Through East Anglia in a Motor CarVincent, James Edmund
General
Through East Anglia in a Motor Car
Vincent, James Edmund
Norfolk (England) -- Description and travel; Suffolk (England) -- Description and travel
Here we entered Suffolk, crossing the Waveney, and a country of road
surfaces far worse than those traversed up to that point. The rain had
apparently fallen more heavily than it had near Norwich; but it had not
rained gravel, an infamous material for roadmaking, nor could it account
for the weary attitude of the tumble-down and illegible milestones. As it
was, when hills were encountered the Panhard was hard tried, and the
driving wheels, although they wore antiskid gaiters, revolved many times
more than the distance covered by them warranted. There was simply no hold
for the wheels in the dirty, porridge-like mud, concealing a crumbling
sub-surface, and, now and again, although no great height above the sea had
to be climbed, the gradients were almost trying, owing to the bad surface.
Shocking bad roads, luncheon sadly deferred in consequence, and the
certainty of much travelling after dark if London were to be reached that
evening, may be accountable for the fact that, between Scole and Ipswich,
the only point that seemed worthy of a passing note was a church on the
left-hand side, I think at Yaxley, clearly visible from the road and having
a good parvise over the porch. It has been written, "I think at Yaxley," in
all honesty, for it is not always possible to identify on a map the village
through which the car is passing, nor always easy to consult the map even
when travelling at moderate speed. Blessed be the villages that proclaim
their titles, even by modest boards on the post-offices, as many do in East
Anglia; for by such boards is the traveller saved from the scorn poured
upon him who asks of the rustic the name of his native village. This is an
almost universal phenomenon, so frequent in occurrence that one is tempted
to speculate as to its origin; and that may be that the normal rustic,
painfully conscious of the narrow limits of his own knowledge, feels that
he has encountered a fool indeed when he meets anybody who is more ignorant
than himself, although it be but as to a single and quite trivial point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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