Travelling in the Olden Times.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 September 1910, Page 4

Travelling in the Olden Times.

( A mngnzino writer, treating on 'A night's lodging in the sixteenth century," follows the unfortunate tourist of that date tlirough a most varied nssortmont of bad inns. Spain, always a behindhand sort of country, shmvod, perhaps, the worst. It was there that a traveller "ihired. three Moons to iliold him in their airins while, he slept," rather than commit himself to the horrors of a.n j hotel bed, and a Papal envoy slept on straw one snowy night without a_ fire. In .France accommodations differed according to locality. Normandy inns were pronounced the best of the day, while "a hard bed and an empty kitchen" described the traveller's experience of Picardy. "A party arrived at Antibes, on the Riviera, in 100(5, to find one melon constituting all the provisions of the only inn." Germany provided a heavy meal and honesty, but no beds; or if beds there were, as many guests as possible, drunk and sober, would bo crowded into one iroom. 'Muscovy had no wayside inns. If unable, to reach a monastery, or a toWn, the tourist sheltered in some--I>pdy's one-roomed cabin, which hospitality shared its space between the visitors, the family, and the live stock. "When Sir Jerome Horsey was at Armsberg, in the island of Oasel, nen.r the gulf of Riga, in loyu, snakes crept ahont bed and table, and hens rame and pecked a* them m the flour a.nd the milk." The luxury of hot-water bottle was not yet known, but travellers Ihau their choice of at least two antecedents; the first a has of heated semolina or millet, and the second a dog To tho sociable spirit of thoso times, it had never occurred that company might be lindesirod, eithcvr of animals or of fellow men. *Rom the one dining table at the uerman inn no one was excluded except the hangman, and in Franco ft traveller sofcilod down for the niehi m the same room with a murd-ore.. and the six guardians responsiMe for t?hl Un ™ M tI,C ' p,acc