Concerning Guide-Books

By Claude E. Benson

(Read before The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, March 1st, 1910, and reprinted, by kind permission, from The Cornhill Magazine.)

He that hath a thousand friends hath not a friend to spare;
And he that hath one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

It is a pleasant and not unwarrantable reflection that the writer of Guide-Books has at least a thousand friends, probably many thousand; it is certain that he has one enemy whose name is Legion.  Hidden in dim cathedrals, in ruined abbeys, in picture-galleries, on mountains, in torrents, among time-tables, on golf-links, in trout-streams, at every turn in the path and corner of the road, and at the wayside inn, the Demon lurks.  And the Demon of the wayside inn is more trouble than all the rest put together.  For instance: Harrogate to Bolton Abbey . . . Inns at Catch’em Corner, 6¾ m., and Blubberhouses, 9 m . . . whence the pretty village of Fewston, (Smith’s Arms), is l¼ m. S.W..

These be innocent-looking words enough; yet they are, or rather were, pregnant with thunderbolts of wrath and abuse, all of which were discharged on my helpless and undeserving head.

The road from Harrogate to Bolton Abbey is fairly level for half the way, but between Catch’em Corner and Bolton Bridge there is a very stiff bit of collar-work, and, taking the route on the reverse way, the grind up from Wharfedale is a thing to shudder at.  In the days of my friend the late Mr. Baddeley there were houses of call as stated, but of recent years they have been closed, one after another, and now on the whole route there is but one inn, at the corner of Hopper Lane, between Catch’em Corner and Blubberhouses.

The energetic and temperate pedestrian reaches Catch’em Corner to find no inn there.  Had there been, he would possibly have passed it unheeding, but the mere fact of its not being available creates a sensation of disappointment which generates thirst.  By the time Hopper Lane is reached the desire for something wet has developed, and he hesitates on the threshold and, to his undoing, consults the guide-book.  Behold, within two miles is Blubberhouses with its hostelry.  By that time the thirst will have increased to a desire for something wet and long, the kind of thirst one would not sell for five pounds.  So he turns his back on the bird in the hand and plunges downward after the elusive denizen of the bush, to find the bird flown.

Now thirst, when the means of quenching it are handy, is the greatest of all the gifts of the immortals to suffering humanity.  When those means are absent – it is the very devil.

The condition of the enthusiastic and temperate pedestrian is now trying in the extreme.  The pseudo-thirst, called into unreal being by the guide-book misinformation of the presence of a non-existent inn at Catch’em Corner, has become, by the rebellious perversity of responsive disappointment, a very real and overmastering craving.  Two alternatives of satisfying this imperious demand present themselves- to climb the steep ascent back as far as Hopper Lane, which is unthinkable, even without the aid of a strongly expressed dissent, or to quench thirst from the brook by the wayside.

Now the wayside brook, in a moorland country, scarcely appeals.  It is very generally flavoured with peat, and sometimes with sheep – not altogether new-laid sheep either.  Wherefore the pedestrian stiffens his withers against the traces and pulls ahead.

By the time he is half-way down the long descent to Bolton Bridge he has determined – not without picturesque asseveration – that he will have something not only wet, not only long, but also alcoholic.  The one or two little wayside cottages, offering tea, lemonade and mineral waters, do not throw him out of his stride for a second, and at length, at the Devonshire Arms, he gives the devil – or angel – of thirst his due.

After which he proceeds to unpack his heart with a letter to the Editor of the ‘otherwise excellent guide-book’ – I know that phrase: it is ominous of trouble.

I trust it will not be imputed to me for facetiousness that I have introduced the well-worn question of thirst.  I merely write that I have read – and the reading has not always been pleasant.  I suppose that thirst is more provocative of evil temper – in its early stages at least – than hunger; nevertheless, a man, be he of the most strictest order of teetotalers, seldom complains of missing his meal.  I admit the grievance; it is a very real one.  If one takes a sixteen-mile tramp along a frequented tourist route, one has a right to expect to find a house of call on the way, and one has also a right to expect those who profess to provide such information to tell one where one will find the hostelry, and not to cheat one with information as to dead-and-gone inns.

