EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES
a light strong German post-chaise unloaded, and a Voiturin's coach for our baggage, each carriage being usually drawn by three mules; and we gave for six of these animals, from Florence to Hamburg, three hundred and thirty Tuscan sequins; the Voiturin finding supper and beds for four Persons, and likewise defraying the expense of barriers, ferry-boats, guides, drivers, and mules. We paid a couple of florins a day for our dinner, and one florin a day to servants at inns, unless our carriages were guarded, when we usually gave two florins, and we allowed three sequins a day for the mules whenever we chose to stop. Buonamano to the drivers was not included in our bargain, and to these men (who behaved particularly well) we gave sixty sequins."[1]
Those who made the long journey from Hamburg to Vienna — nearly five hundred and fifty miles — commonly went in summer by way of Nuremberg and Ratisbon, and if they chose they could go by public conveyance. The conveyance was typical for the whole of Germany. "There is a stage-coach, which sets out from Hamburg to Nurenberg on Saturday evening, at the shutting of the gates; it goes through Brunswic, Wolfembuttel, Erfurt, Bamberg, &c., and comes back to Hamburg on Tuesday morning. This coach sets up at Hamburg at the Swan by the change. 'Tis common for travellers to agree with the coachman for their provisions as well as for their passage. The fare is settled thus: From Hamburg to Nurenberg for passage and provisions twenty dollars," etc.[2] But we need hardly foUow the tedious detail to the end.
IV
The Low Countries
One could not go far in the diminutive Low Countries without getting over the frontier, but within the narrow limits one could travel a great deal and with great convenience. Much of the travel was by water, but there was
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