This was the sum of the information and intercourse which Virginia got from across the sea, for travelers were practically unknown.

Few came on business, fewer still from curiosity.
Stray peddlers from the North, or trappers from beyond the mountains with their packs of furs, chiefly constituted what would now be called the traveling public.

There were in truth no means of traveling except on foot, on horseback, or by boat on the rivers, which formed the best and most expeditious highways.

Stage-coaches, or other public conveyances, were unknown.

Over some of the roads the rich man, with his six horses and black outriders, might make his way in a lumbering carriage, but most of the roads were little better than woodland paths; and the rivers, innocent of bridges, offered in the uncertain fords abundance of inconvenience, not unmixed with peril.