Practically, every surviving method of locomotion has heralded its earliest votaries within the precincts of the Park, where the foot-propelled “hobby-horse” proved the forerunner of the bicycle. The first two-cylinder motors were tried—little cars which have since developed into the huge travelling cars almost like railway carriages themselves. It is amusing to watch the disappearance from the roads of our dear old wooden box on wheels,—politely called an omnibus—besmirched by advertisements until its destination is difficult to decipher. The horse omnibus has been largely superseded by the motor bus,—still in its infancy, judging by its breakdowns, its noises, and its smells,—and the lumbering carts of former years are giving place to whole trains of rattling vans headed by a puffing engine, which parade our streets to the misery of those on foot, and the positive terror of the aged and the young. Under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons, horsemanship was a skilled art. The youthful noble was bold in war and fleet in chase. Horses were used for travel by the upper classes, while the lower orders journeyed on foot. A representation of two Saxon travellers, which occurs in the Cotton MSS., shows the lady sitting sideways in a kind of chair with her feet resting on a board, very similar to the arrangement adapted in later years for the lady riding pillion fashion, and still in use in Iceland and Ireland. It was a position which prevented the poor woman acquiring any power over her steed, or even feeling secure in her seat, yet it is repeatedly seen in illuminated manuscripts of the period. The Saxons also had chariots for travelling, but they were only used by the wealthy, and together with agricultural carts were termed “wœgn” or “wœn” (from which words our “waggon” is derived) and “crat” or “cræt,” hence our word “cart.” These chariots which are represented as a square box, the shape of our ordinary farm cart, without any front, were hung low on two wheels, and drawn by a couple of horses. There is another drawing of one with four wheels, but neither vehicle was used except by grand ladies or invalids, and horses were not even acquired by Church dignitaries in those early days. How quaint it would be to see one of these curious old waggons being led through Hyde Park to-day, and how amazing for those people of the past to see a carriage moving without a horse. Towards the end of the Saxon period, the influence of Normandy permeated the English Court, and a great love of display spread among the nobles, who, from the time of Edmund Ironsides, gradually adopted Continental customs, entirely unknown in the Courts of the early Saxons.