Unfortunately it is impossible thoroughly to satisfy this perfectly reasonable demand.  Every good and careful guide-book writer makes a conscientious study of the local papers so as to keep in touch as nearly as he can with all changes; nevertheless it is conceivable that such an event as the closing of “The Cat and Cow” and the opening of “The Green Lamb” may escape being reported; and the consequence is disappointment, thirst – and a letter to the Editor.

Similarly golf-links and salmon and trout-streams furnish pitfalls.  A single committee meeting may make the prices prohibitive, or impose such restrictions on visitors that to the average tourist the links or streams are practically closed; or an association or riparian owner may buy up a stretch of water which for years has been the happy hunting-ground of the casual angler.  The hard-worked individual who has selected his holiday resort chiefly on account of the golfing or fishing facilities it offers, misled thereto by the guide-book, when he finds his hopes disappointed, is moved to exceeding bitterness of spirit and is sometimes quite rude.

I got a serious wigging, together with a lecture on my want of observation and taste, over a picture-gallery.  The Corporation, in a moment of lunacy or artistic appreciation, had bought two famous works from a well known up-to-date impressionist artist.  They are beautiful things, of a sort of Calais-Douvres complexion, and whether they are hung upside down or sideways does not make much difference to the uneducated eye.  The defenders of this school are always aggressive, and the result was a letter expressing surprise that my ‘otherwise excellent guide-book’ – (dear old phrase), &c., &c.  If this excellent and careful observer had looked at the date of the guidebook he would have seen that it had been published before the picture was painted.

Stables are a fruitful source of trouble, and sometimes, though seldom, it must be admitted, there is room for complaint, not against the Editor, but against the Stable Proprietor.  I was once on the point of exploding at an apparently extortionate demand whilst bargaining for the hire of a trap, when I recollected that that day was a great business function.  It was obviously unreasonable to expect the proprietor to let me have the use of a dog-cart for the day at the normal price, when he could make twice and more than twice as much by keeping it ready for local service.

Generally speaking I have found carriage-hire moderate.  Occasionally I have met with attempts at extortion, and in them do I delight.  Such an one do I remember.  I shall not name the place: suffice it to say it was not between Jerusalem and Jericho.  I approached my man per telephone.  I named the drive desired; he named the price required.  I then explained that I only wanted to hire the horse and trap, not to buy it; whereat he became wrathful.  I paid him a personal visit later, but he was not accommodating; so I was driven to consult my own guide-book.  My man informed me somewhat insolently that he paid no attention to such publications.  I always carry a fountain-pen to make notes withal, and the note I made then and there was the erasure of my man’s name and livery stable, which roused his curiosity.  When he learned that, as Editor of the guide-book, I considered that my duty was to the public, and that therefore I could not conscientiously recommend an establishment where they would be plundered and insulted, he began to take in the situation.  I got my drive next day at a normal price.  I think I might have had it for nothing, only under the circumstances that would not have been quite playing the game.

Architecture is a very epistolary Cadmus.  One kind gentleman volunteered to send me an elementary handbook on the subject, which was civil and considerate.  He did not know that he was setting his opinion against that of a very high authority, whose name I forget for the moment; but when he passes from the elementary handbook into studies more erudite he may abandon his somewhat primitive opinions.

For the most part, however, correspondents are exceedingly kind.  Sometimes they are rather too kind.  The other day I had a letter suggesting that the guidebook did not do sufficient justice to the beauty of a certain waterfall, and enclosing an appropriate description.  I entirely agree.  The guide-book does not do the scenery justice.  Moreover, the description was very pretty reading, written by a man who knew the place well and loved Nature.  Unfortunately it occupied about three closely typed sheets.  Now, as a guide-book is intended to be carried in the pocket and not on a van, I had, very unwillingly, to reduce the three pages to double as many lines.  I expect to hear of that before long, when the new edition comes out.

Most of the correspondence, however, arises from the mistakes of the tourists.  They just finger-read a page, take their bearings by the light of nature, and go ahead.  In a wild moorland country such negligence may bring about inconvenient, if not serious, results; in a mountainous country it may prove fatal.

