Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/149

Rh pany reveled. All night, along the roadway, gypsy fires flickered in the darkness, where wandering minstrels and jugglers crept to show their art, while in the background crowded traders, hucksters, peddlers, soldiery, showmen, and beggars—all picturesque pilgrims on the nation's great highway.

It is a fair question whether our western civilization is more wonderful for the rapidity with which new things under the sun are discovered, or for the rapidity with which it can forget men and things today which were indispensable yesterday. The era of the Cumberland Road was succeeded in half a century by that of the railway, and a great thoroughfare, which was the pride and mainstay of a civilization, has almost passed from human recollection. A few ponderous stone bridges and a long line of sorry-looking mile-posts mark the famous highway of our "Middle Age" from the network of cross-roads, which now meet it at every step. Scores of proud towns which were thriving centers of a transcontinental trade have dwindled into comparative insignificance, while the clang-