THE ROMANCE OF WALKING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 8

THE ROMANCE OF WALKING.

On the ground that motors and trains am] aeroplanes have robbed travel of its glamour twc former etudente of Otago University have starter] to walk from London to Karachi in India. In the Middle Ages everybody walked, except the verj rich, who rode on horseback. Xobody used carte perhaps because criminals used to be driven in cart* to the place of execution. There arc many inter esting accounts of some of these walks. The Abbot Samson was commissioned with a message to the Pope, and he walked all the way frolu London to Home and back. Those who had sent him were anxious to get a reply as soon as possible, but the Abbot himself was in no hurry, and the double journey took him twelve months! He was severely censured for his dilatoriness, but if his account of his walk is correct he must have derived sufficient enjoyment from it to enable him to bear with equanimity the censure of his ecclesiastical superiors. Hugo, of Avalon, when travelling in France, always preferred to walk, because, he said, if you rode a horse everybody would think that you were rich and you would be exposed to great perils from robbers. Tire Abbot Samson said that when he saw robbers approaching he would shake hia staff at them and use as many swear words as he could muster. By this means, he asserted, he was always taken for a Scotchman and remained unmolested because the robbers thought that he could not have any money on him. These leisurely travellers of a past age saw much more than the traveller of to-day. Fast trains and motor cars rush us past the countryside, and we never know the leisurelv enjoyment of field and stream which so appealed to Izaac Walton. Walking with a congenial companion is one of the healthiest exercises in which we can indulge. It has the added charm that walkers are totally independent of timetables and are never in fear of a breakdown such as eo frequently occurs with mechanical means of locomotion. But the motor car, the charabanc, the lorry and the motor cycle have robbed the country road both of its charm and its security. Few people now could walk along it with any pleasure. They would be constantly hooted ofl by the horn or screecher of others rushing by in cars. Yet there are still tracks over hill and gully to which they can turn and where the motot has never been. The modern traveller merely seeks to get from point to point in the shortest possible time, and the price we have to pay for this craze for speed is the price of the loss of the quiet enjoyment which our grandfathers derived from leisurely walking amid the unspoilt beauties of Nature. —W.M.