Christian VII. showed no hurry to quit a country where he was so well received, and in September, when London was empty, he made several tours in the provinces. It was a very wet summer, and the rains were heavier than had been known in the memory of man. "The Serpentine river in Hyde Park rose so high that it forced down a part of the wall, and poured with such violence upon Knightsbridge, that the inhabitants expected the whole town to be overflowed; the canal in St. James's Park rose higher than ever was known; in short, no man living remembered so much rain-fall in so short a time."[101] Several parts of the country were flooded, and the high roads rendered impassable; travelling by coach always slow, became slower still, and in some places was attended with difficulty and even danger. But these things did not daunt Christian, who rushed about the country, from one end to another, stopping nowhere for any time, and apparently taking no interest in anything he saw. Even the polite writer in the _Annual Register_, who devoted pages to Christian's doings, was constrained to say: "His journeyings are so rapid, and his stay at places so short, that, if he is not a youth of more than common talents, he must have a very confused idea of what he sees". [101] _The Annual Register_, September 1, 1768. Horace Walpole, who now pursued the King of Denmark with strange malignity, writes: "You know already about the King of Denmark, hurrying from one corner of England to the other, without seeing anything distinctly, fatiguing himself, breaking his chaise, going tired to bed in inns, and getting up to show himself to the mob at the window. I believe that he is a very silly lad, but the mob adore him, though he has neither done nor said anything worth repeating; but he gives them an opportunity of getting together, of staring and of making foolish observations."[102] Bernstorff excused the King's indifference on the ground that he was short-sighted. This also served to explain many apparent discourtesies, for Christian often ignored people to whom he had been most gracious a few days before. It is probable that Horace Walpole was one of the victims of this little peculiarity, and that accounts for the venom with which he writes of the King. Christian may also have ignored Walpole's niece, Lady Waldegrave, who had secretly married the Duke of Gloucester, and who, though the marriage was not declared, already gave herself the airs of a princess of the blood. [102] Walpole's _Letters_, vol. v., edition 1857.