Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/149

 road-making, when these heavy cobbles formed the one surface that would stand artillery. For ordinary traffic the pavé roads are impossible, and their existence must be a drawback to trade and intercourse. In France they sell special bicycling maps showing with dotted lines all the pavé roads, and these I have carefully studied, as it is worth making any détour to avoid the awful jolting of the pavé. But somehow, bewteen [sic] Angoulême and Bordeaux, I took a wrong turning, and suddenly on ahead of us the good road ceased abruptly as if a straight line had been ruled across it, and the detestable pavé began.

"Oh, let's try it as an experience," commanded my Goddess. "I hate going back, and perhaps it doesn't last long." I trusted to this hope, for I knew that in many places the pavé is being dug up, here and there only short stretches of it being left, and I gingerly drove the Napier on to the execrable surface of uneven stones. We rattled and tossed, and steering became a matter of difficulty. The irritating thing was that each side of this detestable road were wide belts of inviting grass, but with malignant ingenuity these are cut up at frequent intervals by oblique drainage gutters, which forbid the passage of anything wider than a bicycle. For bicycles there are indeed special tracks kept in order by the Touring Club de France, but all four-wheeled vehicles must jolt and bump along the rough, uneven stones. By the time we reached the first cross-road Aunt Mary begged for mercy, and I was glad to have the order to get off the pavé at any cost. Soundly as the Napier is built, it was a tremendous and unfair strain