were encountered in mid-winter, sometimes in blinding snow and always in well nigh Arctic frost, most of them happening between dusk on one day and six in the morning of the next day, with icicles hanging from hair and beard, with the cold so intense that Mr. Hutchinson, from whom I quote, says that the following coverings were 'none too much,' 'a warm knickerbocker suit, a Cardigan jacket, a waterproof hunting-apron, a heavy double-breasted ulster, a waterproof cape, and a cap with ear-flaps, so that only the eyes and nose were exposed.' The proceedings involved two hours' stop at one place, burning waste soaked in petrol under the radiators, Mr. Rolls on his back mending leaks, while the water trickled all over him and down his sleeves and freezing till his leather coat was stiff with ice. Yet after all this the party, when they had set themselves up at a village with some bread and cheese—and, I presume, though the chronicler does not say so, with some vin du pays—decided to make a start once more, at 2.30 a.m., and reached Havre only in time to go to bed at six in the morning. No wonder foreigners think the English insane.[1] But it is a thing to be thankful for that it is an insanity which has its compensations, for not only in sport is Great Britain a living witness that 'dogged does it.'
There is no space to write of the humours of automobilism, but as a kind of savoury the following must be quoted.
Colonel Magrath says:—
'In one of my first drives I met an elderly woman on a quiet road, proceeding to market. She got dreadfully startled at seeing the car, and when she arrived in Wexford told everyone that she met a carriage from the other world, with a horribly ugly demon driving it, and she knew at once that the carriage was sent to take her to hell, but, thank God! she had sense enough to make the sign of the Cross, when carriage and ugly driver vanished.
I presume in its own dust.
- ↑ Mr. Rolls thinks it is remarkable that I should have used this expression, as the hotel-keeper who received them at Havre, and who spoke a little English, said to the party, 'You English must be very "insanitary" to travel by road on such a night,'
