Chapter VI

The Road To The North

[Illustration: The Road North]

We left Paris by the ghastly route leading out through the plain of

Gennevilliers, where Paris empties her sewage and grows asparagus,

passing St. Denis and its royal catacombs of the ancient abbey, and

so on to Pontoise, all over as vile a stretch of road as one will

find in the north of France, always excepting the suburbs of St.

Germain.

Pontoise is all very well in its way, and is by no means a dull,

uninteresting town, but we had no thoughts for it at the moment;

indeed, we had no thoughts of anything but to put the horrible

suburban Paris _pavé_ as far behind us as we could before we settled

down to enjoyment.

At Pontoise we suddenly discovered that we were on the wrong road. So

much for not knowing our way out of town--twenty-five kilometres of

axle-breaking cobblestones!

We had some consolation in knowing that it was equally as bad by any

northern road out of Paris, so we only had the trouble of making a

twenty-kilometre detour through the valley of the Oise, by our old

haunts of Auvers and L'Isle-Adam to Chantilly and Senlis.

We got our clue to the itinerary of the road to the north from a view

of an old poster issued by the "_Messageries Royales_" just previous

to the Revolution (a copy of which is given elsewhere in this book).

Many were the times we, and all well-habituated travellers in France,

had swung from Calais to Paris by train, with little thought indeed

as to what lay between. True, we had, more than once, "stopped off"

at Amiens and Abbeville to see their magnificent churches, and we had

spent a long summer at Etaples and Montreuil-sur-Mer, two "artists'

haunts" but little known to the general traveller; but we never

really knew the lay of the land north of Paris, except as we had got

it from the reading of Dumas, Stevenson's "Inland Voyage," and the

sentimental journeyings of the always delightful Sterne.

We made Chantilly our stop for lunch, _en route_ to Senlis. We ought

not to have done this, for what with the loafing horse-jockeys in the

cafés, and the trainers and "cheap sports" hanging about the hotels,

Chantilly does not impress one as the historical shrine that it

really is.

Chantilly is sporty, _très sportive_, as the French call it, as is

inevitable of France's most popular race-track, and there is an odour

of America, Ireland, and England over all. How many jockeys of these

nationalities one really finds at Chantilly the writer does not know,

but, judging from the alacrity with which the hotels serve you ham

and eggs and the café waiters respond to a demand for whiskey

(Scotch, Irish, or American), it may be assumed that the alien

population is very large.

We had our lunch at the Hôtel du Grand Condé, which is marked with

three stars in the automobile route-books. This means that it is

expensive,--and so we found it. It was a good enough hotel of its

kind, but there was nothing of local colour about it. It might have

been at Paris, Biarritz, or Monte Carlo.

The great attractions of Chantilly are the château and park and the

collections of the Duc d'Aumale, famed alike in the annals of history

and art. We were properly appreciative, and only barely escaped being

carried off by our guide to see the stables--as if we had not

suffered enough from the horse craze ever since we had struck the

town.

The most we would do was to admire the park and the ramifications of

its paths and alleys which dwindled imperceptibly into the great

Forêt de Chantilly itself. The forest is one of those vast tracts of

wildwood which are so plentifully besprinkled all over France. Their

equals are not known elsewhere, for they are crossed and recrossed in

all directions by well-kept carriage roads where automobilists will

be troubled neither by dust nor glaring sunlight. They are the very

ideals of roads, the forest roads of France, and their length is many

thousands of kilometres.

Senlis is but eight kilometres from Chantilly. We had no reason for

going there at all, except to have a look at its little-known, but

very beautiful, cathedral, and to get on the real road to the north.

We spent the night at Senlis, for we had become fatigued with the

horrible _pavé_ of the early morning, the sightseeing of the tourist

order which we had done at Chantilly, and the eternal dodging of

race-horses being exercised all through the streets of the town and

the roads of the forest.

"_Monsieur descend-il à l'Hôtel du Grand Monarque?_" asked a butcher's

boy of us, as we stopped the automobile beneath the cathedral tower

to get our bearings. He was probably looking for a little commission

on our hotel-bill for showing us the way; but, after all, this is a

legitimate enough proposition. We told him frankly no; that we were

looking for the Hôtel des Arènes; but that he knew nothing of.

Another, more enterprising, did, and we drove our automobile into the

court of a tiny little commercial-looking hotel, and were soon

strolling about the town free from further care for the day. The

hotel was ordinary enough, neither good nor bad, _comme 'ci, comme

ça_, the French would call it,--but they made no objection to getting

up at six o'clock the next morning and making us fresh coffee which

was a dream of excellence. This is a good deal in its favour, for the

coffee of the ordinary French country hotel--in the north, in

particular--is fearfully and wonderfully made, principally of

chicory.

Sentiment would be served, and from Senlis we struck across forty

kilometres to what may be called the Dumas Country, Crépy-en-Valois

and Villers-Cotterets. Here was a little-trodden haunt which all

lovers of romance and history would naturally fall in love with.

Crépy is a snug, conservative little town where life goes on in much

the same way that it did in the days when Alexandre Dumas was a clerk

here in a notary's office, before he descended upon the Parisian

world of letters. His "Mémoires" tell the story of his early

experiences here in his beloved Valois country. It is a charming

biographical work, Dumas's "Mémoires," and it is a pity it is not

better known to English readers. Dumas tells of his journey by road,

from the town of his birth, Villers-Cotterets, to Crépy, with his

world's belongings done up in a handkerchief on a stick, "in bulk not

more grand than the luggage of a Savoyard when he leaves his native

mountain home."

Crépy has a delightfully named and equally excellent hotel in the

"Trois Pigeons," and one may eat of real country fare and be happy

and forget all about the ham and eggs and bad whiskey of Chantilly in

the contemplation of omelettes and chickens and fresh, green salads,

such as only the country innkeeper in France knows how to serve.

Crépy has a château, too, a relic of the days when the town was the

capital of a _petit gouvernement_ belonging to a younger branch of

the royal family of France in the fourteenth century. The château is

not quite one's ideal of what a great mediæval château should be, but

it is sufficiently imposing to give a distinction to the landscape

and is in every way a very representative example of the construction

of the time.

The great _Route Nationale_ to the north runs through Crépy to-day,

as did the _Route Royale_ of the days of the Valois. It is eighteen

kilometres from Crépy to Villers-Cotterets, Dumas's birthplace. The

great romancer describes it with much charm and correctness in the

early pages of "The Taking of the Bastile." He calls it "a little

city buried in the shade of a vast park planted by François I. and

Henri II." It is a place ever associated with romance and history,

and, to add further to its reputation, it is but a few kilometres

away from La Ferte-Milon, where Racine was born, and only eight

leagues from Château-Thierry, the birthplace of La Fontaine.

We had made up our minds to breathe as much of the spirit and

atmosphere of Villers-Cotterets as was possible in a short time, and

accordingly we settled down for the night at the Hôtel Alexandre

Dumas. The name of the hotel is unusual. There may be others similar,

but the writer does not recall them at this moment. It was not bad,

and, though entitled to be called a grand establishment, it was not

given to pomposity or pretence, and we parted with regret, for we had

been treated most genially by the proprietor and his wife, and served

by a charming young maid, who, we learned, was the daughter of the

house. It was all in the family, and because of that everything was

excellently done.

There are fragments of a royal château here, begun by François I. in

one of his building manias. His salamanders and the three crescents

of Diane de Poitiers still decorate its walls, and accordingly it is

a historical shrine of the first rank, though descended in these

later days to use as a poorhouse.

The château and forest of Villers-Cotterets were settled upon

Monsieur le Grand by Louis XIV., after they had sheltered many

previous royal loves, but in the days of the later monarchy, that of

Philippe Egalité, the place was used merely as a hunting rendezvous.

The Dumas birthplace is an ordinary enough and dismal-looking

building from the street. As usual in France, there is another

structure in the rear, the real birthplace, no doubt, but one gets

only a glimpse through the open door or gate. Carrier-Belleus's fine

statue of Dumas, erected here in 1885, is all that a monument of its

class should be, and is the pride of the local inhabitant, who, when

passing, never tires of stopping and gazing at its outlines. This may

be a little exaggeration, but there is a remarkable amount of

veneration bestowed upon it by all dwellers in the town.

We went from Villers-Cotterets direct to Soissons, the home of the

beans of that name. We do not know these medium-sized flat beans as

_soissons_ in America and England; to us they are merely beans; but

to _soissons_ they are known all over France, and in the mind and

taste of the epicure there is no other bean just like them. This may

be so or not, but there is no possible doubt whatever but that

"_soissons au beurre_" is a ravishing dish which one meets with too

infrequently, even in France, and this in spite of the millions of

kilos of them which reach the markets through the gateway of the town

of Soissons.

Soissons undoubtedly has a good hotel. How could it be otherwise in

such a food-producing centre? We were directed, however, by a

_commis-voyageur_ whom we had met at Villers-Cotterets, not to think

of a hotel at Soissons, if we were only to stop for lunch, but to go

to the railway restaurant. Of all things this would be the most

strange for an automobilist, but we took his advice, for he said he

knew what he was talking about.

The "Buffet" at the railway station at Soissons is not the only

example of a good railway eating-house in France, but truly it is one

of the best. It is a marvellously conducted establishment, and you

eat your meals in a beautifully designed, well-kept apartment, with

the viands of the country of the best and of great variety. _Soissons

au beurre_ was the _pièce de résistance_, and there was _poulet au

casserole_, an _omelette au rhum_, a crisp, cold lettuce salad, and

fruits and "biscuits" galore to top off, with wine and bread _à

discrétion_ and good coffee and cognac for ten sous additional, the

whole totalling three francs fifty centimes. We were probably the

first automobilists on tour who had taken lunch at the railway

restaurant at Soissons. Perhaps we may not be the last.

It was but a short detour of a dozen or fifteen kilometres to visit

the romantic Château de Coucy, one of the few relics of mediævalism

which still look warlike. It is more or less of a ruin, but it has

been restored in part, and, taken all in all, is the most formidable

thing of its kind in existence. It rises above the old walled town of

Coucy-le-Château in quite the fashion that one expects, and, from the

platform of the donjon, there spreads out a wonderful view over two

deep and smiling valleys which, as much as the thickness of the

château walls, effectually protected the occupants from a surprise

attack.

The thirteenth century saw the birth of this, perhaps the finest

example still remaining of France's feudal châteaux, and, barring the

effects of an earthquake in 1692, and an attempt by Richelieu to blow

it up, the symmetrical outlines of its walls and roofs are much as

they always were.

Its founder was Enguerrand III. de Coucy, who took for his motto

these boastful words--which, however, he and his descendants

justified whenever occasion offered:

_"Roi je ne suis,

Prince, ni Comte aussi,

Je suis le Sire de Coucy."_

We left Coucy rejoicing, happy and content, expecting to reach Laon

that night. We had double-starred Laon in our itinerary, because it

was one of those neglected tourist-points that we always made a point

of visiting when in the neighbourhood.

