In July, 1906, feeling the need of rest and relaxation, Mr. Kern, accompanied by Alonzo Green Smith, formerly attorney-general of Indiana, sailed from New York for a few weeks of meandering and sightseeing in the British Isles. It would be hard to imagine a more incongruous couple for an European jaunt. The ex-attorney-general was an able lawyer of much strength of character, a rough diamond accused by his enemies of “practicing law with a club.” More interested in law and politics than in scenery and shrines, more practical than sentimental, to him that scenery which would not yield a harvest was uninteresting waste land, and the building of venerable years and rich in history could not compare with a New York sky-scraper with its modern conveniences. The travelers were fond of one another, but they were soon to find that nature had never intended that they should tour Europe together. As both were traveling for their health, they took a slow, ten-day boat, leaving New York harbor on July 21st and reaching Glasgow on the last day of the month. The trip over was uneventful and pleasant enough, although they were five days in a fog and two on a rough sea. They had seats at the captain’s table, made many friends on board, and Kern records in a letter that “Green didn’t enjoy the rough sea or the fog, but didn’t grumble much and became quite a favorite on board. He won’t admit it, but his cough is much better and he is greatly improved.” It was characteristic of Kern to write home the moment he landed. “It seems an age since I saw you,” he wrote the morning of his landing, “I am writing this hurriedly and am going out to send a cable, which you will get by your breakfast time.” Later the same day he wrote his second letter home, giving more particulars of the voyage and relating how he had not thought of “getting sunburned with the sun shining through the fog until I found my nose and face blistered and looking like an old bloat,” how he “got some cold cream from an old lady on board,” how in a rough sea he was thrown from his chair and slid down to the rail. “I am getting along very well with Mr. Smith,” he writes, as though surprised. “He is quite willing to do as I suggest and has thus far been as docile as a child, except on one or two occasions, when he got to talking politics, when he partly startled the whales and the other monsters of the deep.” Unhappily for the peace of the moment, but fortunately for future reminiscences, this docility was not to last long. They lingered for more than two weeks in Scotland visiting the birthplace of Burns and the country associated with his life, riding across Lake Lomore and Lake Katrine, the scene of The Lady of the Lake, and journeying through the “Trossacks” by Sterling and on to Edinburgh.