ADVICE TO THE PEDESTRIAN. 187 



the more direct way we came. After spending some weeks in and 

 about London, follow up the Thames by Henley, and as near the south 

 bank as you can, to Oxford then by Strat ford-on- Avon, Warwick, and 

 Kenilworth, to Birmingham ; thence, according to your interest, through 

 the manufacturing districts, and by Chatsworth and the Derbyshire moors 

 to York ; thence by Fountain s Abbey, through the curious hill-country 

 of West Yorkshire and Lancashire, into Westmoreland ; thence either 

 north to Scotland, or by Liverpool to Ireland, crossing afterwards to 

 Scotland from Belfast. Guide-books can be obtained, I believe, of Mr. 

 Putnam, in New York, by the aid of which and a good map, you may, 

 before you leave home, judge how much time you will want to spend 

 in examining various objects of interest, and ascertain distances, &c. 

 You can thus plot off your route and calculate the time at which you 

 will arrive at any particular point. Guide-books are very expensive 

 and heavy, and this is their principal use ; further, you are liable to 

 pass through a town and neglect to see something for which it is pecu 

 liarly distinguished, without you have something to remind you of it. 



We travelled at first at the rate of one hundred miles in six days, 

 at last at the rate of about two hundred ; sometimes going forty miles, 

 and ordinarily thirty, in a day. We usually did thirty miles in eleven 

 hours, one of which might be spent in nooning under a hedge or in a 

 wayside inn, and about one mile an hour lost in loitering ; looking at 

 things on the wayside or talking to people that we met, our actual pace 

 was just about four miles an hour. 



You can start with twelve miles in a day, and calculate to average 

 twenty -five after the first fortnight. 



If you can make any thing like a harmonious noise upon any instru 

 ment, for that purpose I woxild advise you to strap it on. You will 

 understand its value by reading the life of Goldsmith. It will make 

 you welcome in many a peasant circle, where you might otherwise have 

 been only a damper upon all naturalness and geniality. 