Laon possesses one of the most remarkable cathedrals of Northern

France, but its hotels are bad. We tried two and regretted we ever

came, except for the opportunity of marvelling at the commanding site

of the town and its cathedral. The long zigzag road winding up the

hill offers little inducement to one to run his automobile up to the

plateau upon which sits the town proper. It were wiser not to attempt

to negotiate it if there were any way to avoid it. We solved the

problem by putting up at a little hotel opposite the railway station

(its name is a blank, being utterly forgotten) where the

_commis-voyageur_ goes when he wants a meal while waiting for the

next train. He seems to like it, and you do certainly get a good

dinner, but, not being _commis-voyageurs_, merely automobilists, we

were charged three prices for everything, and accordingly every one

is advised to risk the dangerous and precipitous road to the upper

town rather than be blackmailed in this way.

Laon's cathedral, had it ever been carried out according to the

original plans, would have been the most stupendously imposing

ecclesiastical monument in Northern France. Possibly the task was too

great for accomplishment, for its stones and timbers were laboriously

carried up the same zigzag that one sees to-day, and it never grew

beyond its present half-finished condition. The year 1200 probably

saw its commencement, and it is as thoroughly representative of the

transition from Romanesque to Gothic as any other existing example of

church building.

On the great massive towers of Laon's cathedral is to be seen a most

curious and unchurchly symbolism in the shape of great stone effigies

of oxen, pointing north, east, south, and west. There is no religious

significance, we are told, but they are a tribute to the faithful

services of the oxen who drew the heavy loads of building material

from the plain to the hilltop.

We had taken a roundabout road to the north, via Laon, merely to see

the oxen of the cathedral and to get swindled for our lunch at that

unspeakable little hotel. The one was worth the time and trouble, the

other was not. We left town the same night headed north, in the

direction of Arras, via St. Quentin, anciently one of the famous

walled towns of France, but now a queer, if picturesque,

conglomeration of relics of a historical past and modern business

affairs.

It was Sunday, and well into the afternoon, when we got away from

Laon, but the peasant, profiting by the fair harvest days, was

working in the fields as if he never had or would have a holiday.

Unquestionably the peasant and labouring class in France is

hard-working at his daily task and at his play, for when he plays he

also plays hard. This, the eternal activity of the peasant or

labourer, whatever his trade, and the worked-over little

farm-holdings, with their varied crops, all planted in little

bedquilt patches, are the chief characteristics of the French

countryside for the observant stranger.

We crossed the Oise at La Fere, La Fere of wicked memory, as readers

of Stevenson will recall. Nothing went very badly with us, but all

the same the memory of Stevenson's misadventure at his hotel made us

glad we were not stopping there.

We passed now innumerable little towns and villages clinging to red,

brown, and green hillsides, with here and there a thatched cottage of

other days, for, in the _agglomérations_, as the French government

knows the hamlets and towns, it is now forbidden to thatch or

rethatch a roof; you must renew it with tiles or slates when the

original thatch wears out.

Soon after passing La Fere one sees three hilltop forts, for we are

now in more or less strategic ground, and militarism is rampant.

St. Quentin has been the very centre of a warlike maelstrom for ages,

and the memory of blood and fire lies over all its history, though

to-day, as we entered its encumbered, crooked streets, things looked

far from warlike.

We had our choice of the Hôtel du Cygne or the Hôtel du Commerce at

St. Quentin, and chose the latter as being nearer the soil, whereas

the former establishment is blessed with electric lights, a

_calorifère_, and a "bar"--importing the word and the institution

from England or America.

We found nothing remarkable in the catering of the Hôtel du Commerce.

It was good enough of its kind, but not distinctive, and we got beer

served with our dinner, instead of wine or cider. If you want either

of the latter you must pay extra. We were in the beer region, not the

cider country or the wine belt. It was the custom, and was not being

"sprung" on us because we were automobilists. This we were glad to

know after our experience at Laon.

St. Quentin possesses a famous Gothic church, known to all students

of Continental architecture, and there is a monument of the siege of

1557, which is counted another "sight," though strictly a modern

work.

At St. Quentin one remarks the Canal de St. Quentin, another of those

inland waterways of France which are the marvel of the stranger and

the profit of the inhabitant. This particular canal connects France

with the extraterritorial commerce of the Pays Bas, and runs from the

Somme to the Scheldt, burrowing through hillsides with tunnels, and

bridging gaps and valleys with viaducts. One of these canal-tunnels,

at Riqueval, has a length of nearly four miles.

We worried our way out through the crooked streets of St. Quentin at

an early hour the next morning, _en route_ for Arras, via Cambrai.

Forty-two kilometres of "_ond. dure._," but otherwise excellent

roadway, brought us to Cambrai. (For those who do not read readily

the French route-book directions the above expression is translated

as "rolling and difficult.")

It matters little whether the roadways of France are marked rolling

and serpentine, or hilly and winding, the surfaces are almost

invariably excellent, and there is nothing met with which will annoy

the modern automobile or its driver in the least, always excepting

foolish people, dogs, and children. For the last we sometimes feel

sorry and take extra precautions, but the others are too intolerant

to command much sympathy.

Cambrai was burned into our memories by the recollection that Fénélon

was one-time bishop of the episcopal see, and because it was the city

of the birth and manufacture of cambric, most of which, since its

discovery, has gone into the making of bargain-store handkerchiefs.

Cambrai possessed twelve churches previous to the Revolution, but

only two remain at the present day, and they are unlovely enough to

belong to Liverpool or Sioux City.

We had some difficulty in finding a hotel at Cambrai. Our excellent

"Guide-Michelin" had for the moment gone astray in the tool-box, and

there was nothing else we could trust. We left the automobile at the

shop of a _mécanicien_ for a trifling repair while we hunted up

lunch. (Cost fifteen sous, with no charge for housing the machine.

Happy, happy automobilists of France; how much you have to be

thankful for!)

The Mouton Blanc, opposite the railway station at Cambrai, gave us a

very good lunch, in a strictly _bourgeois_ fashion, including the

sticky, bitter _bière du Nord_. We paid two francs fifty centimes for

our repast and went away with a good opinion of Cambrai, though its

offerings for the tourist in the way of remarkable sights are few.

Cambrai to Arras was a short thirty kilometres. We covered them in an

hour and found Arras all that Cambrai was not, though both places are

printed in the same size type in the railway timetables and

guide-books.

Arras has a combined Hôtel de Ville and belfry which puts the

market-house and belfry of Bruges quite in the shade from an

impressive architectural point of view. There is not the quiet,

splendid severity of its more famous compeer at Bruges, but there is

far more luxuriance in its architectural form, and, at any rate, it

was a surprise and a pleasure to find that any such splendid monument

were here.

The Spanish invasion of other days has left its mark all through

Flanders, and here at Arras the florid Renaissance architecture of

the Hôtel de Ville and the vaults and roofs of the market-square are

manifestly exotics from a land strange to French architectural ways.

Arras, with its quaint old arcaded market-place, is a great

distributing-point for cereals. A million of francs' worth in value

changes hands here in a year, and the sale, in small lots, out in the

open, is a survival of the _moyen âge_ when the abbés of a

neighbouring monastery levied toll for the privilege of selling on

the market-place. Today the toll-gatherer, he who collects the small

fee from the stall-owners, is still known as the Abbé.

Arras is quaint and interesting, and withal a lively, progressive

town, where all manner of merchandizing is conducted along very

businesslike lines. You can buy sewing-machines and agricultural

machinery from America at Arras, and felt hats and orange marmalade

(which the Frenchman calls, mysteriously, simply, "Dundee") from

Britain.

To Douai, from Cambrai, was another hour's run. Douai has a Hôtel de

Ville and belfry, too, which were entirely unlooked for. Quaint,

remarkable, and the pet and pride of the inhabitant, the bells of the

belfry of Bible-making Douai ring out rag-time dances and Sousa

marches. Such is the rage for up-to-dateness!

There is a goodly bit to see at Douai in the way of ecclesiastical

monuments, but the chief attraction, that which draws strangers to

the place, is the July "Fête de Gayant," at which M. and Mme. Gayant

(giant), made of wickerwork and dressed more or less _à la mode_, are

promenaded up and down the streets to the tune of the "Air de

Gayante." All this is in commemoration of an unsuccessful attempt to

capture the city by Louis XI. in 1479. The fête has been going on

yearly ever since, and shows no signs of dying out, as does the Guy

Fawkes celebration in England.

We were now going through France's "black country," the coal-fields

of the north, and the gaunt scaffolds of the mine-pits dotted the

landscape here and there, as they do in Pennsylvania or the Midlands

of England. They did not especially disfigure the landscape, but gave

a modern note of industry and prosperity which was as marked as that

of the farmyards of the peasants and high-farmers of Normandy or La

Beance. France is an exceedingly wealthy, and, what is more, a

"self-contained" nation; and this fact should not be forgotten by the

critics of what they like to call _effete Europe_.

Bethune is in the heart of the coal country, and is not a

particularly lovely town. It has a dream of an old-world hotel,

though, and one may go a great deal farther and fare a great deal

worse than at Bethune's Hôtel du Nord, a great rambling, stone

Renaissance building, with heavy decorated window-frames, queer

rambling staircases, and ponderous, beamed ceilings.

[Illustration: Villiers-Cotterets]

It sits on a little _Place_, opposite an isolated belfry, from whose

upper window there twinkles, at night, a little star of light, like a

mariner's beacon. What it is all supposed to represent no ones seems

to know, but it is an institution which dies hard, and some one pays

the expense of keeping it alight. A belfry is a very useful adjunct

to a town. If the writer ever plans a modern city he will plant a

belfry in the very centre, with four clock-faces on it, a sun-dial, a

thermometer, and a peal of bells. You find all these things on the

belfry of Bethune, and altogether it is the most picturesque,

satisfying, and useful belfry the writer has ever seen.

The food and lodging of the Hôtel du Nord at Bethune are as

satisfactory as its location, and we were content indeed to remain

the following day in the dull little town, because of a torrential

downpour which kept us house-bound till four in the afternoon. If one

really wants to step back into the dark ages, just let him linger

thirty-six hours as we did at Bethune. More would probably drive him

crazy with ennui, but this is just enough.

The road to the north ended for us at Calais. How many know Calais as

they really ought? To most travellers Calais is a mere guide-post on

the route from England or France.

Of less interest to-day, to the London tripper, than Boulogne and its

debatable pleasures, Calais is a very cradle of history and romance.

It was in October, 1775, that Sterne set out on his immortal

"sentimental journey." He put up, as the tale goes, at Dessein's

Hôtel at Calais (now pulled down), and gave it such a reputation

among English-speaking people that its proprietor suddenly grew rich

beyond his wildest hopes. So much for the publicity of literature,

which, since Sterne's days, has boomed soap, cigars, and automobiles.

