Trip to Europe With General Miles
As General Miles had previously invited me to go with him to Europe, in 1906 I accepted an invitation to accompany him. We sailed on "La Provence" for France, and spent some two months in France, Ireland, Scotland, England and Switzerland, traveling most of the time by automobile.
Mr. Colgate Hoyt, of New York, president of the American Automobile Society and brother-in-law to General Miles, with his wife and daughters, Elizabeth and Anna, had invited us to accompany them on various journeys in their automobile, and we found them very enjoyable traveling companions.
Our most interesting sojourn was in Dublin, where we met the genial, strange, though interesting race of Irishmen. We were much interested in the jaunting cars, which are to this day the principal passenger vehicles of the cities of Ireland, and exclusively confined to Ireland. Curious to know why they were used there and nowhere else, we inquired, and found that the British Government, in their eagerness to collect all the taxes they could from such properties, levied a tax on vehicles per wheel, and on domiciles for window panes. To avoid this, the stubborn Irishmen would use nothing but two-wheeled vehicles and, unfortunately, they would put just as few panes of glass in their houses as possible, and this custom is carried out there to this day. The jaunting car, while not presenting to one unacquainted with it a very enticing invitation to ride, is, after all, when you become used to it, a very interesting vehicle, and General Miles and I invariably rode in them.
Our visit was at the time of the horse show and, being cavalrymen, we were interested in the exhibition and racing of the animals.
From Dublin we were invited by a Mrs. Galt-Smith, who was the owner of an old Irish castle, to visit her, and we spent some days as her guests at Kilwaughter Castle, in the north of Ireland.
Mrs. Galt-Smith took us around her neighborhood and we became acquainted with the peat bogs, which we had never seen before, where a great part of the fuel of the country was taken from dried up peat bogs, and, strange to say, the undried bogs were such that even horses became drowned when they tried to pass over them.
From there, we also visited the "Giant's Causeway," one of the geological curiosities of the world.