and the bare place where stood the rood of boxley and aylesford, the first bridge where the pirates first drove the british in their conquest of this country, and much further the british camp which the tenth legion stormed, standing above the stour. canterbury, where there is fixed continuity with rome and with the history before rome, the little roman bricks in st. martin's church, the roman[pg 131] roads radiating to the ports of the channel, and the british tracks on which they lay or which they straightened, deep under the site of the city the group of lake-dwellings when its defence was a lagoon, now meads—and, in the site of the great central tower, the end of the middle ages with which that town is crammed. or if you reach it by the northern way, then everywhere you are following the great military road whereby for two thousand years travel has come from the straits to london; rochester, the armed defence of the river-crossing, the capture of whose castle twice gave an army the south of england, and all but saved henry iii against his barons; the second bishopric of england; the garrison which stood central and sheltered the halt of forced marches from the sea upon london—and every step of the way chaucer.
if you cross by boulogne you see above you, on the last of english land, the hill forts they built to overlook the broad shallow harbour of lemanus, now dry; you cross upon the narrow sea the track of cæsar, who, when he first invaded, drifted here under a light breeze and with the tide for hours, coming with the transports from boulogne and beaching at last upon the flats of deal. also in boulogne that broad valley was a land-locked harbour in cæsar's day, and there he built his ships.
if you cross by calais you come, some three miles from french land, over that good holding ground where the armada lay at anchor on a summer [pg 132]evening waiting to take aboard the unconquered soldiery which was designed for the assault of england; but howard and the flock of little english boats came up after, just thwart of griz-nez, which you see tall and huge to your right: they lay there at anchor out of range against the stormy sunset, and when night came drove in their fire-ships against the spanish fleet and broke its formation, and next day the tempest drove them up that flat coast to your left, and so on to destruction in the open sea.
then see how the french road is full also. here, just beyond étaples, is the place where the two ambassadors passed in '93, neither knowing the other: the one returning, driven out of london, the other posting thither at full speed to avert war. they missed, and so war came. a little further on to your left is a patch of wood; to your right, beyond the flats, is a broad estuary of which you may see the lighthouse towers. that wood is the wood of crécy: through it there marched the english host on their way to victory in the rising ground beyond. the river mouth is that whence william started with his hundreds of ships on the way to hastings: he lay gathered there with the wind in his teeth for days, until the equinox sent him a south-wester and he bowled across to pevensey and landed there: every stretch of this road is alive with stories and things done.
the way down into italy by bourg is a way of armies also, though not a way of english armies,[pg 133] and it is a way of great influences too. thus, if you would see the gothic north and the southern renaissance first meeting, like salt water and fresh at the turn of a river-tide, get out at bourg and drive a mile to brou and see there the tombs of the house of savoy. there is no sight like it in europe, yet how few know it out of all who whirl down that line—often by night—on the way to the alps or to italy?
there are other roads: each tempts one to a list of wonders. the road northeastward from paris, every step of which is the line of the last napoleonic struggle. the road eastward into germany by metz, every step of which is the history of the revolution, or of invasion, or of success in the field. a little station which your eyes will hardly catch as the express goes by is neighbour to the camp that attila made before he was defeated in those plains of champagne; another little station, the station of a hidden hamlet, is called valmy; half-an-hour on, beyond les islettes, you see quite close by the forest path that drouet took when he intercepted the flight of the king and so destroyed the french monarchy.
all these roads are known roads, but there is one which the railway has abandoned and which is therefore half derelict; many motors rediscover it, for it has half the story of europe strung along it—i mean the road from paris by tours and poictiers to perigueux, to toulouse, over the high pyrenees and[pg 134] on to saragossa. no one line serves it. across the mountains for a day and more of travel there is no line at all, but this is the road up which islam came a thousand years ago to end us. the host got past poictiers. charles met them from tours and they were destroyed. you may see the place to-day, and this is the road by which all the frankish and gothic invasions moved on spain, and this is the road that charlemagne must have taken when he first marched across the hills against the valley of ebro. i know of no road more holy with past wars, none more wonderful where it meets the mountains, none better made for all sorts of going—and none more deserted than it is upon the high places between france and spain—but of this road i will write later to prove how much there may be in travel.