Sterne's familiarity with France was born of experience. He had

fallen ill in London while supervising the publication of some of his

literary works and was ordered to the south of France by his

physicians. He obtained a year's absence from his curacy, and

borrowed twenty pounds from his friend Garrick (which history, or

rumour, says he never repaid) and left for--of all places--Paris,

where a plunge into the whirl of social dissipation nearly carried

him off his feet.

Sterne and Stevenson have written more charmingly of France and

things French than any others in the English tongue, and if any one

would like to make three little pilgrimages off the beaten track, by

road or rail, by bicycle or automobile, let him follow the trail of

Sterne in his "Sentimental Journey," or Stevenson in his "Inland

Voyage" and his "Travels with a Donkey." They do not follow the

"personally conducted" tourist routes, but they give a much better

idea of France to one who wants to see things for himself.

Charles Dibdin, too, "muddled away five months at Calais," to quote

his own words. He arrived from England after a thirteen-hours'

passage in a gale of wind, in which he composed his most famous

sea-song, "Blow High, Blow Low." Travellers across the channel have

been known to occupy thirteen hours on the passage since Dibdin's

time, and seemingly, in the experience of the writer, there is not a

time when the words of the song might not apply.

We had come to Calais for the purpose of crossing the Channel for a

little tour awheel amid the natural beauties and historic shrines of

Merry England.

It takes fifty-five minutes, according to the Railway-Steamship

time-cards, to make the passage from Calais to Dover, but the writer

has never been able to make one of these lightning passages.

Automobiles are transported by the mail-boats only upon "special

arrangements," information upon which point is given so vaguely that

one suspects bribery and craft.

We did not bite, but went over by the night cargo-boat, at least the

automobile did, at a cost of a hundred francs. This is cheap or dear,

according to the way you look at it. For the service rendered it is

dear, for the accommodation to you it is, perhaps, cheap enough. At

any rate, it is cheap enough when you want to get away _from_ England

again, its grasping hotel-keepers, and its persecuting police.

Why do so many English automobilists tour abroad, Mr. British

Hotel-keeper and Mr. Police Sergeant? One wonders if you really

suspect.

Part III

On Britain's Roads

Chapter I

The Bath Road

[Illustration: The Bath Road]

The Bath Road is in many ways the most famed main road out of London.

Visions as varied as those of highwaymen on Hounslow Heath, boating

at Maidenhead, the days of the "dandies" at Bath, and of John Cabot

at Bristol flashed through our minds whenever we heard the Bath road

mentioned, so we set out with a good-will on the hundred and eighteen

mile journey to Bath.

To-day the road's designation is the same as of yore, though Palmer's

coaches, that in 1784 left London at eight in the morning and arrived

at Bristol at eleven at night, have given way to automobiles which

make the trip in three hours. You can be three hours or thirty, as

you please. We figured it out for thirty-six and lunched, dined,

slept, and breakfasted _en route_, and felt the better for it.

The real popularity of the Bath road and its supremacy in coaching

circles a century and a quarter ago--a legacy which has been handed

down to automobilists of to-day--was due to the initiative of one

John Palmer, a gentleman of property, who had opened a theatre at

Bath, and was sorely annoyed at the delays he had to submit to in

obtaining star actors from London to appear on particular nights.

Palmer was a man with a grievance, but he was also a man with ability

and purpose. He travelled about, and made notes and observations, and

organized a scheme by which coaching might be brought into a complete

system; he memorialized the government, was opposed by the

post-office authorities, abused, sneered at, laughed at, but not

beaten; finally he gained the ear of William Pitt, who saw that there

was more in the proposed plan than a mere experiment. On the 8th of

August, 1784, Palmer ran his first mail-coach from London to Bristol,

and made the journey in fifteen hours. That was the turning-point.

The old lumbering coaches, the abominable roads, the irresponsible

drivers, the wretched delay, misery, and uncertainty rapidly gave

place to lighter, stronger, and more commodious vehicles, better

horses, more experienced drivers, careful guards, regular stages,

marked by decent inns and comfortable hostelries, and improved roads.

The post-office made a contract with the coaching speculator--a very

safe contract indeed--by which he was to have two and one-half per

cent of the money saved in the conveyance of letters. This would have

yielded twenty thousand pounds a year; so the government broke its

agreement, refused to vote the payment, and compromised with Mr.

Palmer and its own conscience, after the fashion of politicians of

all time, by a grant of fifty thousand pounds.

[Illustration: On The Bath Road]

The Bath road traverses a section of England that is hardly as varied

as would be a longer route from north to south, but, on the whole, it

is characteristically English throughout, and is as good an itinerary

as any by which to make one's first acquaintance with English days

and English ways.

Via Hammersmith, Kew Bridge, Brentford, and Hounslow was our way out

of town, and a more awful, brain-racking, and discouraging start it

would have been impossible to make. London streets are ever difficult

to thread with an automobile, and when the operation is undertaken on

a misty, moisty morning with what the Londoner knows as _grease_

thick under foot and wheel, the process is fraught with the

possibility of adventure.

Out through Piccadilly and Knightsbridge was bad enough, but, by the

time Hammersmith Broadway, its trams and tram-lines and its butchers'

and bakers' and milk carts, was reached and passed, it was as if one

had been trying to claw off a lee shore in a gale, and driver and

passengers alike felt exceeding limp and sticky. The Londoner who

drives an automobile thinks nothing of it, and covers the intervening

miles with a cool clear-headedness that is marvellous. We were new to

automobiling in England, but we were fast becoming acclimated.

On through Chiswick there were still the awful tram-lines, but the

roadway improved and was wider and free from abrupt turns and twists.

We congratulated ourselves that at last we had got clear of town, but

we had reckoned beyond our better judgment, for we had forgotten that

we had been told that Brentford was the most awful death-trap that

the world has known for automobilists, cyclists, and indeed

foot-passers as well. We should have kept a little of our nerve by

us, for we needed it when we got shut in between a brewer's dray, an

omnibus, and an electric tram-car in Brentford's sixteen-foot "main

road." It was like an interminable canyon, gloomy, damp, and

dangerous for all living things which passed its portals, this main

street of Brentford. For some miles, apparently, this same congestion

of traffic continued, a tram-car ahead and behind you, drays, trucks,

and carts all around you, and fool butchers' cart and milk cart

drivers turning unexpected corners to the likely death of you and

themselves. Here is an automobile reform which might well attract the

attention of the authorities in England. The automobile has as much

right to be a road user as any other form of traffic, and, if the

automobile is to be regulated as to its speed and progress, it is

about time that the same regulations were applied also to other

classes of traffic.

We finally got out of Brentford and came to Low, where suburban

improvement has gone to widen the roadway and put the two lines of

tramway in the middle, allowing a free passage on either side. The

wood pavement, which we had followed almost constantly since leaving

London, soon disappeared, and, finally, so did the tramway. After

perhaps fifteen miles we were at last approaching open country; at

least Suburbia and perambulators had been left behind; and

truck-gardens and market-wagons, often with sleepy drivers, had

entered on the scene. Here was a new danger, but not so terrible as

those we had left behind, and the poor, docile horse usually had

sense enough to draw aside and let us pass, even if the beer-drowsy

driver had not.

We soon reached the top of Hounslow Heath, but there was scarcely a

suggestion of the former romantic aspect which we had always

connected with it.

We made inquiries and learned that there was one old neighbouring

inn, the "Green Man," lying between the Bath and Exeter roads, which

was a true relic of the past, and musty with the traditions of

turnpike travellers and highwaymen of old. We found the "Green Man"

readily enough, with a country yokel to point the way, for which he

expected the price of a beer. In the palmy days of the robbing and

murdering traffic of Hounslow Heath it was a convenient refuge for

the Duvals and Turpins, and they made for it with a rush on occasion,

secreting themselves in a hiding-place which can still be seen.

This is in a little room on the left of the front door, and the

entrance lies at the back of an old-fashioned fireplace. A hole leads

to a passage which opens into a cavernous recess beneath, to which

there is ample room for anybody to descend. The local wiseacres

declare that there is, or was, a communication between this secret

chamber and another famous highwayman's inn, the old "Magpie"

directly on the Bath road, and that those who preyed on travellers

used to bolt from one house to the other like hunted rabbits. No one

seemingly has himself ever explored this mysterious subterranean

passage. Beyond Hounslow, on the Bath road, one passes through

Slough, leaving Windsor, Runnymede, and Datchet on the left, as

properly belonging to the routine tours which one makes from London

and calls simply excursions.

The Thames is reached at Maidenhead, where up-river society plays a

part which reminds one of the stage melodramas, except that there is

real water and real boat-races. It is a pretty enough aspect up and

down the river from the bridge at Maidenhead, but it is stagey and

artificial.

The hotels and restaurants of Maidenhead make some pretence of

catering to automobilists, and do it fairly well, after a suburban

fashion, but there is nothing of the flavour or sentiment of the old

inn-keeping days, neither are any of the establishments at all what

the touring automobilist (as distinct from the promenading, or

half-day excursion variety) expects and demands.

[Illustration: The Road By The Thames]

The Bath road runs straight on through Twyford to Reading, but we

made a detour via Great Marlow and Henley, merely for the

satisfaction of lunching at the "Red Lion Inn" at the latter place.

The great social and sporting attractions of the Thames, the annual

Henley regatta, had drawn us thither years ago, and we had enjoyed

ourselves in the conventional manner, shouting ourselves hoarse over

rival crews, lunching, picnic fashion, from baskets under the trees,

and making our way back to town by the railway, amid a terrifying

crush late at night. It was all very enjoyable, but once in a

lifetime was quite enough. Now we were taking things easier.

The traditions hanging around the old "Red Lion Inn," beside the

bridge, probably account for its popularity, for certainly its

present-day accommodations and catering are nothing remarkable, and

the automobilist is looked upon with disfavour. Why? This is hard to

state. He is a good spender, the automobilist, and he comes

frequently. All the same, the "Red Lion Inn" at Henley is one of

those establishments marked down in the guide-books as "comfortable,"

and if its luncheon is a bit slow and stodgy, it is wholesome enough,

and automobilists are generally blessed with good appetites.

The Shenstone legend and the window-pane verses about finding "one's

warmest welcome at an inn" were originally supposed to apply to this

inn at Henley. Later authorities say that they referred to an inn at

Henley-in-Arden. Perhaps an automobilist, even, would find the latter

more to his liking. The writer does not know.

To Reading from Henley is perhaps a dozen miles, by a pretty river

road which shows all the characteristic loveliness of the Thames

valley about which poets have raved. By Shiplake Mill, Sonning, and

Caversham Bridge one finally enters Reading. Reading is famous for

the remains of an old abbey and for its biscuits, but neither at the

time had any attractions for us.

We made another detour from our path and followed the river-road to

Abingdon. Pangborne (better described as Villadom) was passed, as was

also Mapledurham, which Dick of William Morris's "Utopia" thought "a

very pretty place." In fine it is a very pretty place, and the river

hereabouts is quite at its prettiest.

Since we had actually left towns and trams behind us we found the

roadways good, but abominably circuitous and narrow, not to say

dangerous because of it.

