Steam Unicycle Journeys

From the Journals of Basil Bromley, Artist and Mechanician Entry the Twelfth , 25th of May, 1873 A night’s sleep, even in the most indifferent of lodgings, can perform miracles. I awoke in Tiverton less a casualty than a craftsman renewed. The bruises from my tumble have faded to a tolerable ache, the nettle stings … Read more

Entry the Eleventh , 24th of May, 1873 The day began with high promise. Exeter receded behind me beneath a sky of generous blue, and the roads toward Tiverton lay broad, sunlit, and forgiving. The Steam Unicycle, polished and eager, responded with unusual docility, and for an hour I entertained the notion that my journey … Read more

Entry the Tenth , 23rd of May, 1873 Dawn upon Dartmoor proved a pale affair, the horizon trembling with mist that seemed reluctant to withdraw. My cloak was sodden, my fingers stiff, yet I found a peculiar satisfaction in having endured the moor’s indifference. The Steam Unicycle, its brass dulled by dew, required a half-hour … Read more

Entry the Ninth , 22nd of May, 1873 The morning broke with a deceptive serenity, the kind of cool, bright air that tempts one into optimism. I set forth with the Steam Unicycle freshly stoked, its brasswork gleaming as though it, too, anticipated a day of steady progress. The road rose almost immediately into Dartmoor, … Read more

Entry the Eighth , 21st of May, 1873 The second week of my expedition began with a sky of ambiguous temper, grey with the promise of rain yet coy in its delivery. I departed Launceston in fair enough spirits, but scarcely had the church tower disappeared behind me than the heavens opened with the suddenness … Read more

Entry the Seventh , 20th of May, 1873 The bells of Bodmin struck six as I coaxed the Steam Unicycle into motion, their peals sounding like benedictions, though perhaps also a little like warnings. The morning was clear, the air sharpened by the scent of moorland heather and distant peat fires. I confess, I felt … Read more

From the Journals of Basil Bromley Entry the Sixth , 19th of May, 1873 I quitted Truro under a sky of polished pewter, the air sharp with that peculiar tang which seems a herald of rain yet seldom fulfils its promise. My landlady bade me farewell with a look of mingled pity and suspicion, as … Read more

Entry the Fifth , 18th of May, 1873 I departed Redruth in a drizzle that seemed less rain than an all-encompassing mist. Cornwall, I have discovered, prefers to blur its outlines: hedgerows melt into field, cottages into fog, and even my Steam Unicycle emerged from its own vapour like a beast half-imagined. The roads proved … Read more

From the Journals of Basil Bromley, Artist and Mechanician Entry the Fourth , 17th of May, 1873 The morning at Hayle began with a misapprehension. The inn’s ostler, charged with feeding the horses, took it upon himself to “water” my Steam Unicycle as well, pouring half a pail into the firebox whilst I still slept. … Read more

Entry the Third , 16th of May, 1873 The inn at St Just provided a breakfast whose quantity far outstripped its refinement,eggs of dubious lineage, rashers of bacon both heroic in girth and sullen in texture, and bread with the constitution of a paving stone. Yet, fuelled by these provisions, I set forth, the Steam … Read more