character of the landlords which makes all the difference--and that
changes as do all human things.

There you could see first, like a sort of Primate of Hotels, the Railway
Hotel at York. Then the inn at La Bruyere in the Landes, then the "Swan"
at Petworth with its mild ale, then the "White Hart" of Storrington,
then the rest of them, all the six or seven hundred of them, from the
"Elephant" of Chateau Thierry to the "Feathers" of Ludlow--a truly noble
remainder of what once was England; the "Feathers" of Ludlow, where the
beds are of honest wood with curtains to them, and where a man may drink
half the night with the citizens to the success of their engines and the
putting out of all fires. For there are in West England three little inns
in three little towns, all in a line, and all beginning with an L--
Ledbury, Ludlow, and Leominster, all with "Feathers," all with orchards
round, and I cannot tell which is the best.

Then my guide-book will go on to talk about harbours; it will prove how
almost every harbour was impossible to make in a little boat; but it would
describe the difficulties of each so that a man in a little boat might
possibly make them. It would describe the rush of the tide outside Margate
and the still more dangerous rush outside Shoreham, and the absurd bar
at Littlehampton that strikes out of the sea, and the place to lie at in
Newhaven, and how not to stick upon the Platters outside Harwich; and the
very tortuous entry to Poole, and the long channel into Christchurch past
Hengistbury Head; and the enormous tides of South Wales; and why you often
have to beach at Britonferry, and the terrible difficulty of mooring in
Great Yarmouth; and the sad changes of Little Yarmouth, and the single
black buoy at Calais which is much too far out to be of any use; and how
to wait for the tide in the Swin. And also what no book has ever yet
given, an exact direction of the way in which one may roll into Orford