Soon Streatley Hill rose up before us. Streatley is one of those

villages which have been pictured times innumerable. One often sees

its winding streets, its picturesque cottages, its one shop, its old

mill, "The Bull Inn," or its notorious bridge over the river to

Goring.

To cross this bridge costs six pence per wheel, be your conveyance a

cart, carriage, bicycle, or motor-car, so that if an automobile

requires any slight attention from the machinist, who quarters

himself at Goring boat-house, it is appreciably cheaper to bargain

with him to come to Streatley. Thus one may defeat the object of the

grasping institution which, the _lady_ toll-taker tells you, is

responsible for the outrage, and not she herself. You may well

believe her; she hardly looks as though she approved of the means

which serve to keep her in her modest position.

[Illustration: On The Thames At Henley]

Streatley Hill, or rather the view from it, like the village itself,

is famed alike by poet and painter. The following quatrain should be

eulogy enough to warrant one's taking a rather stiff climb in the

hope of experiencing, to a greater or a lesser degree, the same

emotions:

"When you're here, I'm told that you

Should mount the Hill and see the view;

And gaze and wonder, if you'd do

Its merits most completely."

The poetry is bad, but the sentiment is sound.

Goring is more of a metropolis than Streatley, but we did not visit

the former town because of the atrocious toll-bridge charge. We were

willing enough to make martyrs of ourselves in the good cause of the

suppression of all such excessive charges to automobilists.

On through Abingdon, and still following the valley of the Thames, we

kept to Faringdon and Lechlade, where, at the latter place, at the

subtly named "Trout Inn," we proposed passing the night.

We did pass the night at the "Trout Inn," which has no accommodation

for automobiles, except a populated hen-house, the general

sleeping-place of most of the live stock of the landlord, dogs, cats,

ducks, and geese; to say nothing of the original occupants--the hens.

How much better they do things in France!

At any rate there is no pretence about the "Trout Inn" at Lechlade.

We slept in a stuffy, diamond-paned little room with chintz curtains

to windows, bed, and mantelpiece. We dined off of trout, beefsteak,

and cauliflower, and drank bitter beer until midnight in the

bar-parlour with a half-dozen old residents who told strange tales of

fish and fishing. Here at least was the real thing, though the

appointments of the inn were in no sense picturesque, and the

landlord, instead of being a rotund, red-faced person, was a tall,

thin reed of a man with a white beard who, in spite of his eighty odd

years, is about as lively a proposition as one will find in the

business in England.

Mine host of "The Trout," silvered as the aspen, but straight as the

pine, bears his eighty-two years lightly, and will tell you that he

is still able to protect his fishing rights, which he owns in

absolute fee on four miles of river-bank, against trespassers--and

they are many. He sleeps, he says, with one eye open, and his gun by

his side, and thinks nothing of a sally forth in the dark hours of

night and exploding a charge in the direction of a marauder. He and

his cronies of the tap-room, of an evening, before a glowing fire of

logs, above which is the significant gun-rack (quite in old

picture-book fashion), will give a deal of copy to an able writer who

seeks atmosphere and local colour.

Kelmscott, so identified with William Morris, is even less of the

world of to-day than is its neighbour, Lechlade, and was one of the

reasons for our coming here at all.

The topographical surveys and books of reference will tell on that it

is a "chapelry, in the parish of Broadwell, Union of Faringdon,

hundred of Bampton, county of Oxford;" that it is "two miles east of

Lechlade and contains 179 inhabitants;" and that "by measurement it

contains 1,020 acres, of which 876 are arable and 153 meadow and

pasture." It is unlikely that the population has increased since the

above description; the best authority claims that it has actually

decreased, like so many of the small towns and villages of the

countryside in England.

Kelmscott Manor House was advertised for sale in 1871, a fact which

Morris discovered quite by accident. Writing to his friend Faulkner

he says:

"I have been looking about for a house...

my eye is turned now to Kelmscott, a little village

two miles above Radcott Bridge--a Heaven on

earth."

The house is thirty miles or more from Oxford, by water, approached

by a lane which leads from Lechlade just over St. John's Bridge, by

the "Trout Inn." The railway now reaches Lechlade but this was not

the case when Morris first found this "_Heaven._" Most likely he

reached it by carriage from Faringdon, "by the grand approach over

the hills of Berkshire."

We regained the Bath road at Marlborough, after our excursion into

the realms of Utopia, intending to reach Bath for lunch. The best

laid plans of mice and mere motor-men ofttimes go awry, and we did

_not_ get to Bath until well on into the night. There was really no

reason for this except an obstinate _bougie_ (beg pardon,

sparking-plug in English) which sparked beautyfully in the open air,

but which refused positively to give a glimmer when put in its proper

place. We did not know this, or even suspect it at first, but this

was what delayed us four hours, just before we reached Chippenham,

where we stopped and lunched, through no choice of our own, for it

was a bad lunch in every particular, and cost three shillings and

sixpence a head. To add to the indignity, the local policemen came

along and said we were making an obstruction, and insisted that we

push the machine into the stable-yard, as if we were committing a

breach of the law, when really it was only an opportunity for a

"bobby" to show his authority. Happy England!

All the morning we had been running over typical English roads and

running well. There is absolutely no question but that the

countryside of England is unequalled for that unique variety of

picturesqueness which is characteristic of the land, but it lacks the

grandeur that one finds in France, or indeed in most countries of

Continental Europe.

Crossing England thus, one gets the full force of Rider Haggard's

remarks about the small farmer; how, because he cannot get a small

holding, that can be farmed profitably, for his very own, he becomes

a tenant, or remains always a labourer, never rising in the social

scale.

The peasant of Continental Europe may be poor and impoverished, may

eat largely of bread instead of meat, and be forced to drink "thin

wine" instead of body-building beer,--as the economists in England

put it,--but he has much to be thankful for, nevertheless.

We stopped just before Beckhampton, at a puzzling crossroads, and

asked a labourer of the fields if we were "right" for Chippenham. He

stared blankly, doffed his hat with humility, but for a time answered

never a word. He knew Calne, a town half a dozen miles away, for he

occasionally, walked in there for a drinking-bout on a heavier brand

of beer than he could buy locally, but, though he had always heard of

Chippenham, he did not know whether it lay north, east, south, or

west. This is deplorable, of course, for it was within a twenty-mile

radius, but it is astonishing the frequency with which one meets this

blankness in England when looking for information. There are tens of

thousands like this poor fellow, and one may well defy Rider Haggard

to make a "landed proprietor" out of such poor stuff.

You do not always get what you ask for in France, but the peasant at

least knows enough to tell you, "Oh! that's down in the Eure" or

"_Plus loin, par là,_" and at any rate, you feel that he is a

broad-gauge Frenchman through and through, whereas the English

labourer of the fields is a very "little Englander" indeed.

It is hard to believe on a bright May morning that here, in this

blossoming, picturesque little village of Chippenham, on one bitterly

cold morning in the month of _April_, 1812, when the Bath coach

reached its posting-house (the same, perhaps, Mr. Up-to-Date

Automobilist, at which you have slept the night--worse luck), two of

its outside passengers were found frozen to death, and a third all

but dead. The old lithographs which pictured the "Royal Mail" stuck

in a snow-drift, and the unhappy passengers helping to dig it out,

are no longer apocryphal in your mind after you have heard this bit

of "real history," which happened, too, in one of England's southern

counties. The romance of other days was often stern and uncomfortable

reality of a most bitter kind.

We left Chippenham, finally, very late in the day, lost our way at

unsign-boarded and puzzling crossroads, had two punctures in a half a

dozen miles, and ultimately reached the centre of Bath, over the

North Parade Bridge--for which privilege we paid three pence, another

imposition, which, however, we could have avoided had we known the

devious turnings of the main road into town.

In two days we had covered something like two hundred and fifty miles

in and out of highways and byways, had followed the Thames for its

entire boatable length, and had crossed England,--not a very great

undertaking as automobile tours go, but a varied and enjoyable one in

spite of the restrictions put upon the free passage of automobiles by

the various governing bodies and the indifferent hotel-keepers.

Bath and its attractions for visitors are quite the best things of

their kind in all England, in spite of the fact that the attractions,

the teas, the concerts, and the lectures--to say nothing of drinking

and bathing in the waters--lack individuality.

We stayed the round of the clock at Bath, two rounds and a half, in

fact, in that we did not leave until the second morning after our

arrival, and absorbed as much of the spirit and association of the

place as was possible, including sundry gallons of the bubbling

spring-water.

Bath has pleased many critical souls, James McNeill Whistler for one,

who had no patience with other English resorts. It pleased us, too.

It was so different.

From Bath to Bristol is a dozen miles only, and the topographical

characteristics change entirely, following the banks of the little

river Avon. Bristol was a great seaport in days gone by, but today

only coasters and colliers make use of its wharves. The town is

charmingly situated, but it is unlovely, and, for the tourist, is

only a stepping-stone to somewhere else. The Automobile Club of Great

Britain and Ireland directs one to the suburb of Clifton, or rather

to Clifton Down, for hotel accommodation, but you can do much better

than that by stopping at the Half Moon Hotel in the main street, a

frankly commercial house, but with ample garage accommodation and

good plain fare, of which roast little pig, boiled mutton,

cauliflower, and mashed potatoes, with the ever recurring apple tart,

form the principal items.

Chapter II

The South Coast

[Illustration: The South Coast]

The south coast of England is ever dear to the Londoner who spends

his week's end out of town. Here he finds the nearest whiff of

salt-water breeze that he can call his own. He may go down the Thames

on a Palace steamer to Southend, and he will have to content himself

most of the way with a succession of mud-flats and eat winkles with a

brassy pin when he gets there; he may even go on to Margate and find

a fresh east wind which will blow the London fog out of his brain;

but, until he rounds the Foreland, he will find nothing that will

remind him in the least of his beloved Eastbourne, Brighton, and

Worthing.

The most popular south coast automobile run from London is to

Brighton, fifty-two miles, via Croyden, Redhill, and Crawley. Many

"weekenders" make this trip nearly every Saturday to Monday in the

year, and get to know every rut and stone in the roadway and every

degenerate policeman of the rapacious crew who hide in hedges and lie

in wait for poor unfortunate automobilists who may have slipped down

a sloping bit of clear roadway at a speed of twenty and one-tenth

miles per hour (instead of nineteen and nine-tenths), all figured out

by rule of thumb and with the aid of a thirty-shilling stop-watch.

"_Ils sont terribles, ces bétes des gendarmes on trouve en

Angleterre,_" said a terror-stricken French friend of ours who had

been held up beyond Crawley for a "technical offence." Nothing was

said against a drunken drayman who backed his wagon up against our

friend's mudguard ten miles back, and smashed it beyond repair.

Justice, thy name is not in the vocabulary of the English policeman

sent out by his sergeant to keep watch on automobilists!

Our road to the sea was by Rochester, Canterbury, and Dover, in the

first instance, following much the itinerary of Chaucer's pilgrims.

