PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON
The scenery now began to look charming. Rolling ranges of hills
extending into the distance clustered around as we drew nearer to the
Chesapeake River, which flows into the well-known bay to which it gives
its name.
"All aboard for Chesapeake Bay."
... I hummed the air to myself as the road abruptly ended and a
suspension bridge continued the course across the broad, peaceful mouth
of the river. The whole country around seemed to be permeated with a
comfortable, wholesome vigour. Nothing seemed shabby, discontented, or
poverty-stricken. I passed through many small towns and embryo cities.
All were prosperous and all extended a hearty welcome to the traveller
or visitor. Stretched across the road between two poles, just before I
entered one little town, was a huge white banner bearing the words:--
"CONWAY CITY WELCOMES YOU.
WE LIKE TRAVELLERS TO VISIT US.
HAVE A GOOD LOOK AT OUR CITY."
Conway "City" did not prove to be exactly a metropolis. It was probably
nothing more than a well-to-do farm town. But the houses were clean and
neat, indeed some of them were very beautiful, perfectly up-to-date but
never objectionably modern. The roads were a bit bumpy in places but
not at all bad as American roads go. As I passed out of the town I saw
another notice similar to the first:--
"THANK YOU FOR COMING.
WE HOPE YOU LIKE US.
COME AGAIN."
I got so used to being welcomed to every town I came to that I forgot I
was a "stranger" in a "foreign land." There was not a town or village
that did not publish its welcome in some form or other. In the main it
was by advertisements. But if I stopped at a wayside store to quench
my thirst (oh, the sun was hot!) I was met neither with scowls nor
incivility. I am reminded of the old joke of _Punch_ many years ago:--
"Oo's that bloke over theer, Bill?"
"Dunno; stranger, I think."
"'Eave 'arf a brick at 'im."
That is typical of what we _English_ think of strangers. The man
of better education or more refinement perhaps expresses himself
differently, but he feels just the same as a rule.
At this juncture in my reveries the macadam road stopped and gave
way to "natural gravel." That was quite sufficient to postpone any
soliloquies I may have been indulging in until a later date. The
entire sixty seconds in every minute were employed in keeping myself
substantially upright. Small pot-holes gave place to larger ones,
and they in turn to larger still. The loose sand, which was an inch
or two deep at the start, soon assumed more considerable depths. As
the detective books of our youth used to say, "The plot grew thicker
and thicker." I was floundering about from right to left, prodding
energetically on the ground each side with my feet to maintain some
kind of balance. At times the back wheel churned up the sand aimlessly
in an endeavour to get a grip on something solid. Here and there the
sand and gravel were heaped into great ridges as if a mighty plough
had been along that way. Getting through this stuff, thought I, was
no joke. Furthermore, it was warm work; very warm work. Now and then
I would find myself directed absolutely without control from one side
of the road to the other, and only with the greatest strain could
I keep the machine on its wheels. And with all this the "highway"
still maintained its regulation width of 90 feet! The casual observer
from an aeroplane above would in all probability be attracted by its
straightness, its whiteness, and its apparent uniformity. "What a
splendid road!" he would think.
Not so I. I was on the point of physical exhaustion with the
seemingly-endless paddling and pushing and heaving (and don't forget
the half-hundred-weight bag on my back!) when I was thrown on to a
steeply-cambered part of the road at the side. The back wheel just slid
limply sideways down the slope and left everything reposing peacefully
in the natural gravel of Maryland.
When I had extricated myself from under the machine, I surveyed the
position with a critical eye. What a road for a civilized country!
These Yanks must be jolly-well mad to tolerate such roads as this!
* * * * *
Just then an old Ford came by. It was shorn entirely of mudguards,
running boards, and other impedimenta. As he wallowed past me, swaying
to this side and that, sometimes pointing at right angles to the way
he was going and with his old engine buzzing away in bottom gear and
clouds of steam issuing from his radiator (it had no cap; it must have
blown off!) the driver seemed perfectly at ease. He rolled a cigar
stump from one corner of his mouth to the other and gazed nonchalantly
ahead. I don't think he even noticed me and my recumbent motor-cycle.
I could not repress a grin as his old box of tricks disappeared slowly
up the road, wagging its tail this way and that and narrowly averting a
catastrophe at every few yards. "You ragtime bunch of tin merchants!"
