The Hobbit - Chapter 02 - Roast Mutton

[Findegil]

Two question I will throw in concerning this chapter:

Just then all the others came round the corner of the road from the village. They were on Ponies, and each pony was slung about with all kinds of baggages, packages, parcels, and paraphernalia. ...

What do you make of this? What did the dwarves carry on that way beside their remarkable music-instruments? All this disappeared when the ponies were captured by the goblins in the Mistymountians, before anymore was told about it.

In this chapter we have also one of the points were Tolkien wished to harmonies TH and LotR but failed. He introduce the last bridge, but by doing so he made the pony jump into Mitheithel instead of Bruinen. Thus he created a heavy problem because Bilbo and company reached the troll-fire in not more than a couple of hours while Aragorn with Frodo and friends needed five days to reach the same place.
How is that riddle solved in your interpretation of Middle-Earth? Or did you never consider it at all? And on a greater scale: Bilbo and company needed about 38 days on ponies to reach Rivendell while Frodo and friends managed the same distance in only 28 days on their own feet. Where did the dwarves spend all the day?

Respectfully
Findegil