In the smoke-room that evening I discovered a man poring, and apparently puzzling, over some maps and guide-books, so I ventured to ask if I could be of any assistance. I learnt from him that he was a courier and was travelling in a motor-car with a lady and her daughter from the States, and that he was planning their route for the morrow; but what truly astonished me was his statement that his party had come over to England solely to see the moors and the mountains, and that he was instructed to avoid all large towns as far as possible. It certainly struck me as passing strange that any American should come to England in search of wildness to the avoidance of old-world places. "We've had a rough journey of it," the courier exclaimed. "We landed at Southampton, made straight for Dartmoor, then we did Exmoor, now we're doing the Welsh mountains in the most deserted districts, next we're off to do the Yorkshire moors, then we're going the round of Scotland. We've had awful roads, and the chauffeur does not much fancy the job. No more do I, for that matter, but when a woman with money has got a whim in her head, she's bound to carry it out. It's the funniest journey I've ever undertaken." The rain was dashing against the window-panes. "What a day we shall have to-morrow over the mountains," said the courier; "whatever the weather, off we go; I've got to see the thing through, and to be at Liverpool at a certain date to catch the steamer." I found some entertainment in the conversation, and though I am prepared for surprises on the road, I was hardly prepared for such a surprise as this--an American to come to England in search of wildness. But one may travel till one ceases to wonder at anything. Now when I come to think of it, I do remember some years ago meeting at Warwick two American ladies who were on a driving tour, and who told me what impressed them most in the Old Country was "the weird wildness of the moors where the world seemed as though it had only just been created; we thought to see nothing but meadows and cultivated fields," continued they, "and we've found solitudes." So did John Burroughs, by the way, during his English wanderings. Now that the motor-car has been invented you meet American travellers on motor-cars in the most out-of-the-way and unexpected places, and they appear to delight in them and in their discovery. Columbus discovered America; now the Americans have set about the discovery of rural England. Soon there will be nothing left in the world to discover.