Mr. Stratton thinks that the Indians of North America had rude litters at an early date. The Incas of Peru certainly possessed magnificently decorated sedans or palanquins, in which they progressed through their kingdom. It was not, however, until the seventeenth century that wheeled carriages appeared in America. Sir Thomas Browne quotes from an English traveller’s book, which states that by the middle of this century there were at least twenty thousand coaches in Mexico, and possibly this was true. But into North America carriages filtered but slowly. There had been coaches in Boston so early as 1669, and in Connecticut in 1685. William Penn, writing to Logan in 1700, bids his servants have the coach ready. The calash was also known at that time, but being “clumsy” was less popular than the French cabriolet or gig, which had been brought over by the Huguenots, and rapidly transformed into the well-known _one-horse shay_, which in its turn was supplanted by the more comfortable and certainly more distinctive _buggy_. Bennet, travelling in America in 1740, saw many carriages in Boston. “There are several families,” he records, “in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so common in London.... The country carts and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according to the distance, or the burden they are laden with.” A Boston advertisement of 1743 mentions “a very handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroidered with silver, and a silk fringe round the seat.” This was offered for sale by John Lucas, a local coachbuilder, and had most probably been built by him. At this time several stage-coaches were running, and the _shay_ was being used by even the poorer folk. A Philadelphian advertisement of 1746 speaks of “two very handsome chairs, with very good geers,” and at this time, too, the Italian chairs and curricles were also popular. They were generally driven tandem. Even more distinctive than the shay, however, was the _coachee_, which is described by Isaac Weld in his travels (1795):—