I will give an example.  Of a certain descent it is written: ‘The route is unmistakeable.  The tarn lies immediately below’ and general instructions as to the line of descent follow.  Here we have a landmark that can scarcely be missed – a considerable sheet of water – to guide one.  I had a letter from a tourist a few months back expressing a hope that the instructions might be made clearer, as he had attempted the descent, got off the track, and consequently had rather a bad – he called it ‘terrible’ – time of it.  And, indeed, he must have encountered abundant opportunities of breaking his neck.  Inquiries elicited the important information that he had never seen the tarn – that he had disregarded the note that it lay immediately below.  Now even a little piece of water like the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens can hardly be overlooked, given reasonably clear weather.  It would seem, then, surely, to follow that if the tarn were not in sight, immediately below, the tourist must be on the wrong track, and that his proper course was to walk around, aided by the map, until he did see it.  But a process so methodical as this seldom occurs to the average tourist.

I have no complaint to make of communications such as this last.  In fact, all letters should be welcomed, and answered at once and courteously.  If the tone of the communication is not always courteous itself, it must be remembered that the writer has had probably some incentive to irritability.  Once I said in my haste that guide-books must be written for fools.  I withdraw that stricture unreservedly.  What may be very clear to a man who knows a place like the palm of his hand may be not so clear to a stranger.  Very few visitors to the Lake District, for instance, have any conception of the bulk of the fells.  It is all very well to sneer at dear old Skiddaw – the shapeliest mountain in England, by the way – as a climb for ‘auld wives and bairns.’ Drop Skiddaw down in London with its eastern extremity at the Bank of England: its western slopes would terminate somewhere in the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, whilst its northern spurs would obliterate Lord’s and encroach on Hampstead.  This implies a considerable acreage, and plentiful opportunities of going astray, though, thanks to the shapeliness of Skiddaw, a serious divergence would be difficult.

On one point, however, j’accuse.  Of tourists in mountainous districts the majority do take maps, a reasonable proportion have boots more or less efficiently nailed, a minority take a compass, and only a very small minority have the most rudimentary idea of using that invaluable instrument.  I wish people would pay attention to the preliminary words of caution advocating maps, nails and compasses.  They are not written for nothing.  I have seen a joyous picnic-party trotting about on steep grass slopes terminating in a sheer precipice, as if the place were as innocent of danger as Primrose Hill.  I overtook them, and found that without exception they had no nails in their boots; one had a map; not one had a compass.  Had bad or thick weather overtaken them their plight might have been really serious.  I did venture to remonstrate; I hinted that grass, lying even at a moderate angle, was one of the most treacherous of enemies, and was laughed at for my pains.  My own outrageous clinker-nailed boots were a source of undying amusement to sundry of the ladies and younger gentlemen – I hope I am not unduly sarcastic.  However, I kept them in sight until they had reached the valley and undeserved safety.

Whilst on this subject, I should like to suggest that, in a sense, moors are perhaps more dangerous than mountains, in England, at any rate.  The Lake District is so compact that a missing tourist is pretty sure to be missed, and forthwith search-parties of generous dalesmen will seek out the lost sheep; but I should be very sorry for the ill-equipped tourist who got caught by a thick mist on a waste howling wilderness like Crowden in Cheshire, or even on the Scout in Derbyshire.

‘Never, except in very exceptional cases, consult local talent ; if local talent persists in offering its advice, disregard the advice absolutely.  Local talent, as a rule, knows nothing of the mountain which rises from its back door, but will die rather than admit its ignorance.’

These be wise words, from the pen of one who has evidently suffered.  One of the sorest trials of a guidebook writer on visiting a new district is the difficulty of getting accurate information.  The gentle peasant, on being questioned, apparently thinks that his capacity would be impugned if he failed to answer, and answer he does:

Recte si possit, si non, quocunque modo.

I have the greatest respect for the Ordnance Maps; they are admirable as regards topographical detail, but occasionally the thought will intrude that the ingenuous surveyor may have been misled into consulting Rusticus, and got loaded up with misinformation for his pains.  Quite recently I had to shift a couple of mountains a mile or more to locate them in their proper places – on the map.

