Were other means lacking, the progress of the human race might be pretty accurately gauged by its modes of locomotion. On such a basis of classification there might be a pedestrian period, a pilgrim period, a saddle period, a road-wain period, a stage-coach period, and a railway period. Relatively considered, each mode of travel thus indicated would be an index of the necessities and activity of the times. The nomadic peoples dwelt in a leisurely world, and were content to go a-foot; their wants were simple, their aspirations temperate; subsistence for themselves and their flocks was their great care, and only when the grass withered and the stream dried up did they set forth in quest of fresh pasturage. At length, however, the dull-thoughted tribular chieftain became curious to know what lay beyond the narrow horizon of his wilderness, and men bound on the sandal, girded up their loins, grasped staff, and beat paths up and down the valleys, trudging behind an ass or a pack-horse that carried their impedimenta. Another advance, and the man who drove his beast before him found that the creature was able to carry both his pack and himself; and training soon enabled the animal to mend his pace and transport his master rapidly across long stretches of waste country. Another period elapsed, and ambitious man discovered that, by clearing a passage for wheels, the load could be shifted from the back of the beast to a wagon drawn behind him; thus carriages came into use, and the race went bowling along the great highway of progress at a wonderful rate. Then vehicles began to be improved, and the restless brain of the inventor contrived a stage-coach for the convenience of those who had no private carriages or did not care to use them; though rude at first, it soon came to be luxurious, with thorough braces, upholstery, and glass windows. But even this noisy vehicle, that abridged distance and brought far cities near together, outgrew its usefulness and gave way to its rival, the steam-car, which could hurry men through the land as on the wings of a tornado. And now the same race, which in the morning of the world was content to wander four or five miles between sun and sun, and had no wish to go faster, can scarcely abide the slowness of a palace-car sliding over a mile of steel rail each minute, and General Meigs is importuning the Legislature for leave to construct a railway on which trains shall run at three times that speed.