On this tramp I took forty-odd photographs, all more or less
of historical interest. Riding in an automobile, many of the subjects I
would not have noticed or, if I had, I would not have been able to bring
my camera into play. On several occasions I retraced my steps a good
quarter of a mile, feeling I had lost a landscape, or street scene I
might never again have the opportunity to behold.

What is of far greater consequence, the man on the road comes into
touch not only with Nature, but the Children of Nature! In these days,
automobiles are as thick as summer flies; you cannot escape them even in
the Sierra foot-hills. No attention is paid them by the country people,
unless they are in trouble or have caused trouble, which is mostly the
case. But the man who "hikes" for pleasure is a source of perennial
interest not unmixed with admiration, especially when walking with the
thermometer indicating three figures in the shade. To him the small boy
opens his heart; the "hobo" passes the time of day with a merry jest
thrown in; the good housewife brings a glass of cold water or milk,
adding womanlike, a little motherly advice; the passing teamster, or
even stage-driver--that autocrat of the "ribbons"--shouts a cheery "How
many miles today, Captain?" or, "Where did you start from this morning,
Colonel?"--these titles perhaps due to the battered old coat of khaki.

All the humors of the road are yours. In fact, you yourself contribute
to them, by your unexpected appearance on the scene and the novelty of
your "make-up," if I may be pardoned the expression. At the hotel bar,
you drink a glass of beer with the local celebrity and thus come into
immediate touch with, the oldest inhabitant. After dinner, seated on a
bench on the sidewalk, you smoke a pipe and discuss the affairs of
the nation or of the town--usually the latter--with the man who in the
morning offered to give you a lift and never will understand why
you declined. Invariably you receive courteous replies and in kindly
interest are met more than half way.

The early romances, the prototypes of the modern novel, from "Don
Quixote" to "Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews," were little more
than narratives of adventures on the road. "Joseph Andrews" in
particular--perhaps Fielding's masterpiece--is simply the story of a
journey from London to a place in the country some hundred and fifty
miles distant. In these books all the adventures are associated with
inns and the var