Southwark's Tabard Inn exists to-day, in name if not in spirit, and

it was easy enough to take it for our starting-point. Getting out of

London to the southeast is not as bad as by the northwest, but in all

conscience it is bad enough, through Deptford and its docks, and

Greenwich and Woolwich, and over the Plumstead marshes. There are

variants of this itinerary, we were told, but all are equally smelly

and sooty, and it was only well after we had passed Gravesend that we

felt that we had really left town behind, and even then we could see

the vermilion stacks of great steamships making their way up London's

river to the left, and the mouse-brown sails of the barges going

round the coast to Ipswich and Yarmouth.

At last a stretch of green unsmoked and unspoiled country, that via

Stroud to Rochester, came into view.

Rochester on the Medway, with its memories of Mr. Pickwick and the

Bull Inn (still remaining), the cathedral and Gad's Hill, Dickens's

home near by, is a literary shrine of the first importance. We

stopped _en route_ and did our duty, but were soon on our way again

through the encumbered main street of Chatham and up the long hill to

Sittingbourne, itself a dull, respectable market-town with a boiled

mutton and grilled kipper inn which offers no inducements to a

gormand to stop for lunch.

We kept on to Canterbury and didn't do much better at a hotel which

shall be nameless. The hotels are all bad at Canterbury, according to

Continental standards, and there is little choice between them.

It is said that the oldest inn in England is "The Fountain" at

Canterbury. "The Fountain" claims to have housed the wife of Earl

Godwin when she came to meet her husband on his return from Denmark

in the year 1029, and to have been the temporary residence of

Archbishop Lanfranc whilst his palace was being rebuilt in 1070.

There is a legend, too, that the four knights who murdered Thomas à

Becket made this house their rendezvous. Moreover, "The Fountain" can

boast of a testimonial to its excellence as an inn written six

hundred years ago, for, when the marriage of Edward the First to his

second queen, Margaret of France, was solemnized at Canterbury

Cathedral on September 12, 1299, the ambassador of the Emperor of

Germany, who was among the distinguished guests, wrote thus to his

master: "The inns in England are the best in Europe, those of

Canterbury are the best in England, and 'The Fountain,' wherein I am

now lodged as handsomely as I were in the king's palace, the best in

Canterbury." Times have changed since the days of Edward I.!

Canterbury is a very dangerous town to drive through. Its streets are

narrow and badly paved, and there are unexpected turnings which bring

up a lump in one's throat when he is driving at his most careful gait

and is suddenly confronted with a governess's cart full of children,

a perambulator, and a bath-chair, all in the middle of the road,

where, surely, the two latter have no right to be.

The grand old shrine of Thomas à Becket, the choir built by

Lanfranc's monks, and the general _ensemble_ of the cathedral close

are worth all the risk one goes through to get to them. The cathedral

impresses one as the most thoroughly French of all the Gothic

churches of Britain, and because of this its rank is high among the

ecclesiastical architectural treasures of the world. Its history is

known to all who know that of England, of the church, and of

architecture, and the edifice tells the story well.

The distant view from the road, as one approaches the city, is one

that can only be described as grand. The fabric of the great

cathedral, the rooftops of the houses, the sloping hills rising from

the water's edge, and again falling lightly down to the town, form a

grandly imposing view, the equal of which one seldom sees on the main

travelled roads of England.

Between Canterbury and Winchester ran one of the oldest roads in

England, the "Pilgrim's Way." Many parts of it still exist, and it is

believed by many to be the oldest monument of human work in these

islands. About two-thirds of the length of the road is known with

certainty, and to some extent the old itinerary forms the modern

highway. Its earliest route seems to have been from Stonehenge to

Canterbury, but later the part from Stonehenge to Alton was abandoned

in favour of that from Winchester to Alton. Guildford and Dorking

were places that it touched, though it was impossible to say with

certainty where it crossed the Medway.

Margate, Ramsgate, and the Isle of Thanet lay to the left of us, but

we struck boldly across the downs to Dover's Bay, under the shadow of

the Shakespeare Cliff, made famous in the scenic accessories of _The

Tempest_.

Dover, seventy-two miles by road from London, has a good hotel,

almost reaching the Continental standard, though it is not an

automobile hotel and you must house your machine elsewhere. It is

called the Lord Warden Hotel, and is just off the admiralty pier

head. It suited us very well in spite of the fact that the old-school

Englishman contemptuously refers to it as a place for brides and for

seasick Frenchmen waiting the prospect of a fair crossing by the

Calais packet.

The descent into Dover's lower town from the downs above is fraught

with considerable danger for the automobilist. It is steep, winding,

and narrow, and one climbs out of it again the next morning by an

equally steep, though less narrow, road up over the Shakespeare Cliff

and down again abruptly into Folkestone.

Dover is not fashionable as a resort, and its one pretentious

sea-front hotel is not a lovely thing--most sea-front hotels are not.

In spite of this there is vastly more of interest going on, with the

coming and going of the great liners and the cross-channel boats of

the harbour, than is to be found in a mere watering-place, where band

concerts, parade-walks, "nigger minstrels," tea fights, and

excursions in the neighbourhood are the chief attractions which are

advertised, and are fondly believed by the authorities to be

sufficient to draw the money-spending crowds.

Dover is a very interesting place; the Shakespeare Cliff dominates

it on one side and the old castle ruin on the other, to-day as they

did when the first of the Cinq-Ports held England's destiny in the

hollow of her hand. Sir Walter Raleigh prayed his patron Elizabeth to

strengthen her fortifications here and formulate plans for a great

port. Much was done by her, but a fitting realization of Dover's

importance as a deep-water port has only just come to pass, and then

only because of a significant hint from the German emperor.

Shakespeare's, or Lear's, Cliff at Dover is one of the first things

to which the transatlantic up-channel traveller's attention is

called. Blind old Gloster has thus described it:

"There is a cliff whose high and bending head

Looks fearfully into the confined deep."

The English War Department of today, it is rumoured, would erase this

landmark, because the cliff obstructs the range of heavy guns, thus

jeopardizing the defence of Dover; but there are those who, knowing

that chalk is valuable, suggest that commercialism is at the

foundation of the scheme for destroying the cliff. The Dover

corporation has accordingly passed a resolution of remonstrance

against the destruction of what they claim "would rob the English

port of one of its most thrilling attractions."

Folkestone is more sadly respectable than Dover; more homeopathic,

one might say. The town is equally difficult for an automobile to

make its way through, but as one approaches the water's edge things

somewhat improve. Wampach's Hotel at Folkestone is not bad, but B. B.

B., as the "Automobile Club's Hand Book" puts it (bed, bath, and

breakfast), costs eight shillings and sixpence a day. This is too

much for what you get.

We followed the shore road to Hythe, Dymchurch, New Romney, and Rye,

perhaps thirteen miles all told, along a pebble-strewn roadway with

here and there a glimpse of the shining sea and the smoke from a

passing steamer.

To our right was Romney Marsh, calling up memories of the smuggling

days of old, when pipes of port and bales of tobacco mysteriously

found their way inland without paying import duties.

Rye is by no means a resort; it is simply a dull, sleepy, red-roofed

little seaside town, with, at sunset, a riot of blazing colour

reflected from the limpid pools left by the retreating waters of the

Channel, which now lies five miles away across a mud-flat plain,

although coastwise shipping once came to Rye's very door-step.

The entrance to the town, by an old mediæval gateway, is easily

enough made by a careful driver, but an abrupt turn near the top of

the slight rise cost us a mud-guard, it having been ripped off by an

unexpected and most dangerous hitching-post. This may be now removed;

it certainly is if the local policeman did his duty and reported our

really atrocious language to the authorities. Of all imbecilic and

unneedful obstructions to traffic, Rye's half-hidden hitching-post is

one of the most notable seen in an automobile tour comprising seven

countries and several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of large and small

towns.

The chief curiosities of Rye are its quaint hilltop church, the town

walls, and the Ypres tower, all quite foreign in motive and aspect

from anything else in England.

Those interested in literary shrines may well bow their heads before

the door of the dignified Georgian house near the church, in which

resides the enigmatic Henry James. There may be other literary lights

who shed a glow over Rye, but we did not learn of them, and surely

none could be more worthy of the attention of literary lion-hunters

than the American who has become "more English" than the English

themselves.

We left Rye by a toll-gate road over the marshes, bound for

Winchelsea, and, passing through the ivy-clad tower which spans the

roadway, stopped abruptly, like all hero or heroine worshippers,

before the dainty home of Ellen Terry. The creeper-clung little brick

cottage is a reminiscence of old-world peace and quiet which must be

quite refreshing after an active life on the stage.

Hastings saw us for the night. Hastings and St. Leonards, twin

sea-front towns, are what, for a better description, might be called

snug and smug. They are simply the most depressing, unlovely resorts

of sea-front and villas that one will see in a round of all the

English resorts.

As a pompous, bustling, self-sufficient little city, Hastings, with

its fisher men and women, its fish-market and the ruined

castle-crowned height, has some quaintness and character; but as a

resort where the chief amusements are scrappy, tuneless

hurdy-gurdies, blatant brass bands, living picture shows, or

third-rate repetitious of a last year's London theatrical successes,

it is about the rankest boring proposition which ever drew the unwary

visitor.

We had our "B. B. B." that night at the Queen's Hotel, a vast

barracks of a place near the end of the Parade. The best thing about

it was the view from the windows of our sleeping-rooms, and the fact

that we could stable our automobile under the same roof.

We made a little run inland from Hastings the next morning to view

old Battle Abbey. The battlement-crowned gateway is still one of the

architectural marvels of England. It took us a dozen miles out of our

way, but always among the rolling downs which dip down to the sea,

chalk-faced and grass-grown in a manner characteristic only of the

south coast of England.

We came to Eastbourne through Pevensey, famed for its old ruined

castle and much history. A low-lying marsh-grown fishing-port of

olden times, Pevensey was the landing-place of the Conqueror when he

came to lay the foundation-stones of England's greatness. It is a

shrine that Britons should bow down before, and reverently.

Eastbourne is a vast improvement, as a resort, over any south coast

town we had yet seen. It is not gay, it is rather sedate, and

certainly eminently respectable and dignified. Giant wheels,

hurdy-gurdies, and quack photographers are banished from its beach

and esplanade, and one may stroll undisturbed by anything but

perambulators and bath-chairs. Its sea-front walk of a couple of

miles or more is as fine as any that can be found from the Foreland

to the Lizard.

Most energetically we climbed to the top of Beachy Head, gossiped

with the coast-guard, stole a peep through the telescope by which

Lloyd's observer at the signal-station picks out passing ships, and

got down the great hill again in time for lunch at the Burlington

Hotel. We lunched in more or less stately fashion, well, if not

luxuriously, in a great dining-room whose sole occupant, besides

ourselves, was England's laureate.

