e; Penshurst Place, the home
of the Sidneys; John Milton's cottage at Chalfont St. Giles; the ancient
town of Guildford in Surrey; Gad's Hill, Dickens' home, near Rochester;
the vicarage where Thackeray's grandfather lived and the old church
where he preached at Monken Hadley; and Whitchurch, with Handel's
original organ, is also near the last-named village. These are only a
few of the places that no one should miss. The motor car affords an
unequalled means of reaching these and other points in this vicinity;
since many are at some distance from railway stations, to go by train
would consume more time than the average tourist has at his disposal.
While we visited all the places which I have just mentioned and many
others close to London, we made only three or four short trips out of
the city returning the same or the following day. We managed to reach
the majority of such points by going and returning over different
highways on our longer tours. In this way we avoided the difficulty we
should have experienced in making many daily trips from London, since a
large part of each day would have been consumed merely in getting in and
out of the city.

[Illustration: HARVESTING IN HERTFORDSHIRE.

From Painting by Alfred Elias. Exhibited in 1906 Royal Academy.]

Our first trip into the country was made on the Sunday after our
arrival. Although we started out at random, our route proved a fortunate
one, and gave us every reason to believe that our tour of the Kingdom
would be all we had anticipated. During the summer we had occasion to
travel three times over this same route, and we are still of the opinion
that there are few more delightful bits of road in England. We left
London by the main highway, running for several miles through Epping
Forest, which is really a great suburban park. It was a good day for
cyclists, for the main road to the town of Epping was crowded with
thousands of them. So great was the number and so completely did they
occupy the highway, that it was necessary to drive slowly and with
the greatest care. Even then, we narrowly avoided a serious accident.
One of the cyclists, evidently to show his dexterity, undertook to cut
around us by running across the tramway tracks. These were wet and
slippery, and the wheel shot from under the rider, pitching him headlong
to the ground not two feet in front of our car, which was then going at
a pretty good rate. If the cyclist did not exhibit skill in managing hi