hyacinths and
bluebells. The country itself was rather flat and the villages generally
uninteresting. The road was literally bordered with wayside inns, or,
more properly, ale houses, for they apparently did little but sell
liquor, and their names were odd and fantastic in a high degree. We
noted a few of them. The "Stump and Pie," the "Hare and Hounds," the
"Plume of Feathers," the "Blue Ball Inn," the "Horse and Wagon," the
"Horse and Jockey," the "Dog and Parson," the "Dusty Miller," the "Angel
Hotel" the "Dun Cow Inn," the "Green Man," the "Adam and Eve," and the
"Coach and Horses," are a few actual examples of the fearful and
wonderful nomenclature of the roadside houses. Hardly less numerous than
these inns were the motor-supply depots along this road. There is
probably no other road in England over which there is greater motor
travel, and supplies of all kinds are to be had every mile or two. The
careless motorist would not have far to walk should he neglect to keep
up his supply of petrol--or motor spirit, as they call it everywhere in
Britain.

Long before we reached Coventry, we saw the famous "three spires"
outlined against a rather threatening cloud, and just as we entered the
crooked streets of the old town, the rain began to fall heavily. The
King's Head Hotel was comfortable and up-to-date, and the large room
given us, with its fire burning brightly in the open grate, was
acceptable indeed after the drive in the face of a sharp wind, which had
chilled us through. And, by the way, there is little danger of being
supplied with too many clothes and wraps when motoring in Britain. There
were very few days during our entire summer's tour when one could
dispense with cloaks and overcoats.

Coventry, with its odd buildings and narrow, crowded streets, reminded
Nathaniel Hawthorne of Boston--not the old English Boston, but its big
namesake in America. Many parts of the city are indeed quaint and
ancient, the finest of the older buildings dating from about the year
1400; but these form only a nucleus for the more modern city which has
grown up around them. Coventry now has a population of about
seventy-five thousand, and still maintains its old-time reputation as
an important manufacturing center. Once it was famed for its silks,
ribbons and watches, but this trade was lost to the French and
Swiss--some say for lack of a protective tariff. Now cycles and motor
cars are the principal products; and we saw several