On the other hand, the local clergy, gentry and hotel proprietors are for the most part exceedingly kind and very willing to help.  Moreover, if they do not know, they are honest enough to say so.  More than that, they will more often than not put you in the way of getting the information you desire if they cannot give it themselves.  On one or two occasions gentlemen have taken the trouble to collect the information for me from the local authorities and to send it on in very complete form.  There is something very real about courtesy of this kind.

The ideal method of compiling a guide-book is to visit a new district with a perfectly open mind, make your inquiries and notes on the spot, then to return and ransack the British Museum Library and hunt up all the works on the district and monographs on particular churches, abbeys, battlefields, &c.; and then, thoroughly equipped with your own and other people’s wisdom, to go over the ground again.

Such a process would have been excellent in the days of Chedorlaomer, when men had plenty of time to live and think.  Unfortunately the total days of our years are only threescore and ten, of which the working years only total about forty.  Moreover, guide-book research can only be effectively carried out in summer.  Besides which, in the lives of most of my colleagues and myself, guidebook writing is a holiday task in an otherwise strenuous existence.  And, to crown all, an unreasonable public seem to expect a new edition about once in five years at least, so that we have to adapt ourselves to circumstances.  My own plan is to spend as many winter evenings as I can in victualling my craft from other people’s labours and to cruise as much as possible, and, as far as I can, in strange waters, during the summer.

À propos of new editions, I confess that one correspondent did try my usually equable temper.  He suggested that in order to keep up to date and to avoid ‘irritating mistakes’ (sic), I should bring out my guide-books quarterly, if not half-yearly.  I did not submit this silly suggestion to the publishers.  I endeavoured to reply myself, and was told, not in quite so many words, but sufficiently explicitly, that I was lazy and shirked my work.

This was the communication of ignorance and thoughtlessness.  Quite apart from the heavy cost of production, (which is not my concern), my correspondent evidently had no conception of the clerical labour necessary to the bringing out of a new edition.  A new edition, to warrant its existence, should be an improvement on its predecessor, and improvement almost necessarily implies a variation in size, though not always an increase.  For example, one edition I recently brought out was two pages shorter than the previous one.  The difference may not appear formidable to the uninitiated.  On almost every page there are from two to a dozen cross-references, and the slightest alteration in the pagination means that every one of these two or three thousand entries has to be checked.  The index, too, is affected, though not to a considerable extent.  Another guide-book I recently edited came out more than twenty pages longer than the previous edition.  Even now the memory of those

Long days of labour
And nights devoid of ease
makes my eyes ache.

Printers, too, are particularly tried, and peculiarly trying.  Place-names naturally abound, and place-names have no conscience as to their spelling.  How a man ever manages to get those chaotic jumbles of consonants which characterise Wales into anything like order is beyond my comprehension.  The “bonnie North Countree” gives me all the employment I want in that way.

Consequently it is easy to understand that place-names appear in various guises in various places on the proofs; possibly one’s own handwriting or the eccentricities of one’s typewriter are to blame.  If on the galley-proofs you find Rosthwaite masquerading as ‘Rostwaite,” (which, by the way, is closer to the local pronunciation than the orthodox spelling), ‘Rosthaite,’ &c., you are not surprised.  The first page-proofs come in, and all is well.  What is vexing is that such names have a habit on the second page-proofs of relapsing into original sin, or developing some new vagary, such as ‘Roshwaite,’ even though they have stood the test of two prior ordeals with unblemished orthodoxy.

Proofs are annoying, indexes are exasperating, cross-references are maddening, more especially as the figures have, even at the last moment, a tendency to stand on their heads en échelon, thus:  which signifies: 163.

Medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat.
Still from the fount of Joy’s delicious springs
Some bitter o’er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

The converse is happily true.  In view of this elaborate grumble, this jaune recital of unmerited trials and vexation, why should I, or anyone else, take up guide-book writing?

