function of the motor-car that for many years to come it can, even in an idle hour or two, carry us from the heart of the metropolis into the woods and fields of genuine country. It is a case of civilisation providing an antidote for its own poison, and I for one am glad to be able to enjoy both the poison and the remedy.
The country is, however, and I think it always will be, the best sphere of the motor. I am afraid I cannot help recurring to my personal experience, but judging from that, a motor justifies its existence best from the great, the never-ending, the ever-changing delight of travelling through many miles of country surroundings.
To many of us come all the pleasures and excitement of exploration. I am sure most persons know of a corner of their counties, previously as inaccessible as the North Pole, which can now be visited with no fear of a chill welcome at the end, and with the prospect of the consumption of something better than the train oil of the Esquimaux gourmet. If we live near a range of hills there is the perpetual curiosity as to what is to be seen on the other side. I believe that the 1 )uke of Wellington used to say that the best general was the man who knew what was on the other side of a hill. We are all of us in that sense qualifying to be generals now, with the difference that the knowledge we gain is that of friends and not of enemies. Even if the country through which we pass is familiar, there is not only the pleasure of seeing it under the different aspects of weather and season, but there is the interest of observing the behaviour of our faithful car, as it traverses distances and mounts hills, of the difficulties of which we are often possibly only too well cognisant. And there are not many districts, I should suppose, which have not at least one hill to excite the aspiration of unsatisfied ambition.
But we clip the wings of the possibilities of motors if we limit them to travels of which a home is the immediate centre. The trials organised by the Automobile Club point to the practicability of journeys for which our country is so admirably adapted.
