This is yet another humorous adventure in a book detailing the comic capers of three men in 1880s Britain who decide to take a two-week long boating vacation on the Thames, traveling from Kingston-on-Thames to Oxford. The three are comically ill-suited to handle their many adventures. The Hampton maze episode illustrates not only Harris's incompetence as a tourist but also the incompetence of tourists in general--and perhaps the way they are deceived by being assured that difficult tasks are easy.
Harris decides he wants to go through the maze at Hampton Court, a royal palace once occupied by Henry VIII. A "country cousin" tells him that the maze is simple to navigate: you keep turning right and you'll be out in ten minutes:
Well just go in here, so that you can say you’ve been, but its very simple. Its absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the right. Well just walk round for ten minutes, and then go and get some lunch.
Once inside, Harris meets up with tired, lost tourists who want to get out of the maze. In short order, Harris has:
absorbed all the persons in the maze. People who had given up all hopes of ever getting either in or out, or of ever seeing their home and friends again, plucked up courage at the sight of Harris and his party, and joined the procession, blessing him.
Naturally, Harris has no idea what he is doing, and they all continue to be hopelessly lost. Harris becomes "unpopular." In the end, the crowd of lost souls calls out to the "keeper," who climbs into the maze with a ladder, but he is new and cannot lead them out either. They remain lost until the "old keeper" returns from dinner. With dry humor, Harris decides it is a "very fine maze" and that he will try to get George "into it" on their way back.
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