Stalybridge, Stockport, Altrincham and other large manufacturing towns
are almost contiguous with the main city. The streets of these towns
were crowded with traffic and streetcar lines are numerous. There is
nothing of the slightest interest to the tourist, and after a belated
luncheon at a really modern hotel in Stockport, we set out on the last
forty miles of our journey. After getting clear of Manchester and the
surrounding towns, we came to the Chester road, one of the numberless
"Watling Streets," which one finds all over England--a broad, finely
kept high way, leading through a delightful country. Northwich, famous
for its salt mines, was the only town of any consequence until we
reached Chester. We had travelled a distance of about one hundred and
twenty miles--our longest day's journey, with one exception--not very
swift motoring, but we found that an average of one hundred miles per
day was quite enough to thoroughly satisfy us, and even with such an
apparently low average as this, a day's rest now and then did not
come amiss.

[Illustration: SUNSET ON THE MOOR.

From Painting by Termohlen.]

It would be better yet if one's time permitted a still lower daily
mileage. Not the least delightful feature of the tour was the marvelous
beauty of the English landscapes, and one would have a poor appreciation
of these to dash along at forty or even twenty-five miles per hour.
There were many places at which we did not stop at all, and which were
accorded scant space in the guide-books, that would undoubtedly have
given us ideas of English life and closer contact with the real spirit
of the people than one could possibly get in the tourist-thronged towns
and villages.