He is herein endorsed as possessing a good taste in seaside hotels,

whatever one may think of the qualities of his verse. The Burlington

seemed to us the best conducted and most satisfactory hotel on all

the south coast, except perhaps the Lord Warden at Dover.

It was a more or less rugged climb, by a badly made road, up over the

downs from Eastbourne, only to drop down again as quickly through

Eastdean to Newhaven, a short ten miles, but a trying one.

Newhaven is a sickly burg sheltered well to the west of Beachy Head.

Its only excitements are the comings and goings of the Dieppe

steamers and a few fishing-boats. It is one of the best ports for

shipping one's automobile to France, and one of the cheapest. In no

other respect is Newhaven worth a glance of the eye, and English

travelers themselves have no good word for the abominable tea and

coffee served to limp, half-famished travellers as they get off the

Dieppe boat. This well-worn and well-deserved reputation was no

inducement for us to stop, so we made speed for Brighton via

Rottingdean.

Rottingdean will be famous in most minds as being the rival of

Brattleboro, Vt., as the home of Rudyard Kipling. Sightseers came

from Brighton in droves and stared the author out of countenance, as

they did at Brattleboro, and he removed to the still less known, _and

a great deal less accessible_, village of Burwash in Kent. Thus

passed the fame of Rottingdean.

Brighton has been called London-on-Sea, and with some truth, but as

the sun shines here with frequency it differs from London in that

respect.

Brighton is a brick and iron built town, exceedingly unlovely, but

habitable. Its two great towering sea-front hotels look American, but

they are a great deal more substantially built. There are two rivals

for popular favour, the Grand and the Metropole. They are much alike

in all their appointments, but there are fewer tea-drinkers and

after-dinner sleepers (and snorers) at the Metropole. There is also a

famous old coaching house, the Ship Hotel (most curiously named),

which caters particularly for automobilists.

Brighton is the typical seaside resort of Britain. It is like nothing

on the Continent; it is not even as attractive a place as most

Continental resorts; but it is the best thing in Britain.

Brighton and Hove have a sea-front of perhaps three miles. Houses and

hotels line the promenade on one side, a pebbly beach and the sea on

the other.

The attractions of Brighton are conventional and an imitation of

those in London. In addition one bathes, in summer, in the lapping

waves, and in winter sits in a glass shelter which breaks the wind,

and gazes seaward.

There are theatrical attractions and operas in the theatre, and vocal

and instrumental concerts on the pier, all through the year. There

are also various sorts of functions which go on in the turnip-topped

Royal Pavilion of the Georges, which once seen will ever afterward be

avoided.

It is not always bright and sunny at Brighton. We were storm-bound at

the Metropole for two days, and the Channel waves dashed up over the

pier and promenade and drowned out the strollers who sought to take

their constitutional abroad.

We sat tight in the hotel and listened to Sousa marches, "Hiawatha,"

and "The Belle of New York" strummed out by a none too competent

band. A genial fat-faced old lady of uncertain age tried to inveigle

us into a game of bridge, but that was not what we came for, so we

strenuously refused.

The flood-tide of holiday trippers at Brighton is in August. This is

the month when, at certain periods of the day, the mile length of

roadway from railway station to sea is a closely packed crowd of

excursionists; when the long expanse of sea-front and sand presents

its most animated spectacle of holiday-keeping people; when the

steamers plying along the Sussex coast, or to France, the

white-sailed yachts, the rowing-boats, and motor-boats are the most

numerous; and when the hundred and one entertainers and providers of

all kinds do their busiest trade.

There is a public bathing-station at the eastern end of the

sea-front. A large marquee is provided, and a worthy lady, the

incarnation of the British matron, sees to it that the curtains are

properly drawn and that inquisitive small boys keep their distance.

But it is rather a long walk from the marquee to the water when the

tide is low, and one often hears the camera click on the irresistible

charms of some swan-like creature ambling down to deep water. The

authorities have promised to put a stop to such liberties. Can they?

We left Brighton with a very good idea indeed of what it was like. It

has a place to fill and it fills it very well, but the marvel is that

the Britisher submits to it, when he can spend his weekends, or his

holiday, at Boulogne or Dieppe for practically the same expenditure

of time and money, and get real genuine relaxation and a gaiety which

is not forced. So much for Brighton.

The Brighton police authorities have heeded the words of admonition

of the tradesmen and hotel-keepers, and the automobilist has an easy

time of it. It is an example which it is to be hoped will be

far-reaching in its effects.

The road by the coast runs along by New Shoreham to Worthing, where

the automobilist is catered for in really satisfactory fashion at

Warne's Hotel, which possesses what is called a motor dépôt, a name

which describes its functions in an obvious manner. It is a good

place to lunch and a good place to obtain gasoline and oil. What more

does the touring automobilist want? Not much but good roads and ever

varying scenery.

Worthing has a population of twenty-five thousand conservative souls,

and a mild climate. Its popularity is only beginning, but it boasts

1,748 hours of sunshine, an exceedingly liberal allowance for an

English resort. It has also a "school of cookery;" this may account

for the fare being as excellent as it is at "Warne's," though the

proprietors are silent on this point.

Littlehampton came next in our itinerary. It almost equals Rye as one

of the picture spots of England's south coast. It may develop some

day into an artist's sketching ground which will rival the Cornish

coast. It has a tidal river with old boats and barges lying

picturesquely about, and it permits "mixed bathing," a rarity in

England. In spite of this there appears to be no falling off in

morals, and when other English seaside resorts adopt the same

procedure they will be falling out of the conservatism which is

keeping many of them from developing at the rate of Littlehampton.

We left the coast here to visit Arundel and its castle, the seat of

the Duke of Norfolk. It was a Friday and the keep and park were open

to the public.

Arundel is an ancient town which sleeps its life away and lives up to

the traditions of mediævalism in truly conservative fashion. The

Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland makes no recommendation

as to the hotels of Arundel, and presumably the Norfolk Arms cares

nothing for the automobile traffic. We did not stop at any hotel, but

left our machine outside the castle gate, enjoyed the conventional

stroll about inside the walls and in an hour were on the way to

Chichester.

Sussex is a county which, according to some traditions possesses four

particular delicacies. Izaak Walton, in 1653, named them as follows:

a Selsea cockle, a Chichester lobster, an Arundel mullet, and an

Amberley trout. Another authority, Ray, adds to these three more: a

Pulborough eel, a Rye herring, and a Bourn wheatear, which, he says,

"are the best in their kind, understand it, of those that are taken

in this country."

Chichester is a cathedral town not usually included in the itinerary

of stranger-tourists. Its proud old cathedral and its detached

bell-tower are remarkable for many things, but the strangeness of the

belfry, entirely unconnected with the church fabric itself, will

strike the natives of the land of skyscrapers most of all.

Chichester is conservative in all things, and social affairs, said a

public-house habitué, are entirely dominated by the cathedral clique.

He may have been a bad authority, this doddering old septuagenarian,

mouthing his pint of beer, but he entertained us during the half-hour

of a passing shower with many plain-spoken opinions about many

things, including subjects as wide apart as clericalism and

submarines.

Our route from Chichester was to Portsmouth and Southsea, neither of

which interested us to any extent. The former is warlike in every

turn of its crooked streets and the latter is full of retired

colonels and majors, who keep always to the middle of the footpath

across Southsea Common, and will not turn the least bit to one side,

for courtesy or any other reason. Too much curry on their rice or

port after dinner probably accounts for it.

We stopped at the George at Portsmouth. It offers no accommodation

for automobiles, but a garage is near by. The halo of sentiment and

romance hung over the more or less dingy old hotel, dingy but clean,

and possessed of a parlour filled with a collection of old furniture

which would make the connoisseur want to carry it all away with him.

This was the terminus of old-time travel from London to Portsmouth.

The Portsmouth road, in coaching days as in automobile days, ran

through England's fairest counties down to her emporium of ships. Its

beginnings go back to the foundations of England's naval power.

Edward IV. made Portsmouth a strong place of defence, but the road

from town only became well travelled in later centuries.

Along the old Portsmouth road were, and are still, any number of

nautically named inns. At Liphook is the Anchor--where Pepys put up

when on his way to England's chief naval town--and the Ship; there is

another Anchor at Ripley; at Petersfield stands the Dolphin, and near

Guildford is the Jovial Sailor. All these, and other signs of a like

nature, suffice to tell the observant wayfarer that he is on the road

which hordes of seamen have trod on their way to and from London, and

that it was formerly deemed well worth while to hang out invitations

to them.

In 1703 Prince George of Denmark made nine miles in six hours on this

road, an indication that the good roads movement had not begun. In

1751 Doctor Burton suggested that all the animals in Sussex,

including the women, were long-legged because of "the difficulty of

pulling their feet out of the mud which covers the roads hereabouts."

A hundred or more years ago Nelson came by post by this road to

Portsmouth to hoist his flag upon the _Victory_. He arrived at the

George, the same which was sheltering our humble selves, at six in

the morning, as the records tell, having travelled all night. The

rest is history, but the old _Victory_ still swings at her moorings

in Portsmouth harbour, a shrine before which all lovers of the sea

and its tales may worship. Portsmouth is the great storehouse of

Britain's battleships, and the Solent from Spithead to Stokes Bay is

a vast pool where float all manner of warlike craft.

[Illustration: Ryde]

The Isle of Wight was the immediate attraction for us at Portsmouth.

One makes the passage by boat in thirty minutes, and when one gets

there he finds leafy lanes and well-kept roads that will put many

mainland counties to shame. The writer does not know the length of

the roadways of the Isle of Wight, but there are enough to give one a

good three days of excursions and promenades.

We made our headquarters at Ryde and sallied out after breakfast and

after lunch each day, invariably returning for the night.

[Illustration: Road Map of Wight]

The beauties of the Isle of Wight are many and varied, with all the

charms of sea and shore. For a literary shrine it has Tennyson's

Freshwater and the Tennyson Beacon high up on the crest of the downs

overlooking the Needles, Freshwater Bay, and the busy traffic of the

English Channel, where the ships make landward to signal the

observers at St. Catherine's Point.

Cowes and "Cowes week" are preeminent annual events in society's

periodical swing around the circle.

The real development of Cowes, the home of the Royal Yacht Squadron,

has been the evolution of week-end yachting in the summer months.

City men, and jaded legislators, held to town by the Parliamentary

duties of a long summer session, rush down to Southampton every

Saturday and each steps off his train or motor-car on to the deck of

his yacht, and then, after a spin westward to the Needles or eastward

to the Nab or Warner Lightship, soothed by the lapping of the waters,

and refreshed by the pure sea air, returns on the Monday to face

again the terrors of London heat and "fag."

Taken all in all, we found the Isle of Wight the most enjoyable

region of its area in all England. It is quite worth the trouble of

crossing from the mainland with one's automobile in order to do it

thoroughly; for what one wants is green fields and pastures new and a

breadth of sea and sky.

Chapter III

Land's End To John O'Groats

[Illustration: Land's End]

We had already done a bit of conventional touring in England, and we

thought we knew quite all of the charms and fascinations of the

idyllic countryside of most of Britain, not omitting even Ireland.