Because it is a most healthy, enjoyable and instructive occupation – at any rate whilst one is on active service.  One is always, or almost always, on one’s feet; one is in constant touch with the beautiful or interesting; one ought to learn something, and something worth the learning, on every expedition.

My lines are fallen in pleasant places, amongst the fairest scenes in fair England.  I conceive of all guidebook writers I am the most fortunate; though I confess to a desire to include Scotland, and possibly Wales, in spite of its fearsome spelling.  Some of my colleagues may be more fortunately situated in respect of places of historic interest and beauty; nevertheless “fair is my lot; yea, goodly is my heritage”; and in Fountains I possess the pride of English abbeys.

One is almost always on one’s feet: guide-book work is a splendidly healthy occupation.  In these days of mechanical aids to locomotion I have been asked often why I do not cycle, or use a motor, so as to get quickly from centre to centre.  From centre to centre and quickly!  What have I to do with centres?  They have been written up again and again by men at least as capable and conscientious as myself.  I reserve them for off’ days, wherein I may gather pleasure and information.  Other men have laboured, and I enter into their labours.  As a rule, the only notes one has to make with regard to a centre are the addition of a picture to the gallery, an extension of the tram system, &c., &c.

On the open road you are bound to miss a great deal in a motor, and even on a cycle you risk overlooking many a point of interest.  Moreover, and finally, you are confined to the open road; the attractive field or fell path is closed to you, unless you have a special predilection for carrying your machine.

I am quite certain, however that even on the high road the use of a machine is a mistake.  A certain amount of attention has to be given to steering, and guide-book work gives your eyes all the employment they need without any distraction of that kind.  Only the other day I was walking down a frequented thoroughfare, a popular tourist route, familiar to all the guide-books written of the district.  I happened to look over a hedge, and caught sight of an interesting-looking old building.  I at once gave tongue to my companion to the effect that I had found, but, in spite of many casts, I feared I had drawn a blank.  The tenants of the house knew nothing about it, except that it was very old, which I could have told them; and no guide-book had any note of it.  At length I bethought me of the authority on the district, and, sure enough, I found that I had lighted on all that was left of a twelfth-century nunnery, which was something of a find for an afternoon’s stroll.

On another tramp I dropped into an inn, the first I had seen for twelve miles, and the last I was likely to see for another eight.  Again it seemed to me that I had hit off a scent, and inquiry disclosed that the inn was built on to the gateway of a royal forest.  A little farther on, off the beaten track, I came across an old pack-road, which led in olden days from one noted religious house to another, and close by it traces of a flagged Roman road.  Now, before the next edition of the guide-book to that locality appears, the history of that forest will have to be studied and its boundaries visited, and the whole length of those two tracks, so far as they lie within my province, will have to be tramped.  I am reasonably sure the study will repay my labour, and I am quite, quite certain the grand moorland walk will.

These instances may serve to indicate some of the pleasure and interest one finds in guide-book writing.  I do not claim any originality for any of my methods, except one.  Many mountains lie within my districts, and where there is a mountain there is always an element of risk.  Only a summer or two back two ladies were caught by bad weather on Skiddaw, and were out, storm-beaten and drenched, for thirty-six hours before one of the many relief-parties who had generously hastened to search for them came to their rescue.  They were exhausted and thoroughly knocked up, as a matter of course; but, so far as I have been able to learn, no permanent harm was done – which is something for them to be thankful for.

Now, my plan is to pocket my guide-book, go up a mountain on a misty day, and make my guide-book take me off.  It is quite a sporting way of criticising one’s own work, and absolutely merciless.  If I make a mistake, I abide rigidly by it, even though it send me an hour or so out of my way.  I condemn myself on the ground that I had no business to make a mistake, and therefore I am bound to abide by the consequences of my own negligence Sometimes one gets let in for quite an exciting bit of scrambling.  This method is, as will be recognised, a really sporting one; but I cannot recommend it except to people who are accustomed to mountains and understand the use of map and compass.  The principle, however, I do commend.  When going over old ground let your own book guide you unreservedly; and if you have made a mistake abide by it for a season.  One may be inconvenienced oneself, but hundreds of the public will be benefited; and I regard the writer of guide-books as the servant of the public.