Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II Stretching away north and north-west from Oxford?from the Cherwell to the western fringe of Cotswold?lies the upland region towards which we are shaping our journey this morning. It is a region unfrequented by the majority of those whose pleasure it is to roam abroad. To the wearied brain scenes wilder and more majestic than those which we are now about to survey will always make the first appeal, but the curious traveller who has leisure at his call, and is content to tempt the peaceful charms of an old-world English countryside, may spend many a long summer’s day, and spend it well, in exploring the breezy downs and the secluded vales of North Oxfordshire and the Cotswold. The method of locomotion will vary with the inclination of the individual traveller. For ourselves the bicycle is the conveyance we have chosen, and for the firm smooth main roads of our district no easier mode of travelling can be devised. It is true there will be many a stiff hill to climb, for whereas in a highland country the roads will descend the larger valleys parallel with the course of the river, here they are for the most part carried along the ridges of the hills, often following the line of the ancient trackways, and crossing the valleys by the shortest and most convenient route, without respect to the villages which mostly lie sequestered in the sheltered nooks formed by the windings of the stream. To reach these villages weCh. II YARNTON 35 must quit the main road, and commit ourselves to the cross road: nor are these cross roads all of one sort, or all paths of pleasantness to the cyclist; at times indeed they affect the dignity of the highway, and need then cause him no concern, but oftener they are little more than cart tracks leading him from gate to gate across the fields…