The cathedral towns had appealed to us in our youthful days, and we

had rediscovered a good portion of Dickens's England on another

occasion, had lived for a fortnight on a house-boat on the Thames,

and had cruised for ten days on the Norfolk Broads, and besides had

played golf in Scotland, and _attempted_ to shoot grouse on a

Scottish moor. All this had furnished at least variety, and, when it

came to automobiling through Britain, it was merely going over

well-worn ground that we had known in our cycling days, and usually

we went merely where fancy willed.

Conditions had changed considerably, in fact all things had changed,

we ourselves no less than certain aspects of the country which we had

pictured as always being (in England) of that idyllic tenor of which

the poet sings. This comes of living too much in London, and with too

frequent week-ends at Brighton, Bournemouth, or Cromer.

For years, ever since we had first set foot in England in the days

when cycling _en tandem_ (and even touring in the same manner) was in

vogue, if not the fashion, we had heard of John O'Groat's house, and

we had seen Land's End many a time coming up Channel. We knew, too,

that among scorching cyclists "Land's End to John O'Groat's" was a

classic itinerary for those who would boast of their prowess and

their grit.

All this passed and then came the automobile. "Land's End to John

O'Groat's" is nothing for an automobile, though it is the longest

straightaway bit of road in all Britain, 888 miles, to be exact. If

you are out for a record on an automobile you do it as a "non-stop"

run. It's dull, foolhardy business that, and it proves nothing except

your ability to keep awake for anything between thirty-six and

forty-eight hours, which you can do just as well sitting up with a

sick friend.

In spite of the banal sound that the very words had for us, "Land's

End to John O'Groat's" had a perennial fascination, and so we set out

with our automobile to cover this much, talked of itinerary, with all

its varied charms and deficiencies, for, taking it all in all, it is

probably one of the hilliest roads in Britain, rising as it does over

eight distinct ranges of what are locally called mountains, and

mountains they virtually are when it comes to crossing them by road.

[Illustration: Map of Land's End to John O'Groats]

There is nothing very exciting to be had from a tour such as this,

though it is nearly a nine hundred mile straight-away promenade. For

the most part one's road lies through populous centres, far more so

than any American itinerary for a reliability trial for automobiles

that was ever conceived. Many are the "_events_" which have been run

over this "Land's End--John O'Groat's" course, and the journey has

proved the worth or worthlessness of many a new idea in automobilism.

The modern automobile is getting complicated, but it is also becoming

efficient, if not exactly approaching perfection as yet. The early

days of automobiling were not fraught with so many technicalities as

to-day, when the last new thing may be a benzine bus or a turbine

trailer; formerly everything was simple and crude,--and more or less

inefficient. To-day many cars are as complicated as a chronometer and

require the education of an expert who has lived among their

intricacies for many months in order to control their vagaries and

doctor their ills, which, if not chronic, are as varied as those of

an old maid of sixty.

Four of us started on our road to the north as fit as possible, and

we were courageous enough to think our automobile was likewise, as it

was a tried and trusty friend with some twenty thousand miles to its

credit, and with never a breakage so far as its mechanism was

concerned.

[Illustration: St. Michael's Mount]

We had stayed a few days at Penzance and got to knew something of

Cornwall and things Cornish. Unquestionably Cornwall is the least

spoiled section of Southern Britain; its coastline is rocky and

serrated, and its tors and hills and rills are about as wild and

unspoiled by the hand of man as can be imagined. There is a vast

literature on the subject if one cares to read it, and the modern

fictionists (like the painter-men) have even developed a "Cornish

school." However, there need be no discussion of its merits or

demerits here.

In Mount's Bay is the Cornish counterpart of Normandy's St. Michel's

Mount. It is by no means so great or imposing, or endowed with such a

wealth of architectural charm as the cross-channel Mont St. Michel,

but the English St. Michael's Mount, a granite rock rising from the

sea two hundred and fifty or more feet, was sufficient of an

attraction to draw us to Penzance for our headquarters and to keep us

till we had visited its castle of the days of Charles II. There is no

question of the age of St. Michael's Mount, for Ptolemy charted it in

Roman days, and the Roman warriors, who battled with the Britons,

made spear-heads and hatchets of the tin and iron which they dug from

its rocky defences.

The grim, unlovely little hotel at Land's End sheltered us the night

before the commencement of our journey north, and the Longships

Lighthouse flashed its warning in through our open bedroom window all

the night long and made us dream of wicked and unworldly monster

automobiles bearing down upon us with a great blazing _phare_ which

blotted out all else.

The nightmare passed, we got ourselves together at five in the

morning, drank tepid tea, and ate the inevitable bacon and eggs

furnished one for breakfast in England, and, before lunch, had passed

Bodmin, crossed Bodmin moor (a little Exmoor), and skirted Dartmoor,

just north of Great Links Tor, arriving at Exeter at high noon.

Pople's New London Hotel at Exeter is the headquarters of the

Automobile Club, is patronized by Royalty (so the advertisements

say), and is a very satisfactory-looking old-century inn which has

not wholly succumbed to modern improvement, nor yet is it wholly

backward. It is "fair to middling" only, so far as the requirements

of the automobilist go (what Royalty may think of it the writer does

not know), but its proprietor ought to take a trip abroad and find

out what his house lacks.

The wonder of Exeter for us was the carved west porch of its

cathedral, not very good carving, we were told, but undeniably

effective, peopled as it was with a whole regiment of sculptured

effigies.

Exeter has a ruined castle, too, called Rougement, a name which

preserves the identity of its Norman origin. Exeter's High Street is

a curious stagy affair, with great jutting house gables, pillars, and

pignons, undeniably effective, but a terror to automobilists because

of its narrowness and the congestion of its traffic.

The road turns north after leaving Exeter and passes Taunton, "one of

the nicest towns in the west of England," as we were told by the

landlord's daughter on leaving Exeter. Not knowing what her standard

was for judgment, but suspecting it was tea and buns, we delved away

into the county of Somerset and reached Wells, on the edge of the

Mendip Hills, before dinner.

Somerset is reputed to be one of the loveliest counties in the west

of England and one of the most countrified of all Britain. It is a

region of farming lands, of big and little estates, with the big ones

predominating, which the land reformers, and all others who give it a

thought, claim must some day be divided among the people. When that

millennium comes Somerset will be a paradise for the people. In spite

of its productiveness and its suitability for farming, the great

estates of the wealthy are used for the purposes of pleasure and not

of profit, for the hunting of foxes and for the shooting of

pheasants.

Wells is an episcopal city with a bishop who presides also over Bath.

Wells is essentially ecclesiastical; never had it a momentous or

warlike history; it is bare of romance; it has no manufactures and no

great families. Wells Cathedral takes high rank for the originality

of its architecture, its general constructive excellence, and its

sculptures.

[Illustration: Taunton]

There are three picturesquely named hotels, the Swan, the Mitre, and

the Star. They are all equally dull, respectable, and conservative,

and they stick to tradition and conventional English fare. You will

probably arrive on boiled-mutton night; we did, and suspect that it

recurs about three times a week, but it was good mutton, though it

would have been a great deal better roasted, instead of boiled.

Via Cheddar, where the cheeses come from, we made our way to Bristol.

Bristol is one of the most progressive automobile towns in England.

You may see all sorts and conditions of automobiles at Bristol, even

American automobiles, which are more or less of a rarity in Europe,

even in England.

From Bristol to Gloucester, another cathedral town, we passed over

good roads and pleasant ones, rounding meanwhile the Cotswolds and

passing direct to Worcester, where we lunched.

It is useless to attempt to describe a complete trip in pages such as

these, and, beyond commenting on changing conditions and novel

scenes, it is not attempted. Generally speaking the road surfaces

were excellent throughout, but the grades of the hills were ofttimes

abnormal, and the narrowness of main roads, and the hedge-hidden

byroads which crossed them, made travelling more or less of a danger

for the stranger, particularly if he was not habituated to England's

custom of "meeting on the left and passing on the right."

Following the valley of the Severn, by Shrewsbury and Whitechurch, we

crossed the great Holyhead Road, "the king's highway," from London to

Holyhead.

From Ogilby's Road Book, an old book-stall find of one of our party

at Shrewsbury, we learned that in days gone by the coach "Wonder"

left the Bull and Mouth, at St. Martin's-le-Grand in London, at 6.30

A. M., and was at Shrewsbury at 10.30 the same night. Good going

indeed for those days!

At Shrewsbury one is within easy reach of the Welsh border, but, in

spite of the novelty promised us, we kept on our way north. This was

not because we feared the "evil character" of the Welsh (as an old

writer put it), but because we feared their language.

We left Liverpool and its docks, and Manchester and its cotton

factories, to the left, and, passing through Warrington and Preston,

arrived at Lancaster for the night. It was the longest day's driving

we had done in England, something over two hundred miles. All the

ordinary characteristics of the southern counties had been left far

behind. The _prettiness_ of conventional English scenery had made way

for something more of _character_ and severity of outline. For the

morrow we had to look forward to the climb over Shap Fell, one of

England's genuine mountain roads, or as near like one as the country

has.

Lancaster was perhaps not the best place we could have chosen for the

night, but everything had been running well and we had pushed on

simply for the joy of the running. The County Hotel at Lancaster was

like other county hotels in England. _Verb. sap._ They had the

audacity to charge two shillings for housing our automobile for the

night, and pointed out the fact that this was the special rate given

members of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland.

Well! It was the most awful "roast" we found in England! They must

have some grudge against the Club! "B. B. B." cost seven shillings

and sixpence, and dinner four shillings more, a bottle of Bordeaux

five shillings, etc. Four of us for the night (including a hot bath

for each--which cost the hotel practically nothing) paid something

like £3 for our _accommodation_. It wasn't worth it!

We passed the "Lake District" to the left the next morning, where it

always rains, we are told. Perhaps it always does rain in some parts

of Westmoreland, but it was bright and sunny when we crossed Shap

Fell, at a height of something like twelve hundred feet above

sea-level. The railway station of Shap Summit is itself at an

elevation of a thousand feet. We had crossed nothing like this

previously in England, although it is not so very high after all, nor

is it so very terrifying in the ascent or descent. The Castle of

Comfort Inn in the Mendip Hills was only seven hundred feet, but here

we were five hundred feet above it, and the neighbouring Fells,

Helvellyn and Scafell in particular, raised their regular, rounded

peaks to something over thirty-two hundred feet in the air.

Carlisle is commonly called the border town between England and

Scotland; at any rate it was a vantage-ground in days gone by that

was of a great value to one faction and a thorn in the side to the

other. The conquering and unconquered Scots are the back-bone of

Britain, there's no denying that; and Carlisle is near enough to the

border to be intimately acquainted with their virtues.

We inspected Carlisle's cathedral, its ugly castle, and the County

Hotel,--and preferred the two former. One thing in Carlisle struck us

as more remarkable than all else, and that was that the mean annual

temperature was stated to be 48° F. It was just that, when we were

there, though cloudy and unpromising as to weather. In our opinion

Carlisle is an unlovely, disagreeable place.

