April 30th to Liverpool, from which point the formal start on the wheel
across England is to be made. Four o'clock in the afternoon of May 2d
is the time announced, and Edge Hill Church is the appointed place, where
Mr. Lawrence , Fletcher, of the Anfield Bicycle Club, and a number of
other Liverpool wheelmen, have volunteered to meet and accompany me some
distance out of the city. Several of the Liverpool daily papers have
made mention of the affair. Accordingly, upon arriving at the appointed
place and time, I find a crowd of several hundred people gathered to
satisfy their curiosity as to what sort of a looking individual it is
who has crossed America awheel, and furthermore proposes to accomplish
the greater feat of the circumlocution of the globe. A small sea of hats
is enthusiastically waved aloft; a ripple of applause escapes from five
hundred English throats as I mount my glistening bicycle; and, with the
assistance of a few policemen, the twenty-five Liverpool cyclers who
have assembled to accompany me out, extricate themselves from the crowd,
mount and fall into line two abreast; and merrily we wheel away down
Edge Lane and out of Liverpool.

English weather at this season is notoriously capricious, and the present
year it is unusually so, and ere the start is fairly made we are pedaling
along through quite a pelting shower, which, however, fails to make much
impression on the roads beyond causing the flinging of more or less mud.
The majority of my escort are members of the Anfield Club, who have the
enviable reputation of being among the hardest road-riders in England,
several members having accomplished over two hundred miles within the
twenty-four hours; and I am informed that Mr. Fletcher is soon to undertake
the task of beating the tricycle record over that already well-contested
route, from John O'Groat's to Land's End. Sixteen miles out I become
the happy recipient of hearty well-wishes innumerable, with the accompanying
hand-shaking, and my escort turn back toward home and Liverpool - all save