Travelling, in the Saxon times, was very different from what it is in the present day: coaches were not invented, and the only vehicles which went upon wheels were carts and wagons, and these were very heavy and clumsy. Horseback was the only conveyance, so that the sick and infirm could hardly ever leave their houses. In those times there were very few roads upon which one could travel with safety. The Romans left excellent roads, which, however, were neglected, and they fell into decay. Marshes were perilous to cross: a bridge might be broken down, and when you tried to ford the stream, your horse might get out of his depth, and then he and his rider might be drowned. Sometimes the traveller had to pass through a dark forest, abounding with bears and wolves; and, at the end of his day's journey, instead of putting up at a comfortable inn, he was often compelled to stretch his cloak on the dark earth, in some wretched hut. And what was worst, the kings and princes were almost always at war with each other, and a stranger was constantly liable to be plundered and seized, or put to death by the contending parties.[18] Stirrups and spurs were known to the Saxons; the Britons had bridles ornamented with ivory: a bit, presumed to have belonged to a British chief in the Roman service, is a jointed snaffle. The side-pieces, or branches, of curb bits, are of equal antiquity. The Saxons had very superb bridles, ornamented with plates of tin and pewter; and those for women's horses were lily-white. We have seen a bridle of Norman manufacture, said to have been on the horse which William Rufus rode when killed in the New Forest: it has blinkers, is very broad; and cloth, cut by a mould into rich patterns, is glued upon the leather. We read of Athelstan receiving valuable presents of running horses, with their saddles and bridles studded with gold; one of our earliest illustrations of horse-racing. FOOTNOTES: [15] Hoskins; _Encylopædia Britannica_, 7th edit. [16] Just as Charles, Duke of Norfolk, in our day, was accustomed to feed his favourite dogs, by cutting pieces from joints on the dinner-table, and throwing them to the dogs on the polished floor of Arundel Castle. [17] The chief iron-works of Sussex were in the Wealden strata, whence the iron ore was extracted from the argillaceous beds, and was smelted with charcoal made from the abundance of wood. At Buxted, near Lindfield, iron ordnance were made three centuries since by Ralph Hogge, assisted by Peter Bawde, a Frenchman, and his covenanted servant, John Johnson; and the memory of whose works, of which two specimens are still existing in the Tower of London, is preserved in "Master Hogfe, and his man John, They did cast the first can-non." (_W. D. Cooper, F.S.A., Archæologia_, vol. xxxvii. p. 483.)