10 A.M.
This town of Guildford appeared to be the junction of an extraordinary number of railway-lines , and before again setting out in the afternoon , when the wind had lulled , having got an A B C guide , and a railway-map , I decided upon my line , and upon a new engine , feeling pretty sure now of making London , only thirty miles away . I then set out , and about five o'clock was at Surbiton , near my aim ; I kept on , expecting every few minutes to see the great city , till darkness fell , and still , at considerable risk , I went , as I thought , forward : but no London was there . I had , in fact , been on a loop-line , and at Surbiton gone wrong again ; for the next evening I found myself at Wokingham , farther away than ever . I slept on a rug in the passage of an inn called The Rose , for there was a wild , Russian-looking man , with projecting top-teeth , on a bed in the house , whose appearance I did not like , and it was late , and I too tired to walk further ; and the next morning pretty early I set out again , and at 10 A.M. was at Reading . The notion of navigating the land by precisely the same means as the sea , simple and natural as it was , had not at all occurred to me : but at the first accidental sight of a compass in a little shop-window near the river at Reading , my difficulties as to getting to any desired place in the world vanished once and for all : for a good chart or map , the compass , a pair of compasses , and , in the case of longer distances , a quadrant , sextant or theodolite , with a piece of paper and pencil , were all that were necessary to turn an engine into a land-ship , one choosing the lines that ran nearest the direction of one 's course , whenever they did not run precisely . Thus provided , I ran out from Reading about seven in the evening , while there was still some light , having spent there some nine hours . This was the town where I first observed that shocking crush of humanity , which I afterwards met in every large town west of London .