Untitled - Beeldbibliotheek

84 CARAVAN DAYSother special privileges. Theynever know atwhat hour of the day some traveller from Land'sEnd may come in sight at the bend of the road.And these are no ordinary travellers. They arerecord-breakers, panting, watch in hand, to theirgoal.Every new form of locomotion must sooneror later make the journey.the first coach drove :up thenThere was a day whencame the firstbicycle : the first motor : the first motor-bicycle.After a while they came in flocks, or arrived in aswift succession, ending a headlong race.Thereare days when allthe space about the hotel iscovered with motor-bicycles, begrimed with eighthundred miles of " trials." I do not know if thefirstaeroplane has yet alighted there, but itcannot now be long delayed.And there are also,as an element of comic relief to these stern endeavours,all manner of cranks and faddists andqueer people who have made the journey fromthe far coast of Cornwall old men, who for awager are proving pedestrian powersthat havedefied the years, vegetarians, who are doing thecourse upon lentils, one who has sworn to push hiswife in a Bath-chair perhaps, another who hasvowed to do it in a Roman toga and sandals.John o' Groat's is the end and goal of all of them,and to run a hotel there must be, I think, among