About a century later, in 1700, the Rev. Mr. Brome, rector of Cheriton in Kent, entered upon a series of travels in England as if it had been a newly-discovered country. He set out in spring so soon as the roads had become passable. His friends convoyed him on the first stage of his journey, and left him, commending him to the Divine protection. He was, however, careful to employ guides to conduct him from one place to another, and in the course of his three years' travels he saw many new and wonderful things. He was under the necessity of suspending his travels when the winter or wet weather set in, and to lay up, like an arctic voyager, for several months, until the spring came round again. Mr. Brome passed through Northumberland into Scotland, then down the western side of the island towards Devonshire, where he found the farmers gathering in their corn on horse-back, the roads being so narrow that it was impossible for them to use waggons. He desired to travel into Cornwall, the boundaries of which he reached, but was prevented proceeding farther by the rains, and accordingly he made the best of his way home.*[1] The vicar of Cheriton was considered a wonderful man in his day,-- almost as as venturous as we should now regard a traveller in Arabia. Twenty miles of slough, or an unbridged river between two parishes, were greater impediments to intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean now is between England and America. Considerable towns situated in the same county, were then more widely separated, for practical purposes, than London and Glasgow are at the present day. There were many districts which travellers never visited, and where the appearance of a stranger produced as great an excitement as the arrival of a white man in an African village.*[2]