n opinion on the subject, for socially I have
always found the medicine folk charming companions and I would not say
aught in this work that could by any possibility give them offense.
Not only were doctors rare at that period, but owing to our limited
facilities in the matter of transportation, it was exceedingly
difficult for them to get about. The doctor's gig, now so generally in
use, had not as yet been brought to that state of perfection that has
made its use in these modern times a matter of ease and comfort. We
had wheels, to be sure, but they were not spherical as they have since
become, and were made out of stone blocks weighing ten or fifteen tons
apiece, and hewn octagonally, so that a ride over the country roads in
a vehicle of that period not only involved the services of some thirty
or forty horses to pull the wagon, but an endless succession of jolts
which, however excellent they may have been in their influence on the
liver were most trying to the temper, and resulted in attacks of
sickness which those who have been to sea tell me strongly resembles
sea-sickness. So rough indeed was the operation of riding in the
wagons of my early youth that a great many of our best people who kept
either horses or domesticated elephants, still continued to drive
about in stone boats, so-called, built flat like a raft, rather than
suffer the shaking up which the new-fangled wheels entailed. Griffins
were also used by persons of adventurous nature, but were gradually
dying into disuse, and the species being no longer bred becoming
extinct, because of the great difficulty in domesticating them. It was
not a hard task to break them to the saddle, and on the ground they
were fleet and sure footed, but in the air they were extremely
unreliable. They used their wings with much power, but were not
responsive to the reins, and in flying pursued the most erratic
courses. What was worse, they were seldom able to alight after an
aerial flight on all four feet at once, having a disagreeable habit of
approaching the earth vertically, and headfirst, so that the rider,
unless he were strapped on, was usually unseated while forty or fifty
feet in the air, with the result that he either broke his neck, or at
least four or five ribs, and a leg or two, at the end of his ride.
When we remember that in addition to all this we had no telephone
service at that time, and that the umbrella had not as yet been
devised, my father's anxiety at the