The difficulties--sometimes there were even serious difficulties--of visiting places where there was neither provision nor protection made for the stranger, always acted upon him not as deterrent but incentive: he liked something to overcome, and found the safe, comfortable, convenient resting-places as uncongenial to his nature as they were unproductive for the purposes of his work. In 1896 “The Sowers” was published. Merriman's travels in Russia had taken place some years before--before, in fact, the publication of “Young Mistley”--but time had not at all weakened the strong and sombre impression which that great country and its unhappy people had left upon him. The most popular of all his books with his English public, Merriman himself did not consider it his best. It early received the compliment of being banned by the Russian censor: very recently, a Russian woman told the present writers that “The Sowers” is still the first book the travelling Russian buys in the Tauchnitz edition, as soon as he is out of his own country--“we like to hear the truth about ourselves.” In the same year as “The Sowers,” Merriman produced “Flotsam.” It is not, strictly speaking, a romance: some of its main incidents were taken from the life of a young officer of the 44th Regiment in Early Victorian days. The character of Harry Wylam is, as a whole, faithful to its prototype; and the last scene in the book, recording Harry's death in the Orange Free State, as he was being taken in a waggon to the missionary station by the Bishop of the State, is literally accurate. Merriman had visited India as a boy; so here, too, the scenery is from the brush of an eye-witness. His next novel, “In Kedar's Tents,” was his first Spanish novel--pure and simple: the action of “The Grey Lady” taking place chiefly in Majorca. All the country mentioned in “In Kedar's Tents” Merriman visited personally--riding, as did Frederick Conyngham and Concepcion Vara, from Algeciras to Ronda, then a difficult ride through a wild, beautiful and not too safe district, the accommodation at Algeciras and Ronda being at that time of an entirely primitive description. Spain had for Merriman ever a peculiar attraction: the character of the Spanish gentleman--proud, courteous, dignified--particularly appealed to him. The next country in which he sought inspiration was Holland. “Roden's Corner,” published in 1898, broke new ground: its plot, it will be remembered, turns on a commercial enterprise. The title and the main idea of the story were taken from Merriman's earliest literary venture, the beginning of a novel--there were only a few chapters of it--which he had written before “Young Mistley,” and which he had discarded, dissatisfied.