A Walk from London to John O'Groat's

In presenting this volume to the public, I feel that a few words of explanation are due to the readers that it may obtain, in addition to those offered to them in the first chapter. When I first visited England, in 1846, it was my intention to make a pedestrian tour from one end of the island to the other, in order to become more acquainted with the country and people than I could by any other mode of travelling. A few weeks after my arrival, I set out on such a walk, and had made about one hundred miles on foot, when I was constrained to suspend the tour, in order to take part in movements which soon absorbed all my time and strength. For the ensuing ten years I was nearly the whole time in Great Britain, travelling from one end of the kingdom to the other, to promote the movements referred to; still desiring to accomplish the walk originally proposed. On returning to England at the beginning of 1863, after a continuous residence of seven years in America, I found myself, for the first time, in the condition to carry out my intention of 1846. Several new motives had been added in the interval to those that had at first operated upon my mind. I had dabbled a little in farming in my native village, New Britain, Connecticut, and had labored to excite additional interest in agriculture among my neighbors. We had formed an Agricultural Club, and met weekly for several winters to compare notes, exchange opinions' and discuss matters connected with the occupation. They had honored me with the post of Corresponding Secretary from the beginning. We held a meeting the evening before I left for England, when they not only refused to accept my resignation as Secretary, but made me promise to write them letters about farming in the Mother Country, and on other matters of interest that I might meet with on my travels there. My first idea was to do this literally;--to make a walk through the best agricultural sections of England, and write home a series of communications to be inserted in our little village paper. But, on second thought, on considering the size of the sheet, I found it would require four or five years to print in it all I was likely to write, at the rate of two columns a week. So I concluded that the easiest and quickest way would be to make a book of my Notes by the Way, and to send back to my old friends and neighbors in that form all the observations and incidents I might make and meet on my walk. The next thought that suggested itself was this,--that a good many persons in Great Britain might feel some interest in seeing what an American, who had resided so long in this country, might have to say of its sceneries, industries, social life, etc. Still, in writing out these Notes, although two distinct circles of readers--the English and American--have been present to my mind, I felt constrained to face and address the latter, just as if speaking to them alone. I have, moreover, adopted the free and easy style of epistolary composition, endeavoring to make each chapter as much like one of the letters I promised my friends and neighbors at home as practicable. In doing this, the "I" has, perhaps, talked far too much to beseem those proprieties which the author of a book should observe. Besides, expressions, figures and orthography more American than English may be noticed, which will indicate the circle of readers which the writer had primarily in view. Still, he would fain believe that these features of the volume will not seriously affect the interest it might otherwise possess in the minds of those disposed to give it a reading in this country. Whatever exceptions they may take to the style and diction, I hope they will find none to the spirit of the work. ELIHU BURRITT.

London, April 5th, 1864.

CHAPTER I.

MOTIVES TO THE WALK--THE IRON HORSE AND HIS RIDER--THE LOSSES AND GAINS BY SPEED--THE RAILWAY TRACK AND TURNPIKE ROAD: THEIR SCENERIES COMPARED.

One of my motives for making this tour was to look at the country towns and villages on the way in the face and eyes; to enter them by the front door, and to see them as they were made to be seen first, as far as man's mind and hand intended and wrought. Railway travelling, as yet, takes everything at a disadvantage; it does not front on nature, or art, or the common conditions and industries of men in town or country. If it does not actually of itself turn, it presents everything the wrong side outward. In cities, it reveals the ragged and smutty companionship of tumble-down out-houses, and mysteries of cellar and back-kitchen life which were never intended for other eyes than those that grope in them by day or night. How unnatural, and, more, almost profane and inhuman, is the fiery locomotion of the Iron Horse through these densely-peopled towns! now the screech, the roar, and the darkness of cavernous passages under paved streets, church vaults, and an acre or two of three- story brick houses, with the feeling of a world of breathing, bustling humanity incumbent upon you;--now the dash and flash out into the light, and the higgledy-piggledy glimpses of the next five minutes. In a moment you are above thickly-thronged streets, and the houses on either side, looking down into the black throats of smoky chimneys; into the garret lairs of poverty, sickness, and sin; down lower upon squads of children trying to play in back-yards eight feet square. It is all wrong, except in the single quality of speed. You enter the town as you would a farmer's house, if you first passed through the pig-stye into the kitchen. Every respectable house in the city turns its back upon you; and often a very brick and dirty back too, though it may show an elegant front of Bath or Portland stone to the street it faces. All the respectable streets run over or under you with an audible shudder of disgust or dread. None but a shabby lane of low shops for the sale of junk, beer, onions, shrimps, and cabbages, will run a third of a mile by your side for the sake of your company. The wickedest boys in the town hoot at you, with most ignominious and satiric antics, as you pass; and if they do not shie stones in upon you, or dead cats, it is more from fear of the beadle or the constable than out of respect for your business or pleasure.