I mused (not so much in reference to the driver as to the nation in
general!) as his diminishing form finally side-slipped into the ditch
at a bend in the road.
And then a distressing thought struck me: "They'll never believe me
when I get back home and tell them!" So I took my little camera out of
the tool-box on the top tube and snapped the worst bit of road there
and then. A five minutes' struggle followed, in which "Khaki Lizz" was
withdrawn from her ditch.
By way of nourishment to sustain me in any further fights with the
road, I slowly and meditatively consumed one only orange before
proceeding once more.
But things did not improve. Here and there, where the ridges of soil
and gravel had not been disturbed, grew tufts of grass and weeds. Huge
ruts, crossing and recrossing in the remaining sand, showed where cars
were wont to pass as fancy dictated, and with only two wheels it was
barely possible to maintain any progress at all.
"Hang it all! This is TOO much!" I exclaimed, after a few more
precipitate dismounts,--and took another photo and ate another orange.
A mile or two farther on I came to a weird-looking machine at the
side of the road. It was a sort of combination of steam tractor and
automatic plough, but very much bigger and more complicated. Its main
function was to chop down _en masse_ the sides and banks of the road
and shovel the debris into the middle. Grass, shrubs, bushes, and young
trees alike fell victims to its activities. Now this really was the
limit! Not satisfied with the condition of the road as it was, they
sent forth this "Heath Robinson" mechanism to improve it. I stopped and
left the bike standing in the road where it was--there was no need to
prop it up against anything--and went back to question the driver of
this implement as to its function in life.
He was not perturbed in the slightest either at my question or at the
heated state of mind and body in which I approached him. Punctuated
by intervals in which he slowly masticated a worn-out chunk of
chewing-gum, he explained that all good motorists liked wide roads;
that the State Council had decided that motorists should have wide
roads; that they had provided machines for widening roads that at
present were not up to standard width; and finally that he was there to
see that this machine did its work properly!
[Illustration: A COMMON OCCURRENCE.
_By permission of Dr. F. Rolt-Wheeler._]
So I took another photograph, ate another orange, kicked the
self-starter once more, and pushed on again. The road got worse and
worse. Sometimes there were ruts and sometimes there were strips of
unploughed field in the middle of it. But I spent no more films on
it. The people at home, I decided, would have to take my word for
it after all. About ten miles farther on I came to a cross-road.
It was perfectly straight and beautifully paved with concrete and
stretched from one horizon to the other. With what joy I gazed upon its
countenance! There was a wooden shack on one corner, evidently a
saloon. A negro sat on the doorstep, gazing indolently at me.
"Is this the road to Baltimore?" I inquired, indicating the concrete
highway.
No reply. But he continued to gaze at me, and spat twice.
"Must be deaf," thought I. "How's this for Washington?" I shouted.
Still no reply.
"Say, brother, which is the road to Baltimore?" I inquired as politely
as convenient.
The appellation "brother" had its effect. The negro jerked his thumb
over his shoulder, indicating that I was to go straight on (and
incidentally follow that excruciating stretch of natural gravel).
Fortunately, Baltimore was not many miles away, and when I got there I
breathed many sighs of relief. There were paved roads, good and true;
macadam and concrete for miles and miles, all the way to Washington.
I picked my way by instinct through Baltimore, the capital of the
State of Maryland, not stopping for food or rest. I would reach my
destination before I gave way to such physical necessities. I certainly
had an appetite, but I always feel that more than two meals a day when
on tour are not only unnecessary, but mean a dead loss of time, money,
and distance.
The reports on the state of the road ahead turned out to be true
in every detail, and throwing to the winds all respect for such
trivialities as speed limits, I made up for at least a good fraction of
the time wasted on the road.
When, about 5 p.m., I pulled Lizzie on to her stand outside one of
Washington's "cafeterias," I began to feel an incipient timidity. I
doubted whether I should be able to get into any respectable hotel.
I was covered in dust, and dirt. Headgear of any kind I had dispensed
with altogether. My hair was dusty and knotted with the wind. Owing to
the heat, I had also found it advisable to remove my collar and tie, so
that the wind could circulate as much as possible. How could I in such
a condition maintain my self-respect in Washington, the magnificent
capital of the United States?
Fortunately, it did not take long for me to overcome such scruples.
