76 Art of Travel.
required only when crashing through a bushy country, where a wagon must break down all before it : in every other case it is objectionable. It is a saving of labour to have one large wagon, rather than two small ones, because a driver and a leader are thereby spared. But if a very light wagon has to be taken, I should greatly prefer its being made on the Swiss and German fashion, with a shifting perch, as in the figure.
These are the simplest of affairs, and will split up into two carts-the pole and the fore-wheels forming one, and the perch and the hind-wheels another : now, should a great loss occur among the traveller's cattle, or should he break a wheel, or even strain an axle-tree, in a timberless country, it may be very convenient to him to abandon part of his stores, and to build up a cart for carrying on the remainder. Lady Vavasour describes one of these wagons in the following graphic manner:-"The perch is moveable, and they ' can make it any length they please ; it is of so simple a construction that every farmer can repair his own, and make anything of it. If he has a perch, a pole, and four wheels, that is enough ; with a little ingenuity, he makes it carry stones, hay, earth, or anything he wants, by putting a plank at each side. When he wants a carriage for pleasure, he fits it up for that purpose ; his moveable perch allows him to make it anything. I counted seventeen grown persons sitting side by side, looking most happy, in one of them, drawn only by a pair of small horses, and in this hilly country."
Drays.-Two-wheeled drays, and not wagons, are used very
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