Gretna Green, with its famous, or infamous, career as a marriage

mart, had little to offer a passing tourist beyond some silly, vulgar

postcards on sale at a newsdealer's.

Across the border topographical characteristics did not greatly

change, at least not at once, from what had gone immediately before,

and it was not until Lockerbie was reached that we fully realized

that we were in Scotland.

It was a long, long pull, and a hard, hard pull of seventy miles from

Lockerbie to Edinburgh, via Moffat, Biggar, and Penicuik, skirting

the Fells of Peebleshire and running close beneath the Pentland

Hills, with memories of Stevenson's tales ever uppermost in our

minds.

Via Dalkeith the entrance into Edinburgh is delightful, but via

Rosslyn it is unbeautiful enough until one actually drops down into

world-famed Princes' Street.

Romantic Edinburgh is known by European travellers as one of the

sights never omitted from a comprehensive itinerary. It is quaint,

picturesque, grand, squalid, and luxurious all rolled into one. Its

castle crowns the height above the town on one side, and Arthur's

Seat does the same on the other, with gloomy old Holyrood in the gulf

between, the whole softened and punctuated with many evidences of

modern life, the smoke and noise of railways, trams, and factories.

There are many guide-books to Edinburgh, but there are none so

satisfactory as Stevenson's tales dealing with the town. In

"Kidnapped," "The Master of Ballantrae," and "Catriona," he pictures

its old streets and "stairs," its historic spots, its very stones and

flags, and the charming countryside around in incomparable fashion.

The Carlton Hotel at Edinburgh is _the_ automobile hotel of Britain.

There is nothing quite so good either in England or Scotland. The

proof of this is that the _Automobile Club de France_ have given it

distinctive marks in its "_Annuaire de l'Etranger._" There is the

tiny silhouette of a knife and fork, and four-poster bed, indicating

that the tables and beds are of an agreeable excellence. This is a

great deal more satisfying as a recommendation than Baedeker's.

We crossed the Firth of Forth via the Granton Ferry, from Granton to

Burntisland,--pronounced Burnt Island--a fact that none of us knew

previously.

Via Kinross and Loch Leven we arrived at Perth for lunch. We went to

the Salutation Hotel, because of its celebrated "Prince Charlie

Room," and had no reason to regret the lunch that was given us, or

the price paid for it. Scottish hotels have had a reputation of not

being as good as those of England and much more costly. We were

finding things just the reverse. Automobilism is an industry in

Scotland, not a fad, and the automobilist is catered for accordingly,

at least so it seemed to us, and, since the leading British

automobile is a Scotch production, who can deny that the Scot has

grasped the salient points of the whole scheme of affairs in a far

better manner than the Sassenach.

From Perth, through the very heart of the Scotch Highlands, we passed

through Glen Garry and the Valley of the Spey. Cairn Gorm rose

something over four thousand feet immediately on our right, when,

turning abruptly northwest, we came into Inverness just at nightfall.

It had been another long, hard day, and, since Perth, over

indifferent roads.

The capital of the Highlands, Inverness, treated us very well at the

Alexandra Hotel. As a summer or autumn resort Inverness has scarcely

its equal in Britain. It is a lively, interesting, and picturesque

town, and day lingers far on into the night by reason of its northern

situation. Its temperature, moreover, for the most part of the year,

is by no means as low as in many parts farther south.

[Illustration: The Highlands]

From Inverness, via Dingwall, Tain, and Bonar Bridge, the roads

improved, lying almost at sea-level. Here was a long sweep westward

and then eastward again, around the Moray Firth, and it was not until

we stopped at Helmsdale for lunch, 102 miles from Inverness, that we

left the coastline road, and then only for a short distance.

Again at Berriedal we came to the coast, the surging, battering North

Sea waves carving grimly every foot of the shore line. Lybster,

Albster, and Thrumster were not even names that we had heard of

previously, and we dashed through them at the legal limit, with only

a glance of the eye at their quaintness and unworldliness.

Caithness is the most northern county of Scotland, and its metropolis

is Wick, where one gets the nearest approach to the midnight sun that

can be found with civilized, modern, and up-to-date surroundings.

The Scottish Automobile Club vouched for the accommodation of the

Station Hotel, at Wick, and we had no occasion to question their

judgment. (B. B. B., six shillings; which is cheap--though it costs

you two shillings to stable your machine at a neighbouring garage.)

From Wick to John O'Groat's is thirty-six miles, out and back. We

were all day doing it, loafing along over a heather-strewn plain and

lunching at the Hotel Huna (the significance of which name we forgot

to ask.)

[Illustration: Wick, Inverness and John O'Groats]

This ended our run to the North, five days in all, not a very

terrific speed or a very venturesome proceeding, but as good a test

of one's knowledge of how to keep his machine running as can be got

anywhere. It was a sort of rapid review of many things of which we

had hitherto only a scrappy, fragmentary knowledge, and is a trip

which should not be omitted from any one's grand European itinerary

if one has the time and means of covering it.

Part IV

In Belgium, Holland, And Germany

Chapter I

On The Road In Flanders

[Illustration: Flanders]

There has been a noticeable falling off in touring in Belgium. There

is no reason for this except the caprice of fashion, and the

automobile and its popularizing influence will soon change all this,

in spite of the abominable stretches of paved highroads, which here

and there and everywhere, and most unexpectedly, crop up and shake

one almost to pieces, besides working dire disaster to the mechanical

parts of one's automobile. The authorities are improving things, but

it will be some time yet before Belgium is as free from _pavé_ as is

France.

The good roads of Belgium are as good as those anywhere to be found,

and it is only the unlooked for and distressingly frequent stretches

of paved highway which need give any concern.

The natives speak French--of a sort--here and there in Belgium, but

they also speak Flemish and Walloon.

We left Paris by the Route de Belgique, crossed the frontier at

Givet, and made our first stop at Rethel, 193 kilometres away, where

we passed the night, at the Hôtel de France. For a town of less than

six thousand people Bethel is quite a metropolis. It has a grand

establishment known as the Société d'Automobiles Bauchet, which will

cater for any and every want of the automobilist, and has a

half-dozen sights of first rank, from the old Hôtel Dieu to the

bizarre doubled-up Eglise St. Nicolas and the seventeenth-century,

wood-roofed market-house.

Sorbon, four kilometres away, is the birthplace of Robert Sorbon, the

founder of the Sorbonne at Paris, and is a classic excursion which is

never omitted by true pilgrims who come to Rethel.

Fifty-three kilometres from Rethel is Rocroi, a name which means

little to most strangers in France. It is near the Belgian frontier

and saw bloody doings in the Franco-Prussian war.

Rocroi is a pompous little fortified place reached only by one road

and a narrow-gauge railway--literally two streaks of iron rust--which

penetrate up to the very doors of a pretentious Hôtel de Ville with a

Doric façade, and not much else that is remarkable.

The town has a population of but two thousand, is surrounded by

fortifications, contains a Caserne, a Sous-Préfecture, a Prison, and

a Palais de Justice. All this officialdom weights things down

considerably, and, what with the prospect of the custom-house

arrangements at Givet, and the necessity of demonstrating to an

over-zealous _gendarme_ at Rocroi that we really had a "Certificat de

Capacité," and that the photograph which it bore (which didn't look

the least like us) was really ours, we were considerably angered and

delayed on our departure the next morning, particularly as we had

already been three days _en route_ and the frontier was still thirty

odd kilometres away.

As one passes Rocroi, Belgium and France blend themselves into an

indistinguishable unit so far as characteristics go. Manners and

customs here change but slowly, and the highroad must be followed

many kilometres backward toward Paris before one gets out of the

influence of Flemish characteristics.

We finally got across the Belgium frontier at Givet, at least we got

our _passavant_ here, though the Belgian customs formalities took place

at Heer-Agimont, formalities which are delightfully simple, though

evolving the payment of a fee of twelve per cent. of the declared

value of your automobile. You get your receipt for money paid, which

you present at the frontier station by which you leave and get it

back again--if you have not lost your papers. If you have you might

as well prepare to live in Belgium the rest of your life, as a friend

of ours told us he had done, when we met him unexpectedly on a café

terrace at Ostende a week later.

There be those who are content to grovel in dark alleys, among a

sordid picturesqueness, surrounded by a throng of garlic-sodden

natives, rather than while their time away on the open mountainside

or wide-spread lake or plain. All such are advised to keep away from

Southern Belgium, the Ardennes, and the valley of the Meuse at Dinant

and Namur.

We lunched at the Hôtel des Postes at Dinant on the Meuse, and so

lovely was the town and its environs, and the twenty-eight kilometres

of valley road to Namur (no _pavé_ here), that it took us eight hours

of a long summer's day to get away from Dinant and get settled down

again for the night in the Hôtel d'Harscamp at Namur.

The native declares there is nothing to equal the view from the

fortress-height of the citadel of Namur, neither in Switzerland nor

the Pyrenees; but though we climbed the three twisting kilometres to

the fort, there was nothing more than a ravishing view of the

charming river valley at our feet. The majesty of it all was in the

imagination of the inhabitant, but all the same it was of a

loveliness that few artists can describe in paint, few authors

picture in words, and no kodakist reproduce satisfactorily in print.

There is but one thing for the curious to do, and that is to go and

see it for himself.

The rest of the journey across Belgium to Brussels the writer would

like to forget. Oh, that terrible next day! Sixty kilometres of one

of the worst and most destructive roads, for an automobile, in

Europe, and through a most uninteresting country. Perhaps, if the

road had been better, the landscape might not have had so oppressive

an effect. As it was, an automobilist journeys along the road--which

is practically across the kingdom--his eyes glued to it, his heart in

his mouth, and he bumps and slides over the wearying kilometres until

he all but forgets the beauties of the Meuse now so far behind.

Kilometre after kilometre of this vile road is paved with blocks of

stone as big as one's head, half of which are out of place. And when

one's automobile sinks into the holes one can but shudder. One hears

of a road that is paved with good intentions. It does not enjoy a

good reputation, but it can't be worse than the road from Namur to

Brussels!

We passed through what, for the want of a better and more distinctive

name, may be called the Waterloo region; but, for the moment, we

cared not a jot for battle-fields. Our battle with the ugly roads of

Belgium was all-sufficient.

Southey's verses are so good, though, that they are here given in

order that the writer may arrive the quicker at Brussels and take his

well-earned rest:

"Southward from Brussels lies the field of blood,

Some three hours' journey for a well-girt man;

A horseman who in haste pursued his road

Would reach it as the second hour began.

The way is through a forest deep and wide,

Extending many a mile on either side."

"No cheerful woodland this of antique trees,

With thickets varied and with sunny glade;

Look where he will, the weary traveller sees

One gloomy, thick impenetrable shade

Of tall straight trunks, which move before his sight,

With interchange of lines of long green light."