British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car | Page 5

to the main traveled routes; but after all, if the tourist is going to get the most out of his trip, he will have to come down to a careful study of the country and depend partly on the guide-books but more upon his own knowledge of the historical and literary landmarks throughout the Kingdom.

II
IN AND ABOUT LONDON
London occurs to the average tourist as the center from which his travels in the Kingdom will radiate, and this idea, from many points of view, is logically correct. Around the city cluster innumerable literary and historic associations, and the points of special interest lying within easy reach will outnumber those in any section of similar extent in the entire country. If one purposes to make the tour by rail, London is pre-eminently the center from which to start and to which one will return at various times in his travels. All the principal railways lead to the metropolis. The number of trains arriving and departing each day greatly exceeds that of any other city in the world, and the longest through journey in the island may be compassed between sunrise and sunset.
The motorist, however, finds a different problem confronting him in making London his center. I had in mind the plan of visiting the famous places of the city and immediate suburbs with the aid of my car, but it was speedily abandoned when I found myself confronted by the actual conditions. One attempt at carrying out this plan settled the matter for me. The trip which I undertook would probably be one of the first to occur to almost anybody--the drive to Hampton Court Palace, about twelve or fifteen miles from the central part of the city. It looked easy to start about two or three o'clock, spend a couple of hours at Hampton Court and get back to our hotel by six. After trying out my car--which had reached London some time ahead of me--a few times in localities where traffic was not the heaviest, I essayed the trip without any further knowledge of the streets than I had gained from the maps. I was accompanied by a nervous friend from Iowa who confessed that he had been in an automobile but once before. He had ridden with a relative through a retired section of his native state, traversed for the first time by an automobile, and he had quit trying to remember how many run-aways and smash-ups were caused by the fractious horses they met on the short journey. Visions of damage suits haunted him for months thereafter. In our meanderings through the London streets, the fears for the other fellow which had harassed him during his former experience, were speedily transferred to himself. To his excited imagination, we time and again escaped complete wreck and annihilation by a mere hair's breadth. The route which we had taken, I learned afterwards, was one of the worst for motoring in all London. The streets were narrow and crooked and were packed with traffic of all kinds. Tram cars often ran along the middle of the street, with barely room for a vehicle to pass on either side. The huge motor busses came tearing towards us in a manner most trying to novices, and it seemed, time after time, that the dexterity of the drivers of these big machines was all that saved our car from being wrecked. We obtained only the merest glimpse of Hampton Palace, and the time which we had consumed made it apparent that if we expected to reach our hotel that night, we must immediately retrace our way through the wild confusion we had just passed. It began to rain, and added to the numerous other dangers that seemed to confront us was that of "skidding" on the slippery streets. When we finally reached our garage, I found that in covering less than twenty-five miles, we had consumed about four hours and we had been moving all the time. The nervous strain was a severe one and I forthwith abandoned any plan that I had of attempting to do London by motor car. With more knowledge and experience I would have done better, but a local motorist, thoroughly acquainted with London, told me that he wouldn't care to undertake the Hampton Court trip by the route which we had traveled.
On Saturday afternoons and Sundays, the motorist may practically have freedom of the city. He will find the streets deserted everywhere. The heavy traffic has all ceased and the number of cabs and motor busses is only a fraction of what it would be on business days. He will meet comparatively few motors in the city on Sunday, even though the day be fine, such as would throng the streets of Chicago or New York with cars.