People who traveled in the past had to put up with many discomforts which we do not have nowadays, and of course they traveled far more slowly. Roads were bad indeed and you often found you could not get along at all because of the mud. In dry weather many places were thick in dust and when it was stormy, trees might fall across the road and it was nobody’s business to clear them away.
Ordinary people traveled on foot or on horseback, but everyone who could afford it kept a private coach. There were public coaches too. called “stage coaches” because long journeys took several days and were done in stages, with stops over night at inns. Some stage, coaches ran only in the summer months. Others all the year around. They were very slow and crowded and passengers often became in on the way because of the swaying (摇晃).
Break downs were frequent, since many roads were not smooth. So a coach might very easily turn right over. Early in the century coach and wagon builders were encouraged to put very wide wheels on their vehicles. So that these might level the roads a little. But many people complained of this since it slowed travel down a good deal.
Most travelers during the 18th century wrote bitterly about the state of the roads. One visitor to Sussex took six hours to travel nine miles in his coach; another wrote to a friend that on time of his journeys “almost every mile was marked by the overturn of a carriage”.
小题1:Which of the following mainly prevented people from travelling fast in the past?
A．Falling trees
B．Thick dust
C．Muddy road
D．Many discomforts小题2: The underlined word “them” in the first paragraph refers to _____.
A．the discomforts
B．the blocked roads
C．the dusty places
D．the fallen trees小题3: Public coaches were called “stage-coaches” because ______.
A．the long journey was broken into several parts
B．they were slow and crowded
C．they stopped for meals at inns
D．they served public people only小题4: The sentence “almost every mile was marked by the overturn of a carriage” suggests that ______.
A．the coaches were of poor quality
B．the writers liked to describe the road bitterly
C．the road condition was really poor
D．travelling about in the past was extremely slow
