One great inconvenience we sustained was from the dogs, which exhibited a marked disapproval of the conveyance, and a desire to try their teeth on the legs that dangled right and left. This obliged us to constitute one of my cousins as guard, to arm himself with stones, and to run about the "Baring," when passing a farm or village, to keep the brutes at bay.
Once or twice we got into trouble with farmers driving their gigs or dog-carts. Their horses took fright at our carriage and either bolted or upset the vehicle to which they were harnessed. On one occasion on driving along the Roman road over Lew Down we encountered Wombwell's Menagerie in vans, and an elephant marching before. On this occasion it was our pony that took fright, and bolting up the bank sent us all sprawling in the road. We did not observe that a panic took hold of the elephant at the sight of our conveyance.
The drawing of the load was exhausting work for the pony, and after an expedition it required extra feeds of corn, and two days' rest to recuperate; accordingly we usually had a second pony with us to relieve the other, when tokens of exhaustion of power became manifest in the beast between the shafts. As our tires were hoop-iron, they rapidly wore out and had to be repaired on every expedition, at least once.
The rising generation know nothing of one great nuisance wherewith their fathers and grandfathers were afflicted. I refer to the turnpikes. These were most ingeniously planted on the high roads to prevent their being ridden or driven over for any but two to three miles without the travellers being pulled up and a toll exacted. There were three between us and Tavistock, but two payments alone were demanded. The intermediate barrier might be passed in freedom on the production of a ticket from one of the other gates. The nuisance was very great at night and when it was raining, to have to dive with a sodden glove into a wet pocket to extract a moist purse, and therein to grope with chilled fingers for the sum demanded. Often, moreover, one did not possess the exact sum required, and one had to wait in cold, darkness and rain, till the toll-gate keeper had gone within to fetch the change. The condition of tolls was, as I well remember, much worse in Germany, and there, moreover, the roads were in bad order.