Another day or two on the road, and I was perfectly at ease during the
intervals in which I had intercourse with civilization. Occasionally I
experienced a difficulty in entering a drug-store for an iced drink,
and sometimes I felt a trifle shy at my bare, sunburnt neck, but no one
seemed to mind. I soon found that in America, and particularly when
travelling in the West, one could wear absolutely anything that one's
fancy might dictate without rousing the slightest disturbance.
After satisfying my requirements at the "cafeteria," the second item on
my programme was a visit to the Post Office. This revealed the sordid
fact that there was no money awaiting me. It can easily be understood
that such a discovery might have proved most distressing. I had been
advised not to take much with me, but to cable for a draft from home at
intervals. My adviser, as I was afterwards to find out to my cost, had
overlooked the utterly chaotic state of the post-war transatlantic mail
service.
I still had a little left, however, quite enough to get me comfortably
to Cincinnati, my next financial depot, so why worry? I could always
work for a living, or at any rate, if I did not feel inclined to that,
I might pawn something.
I found a hotel that, from the outside, just suited my fancy. Plain,
large and unpretentious, it described itself in an illuminated sign as
the "National." I booked a room at three dollars (12_s._ 6_d._) and
sallied forth to see the sights.
I was impressed with Washington. It is truly a city of beautiful
streets and magnificent buildings. Undoubtedly it is the city _de luxe_
of America. Being the capital, wealth is lavished upon it. No factories
or barren wastes disfigure its graceful countenance. Every street or
avenue glistens at night with a bewildering multitude of illuminated
signs. This method of advertising is typically American. The first
impression of a stranger visiting a large American city at night is
that he is in a children's luminous palace. There are illuminations
and decorations of every conceivable nature. Sometimes a single sign
advertising perhaps some particular brand of chewing-gum or cigarette
or motor-car has thousands and tens of thousands of lights wonderfully
displayed in different colours and arranged in different series, one
series flashing into view as another disappears, then a few seconds
later giving place to another still more wonderful, and finally there
comes a grand climax in which all the colours and all the series and
all the figures blaze forth in an indescribable orgy of light.
When I found myself finally back in my hotel I was to be the victim
of still another disillusionment. No country anywhere could rival
America for hotels, I had thought. But I had not then experienced the
"National" at Washington. The room allotted to me was literally an
outrage. It was of the very poorest that one would expect to find in
an East End boarding-house in the Old Kent Road. It had one window,
which faced on to an unimaginably dreary "area." The carpet was
threadbare and colourless. The furniture, consisting of one bed, one
dressing-table, one wardrobe and one chair was obviously suffering from
advanced senile decay. There was a washbasin in one corner that boasted
of two taps and a piece of wood to stop the hole up with. The door
showed signs of having been minus a lock for many a long day. I was too
tired, however, to bother about trivialities of detail, so putting my
revolver under the blanket near me in case of possible eventualities, I
laid me down in peace to sleep.
Nothing occurred, however, to disturb my peace of mind or body
throughout the night. The following morning found me hot on the warpath
after a bathroom. After sundry peregrinations I unearthed a clue. It
was in the form of a very corpulent negress--evidently a chambermaid.
"Bathroom?" "No, dere am no bathroom h'yar," she informed me. But I
persisted in my inquiries, suspecting her reply to be a mere excuse
for sheer laziness. Finally, as a last resort, I absent-mindedly took
my "life preserver" from my hip pocket and looked at it vacuously. Its
effect was magical. "Yes, saar, yes, saar, come right h'yar!--I find
you bathroom!"
When I came to square up that morning I paid my respects and three
dollars to the management.
"See here, Mister Manager," I said in such a tone that everyone
within hearing distance had the benefit of it as well, "I've done a
bit of travelling here and there, but never in ANY city at
ANY time have I struck ANY hotel that for sheer
rottenness compares with THIS one!"
I have an idea at the back of my mind that that manager-man doesn't
love Englishmen!
Now that I had seen America's capital, I turned my face to the west,
and began to make rash estimates and frivolous promises to myself
concerning my destination for the day. Could I get to Cincinnati
next day? How long would it take to do the odd 550 miles or so? And
what would be my reception when I got there? I had some friends in
Cincinnati, friends that I had never even seen. What would they think
when they saw THIS specimen roll up to their front door in
Clifton Avenue? Was Lizzie going to stand up to it all right? When
should I get to the coast? What kind of roads should I meet "out West"?
And so I wondered on.