Travel Books

CHAPTER I. Hints to the English visiting Paris as to their demeanour towards the Parisians, and advice as to the best mode of proceeding in various transactions with them. An appeal to candour and justice against national prejudice. Happiness is the goal for which mankind is ever seeking, but of the many roads which the imagination traces as the surest and nearest to that desideratum, few, perhaps... more...

GRASSE For several months I had been seeing Grasse every day. The atmosphere of the Midi is so clear that a city fifteen miles away seems right at hand. You can almost count the windows in the houses. Against the rising background of buildings every tower stands out, and you distinguish one roof from another. From my study window at Théoule, Grasse was as constant a temptation as the two islands in... more...

A BROTHER OF THE POOR. There are few stiller things than the stillness of a summer's noon such as this, a summer's noon in a broken woodland, with the deer asleep in the bracken, and the twitter of birds silent in the coppice, and hardly a leaf astir in the huge beeches that fling their cool shade over the grass. Afar off a gilded vane flares out above the grey Jacobean gables of Knoll, the... more...

I THE FIERY FURNACE Abadan.There is an unenviable competition between places situated in the region of Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf as to which can be the hottest. Abadan, the ever-growing oil port, which is in Persia and on the starboard hand as you go up the Shatt-el-Arab, if not actually the winner according to statistics, comes out top in popular estimation. Its proximity to the scorching... more...

CHAPTER I. Departure from Lucknow—Gholam Hazrut—Attack on the late Prime Minister, Ameen-od-Dowla—A similar attack on the sons of a former Prime Minister, Agar Meer—Gunga Sing and Kulunder Buksh—Gorbuksh Sing, of Bhitolee—Gonda Bahraetch district—Rughbur Sing—Prethee Put, of Paska—King of Oude and King of the Fairies—Surafraz mahal. December 1, 1849.—I left Lucknow to proceed on a... more...

CHAPTER ONE FIRST IMPRESSIONS Two eager young Americans sat, one on each side of the window of an English train, speeding towards London. They had landed only that morning, and everything seemed very strange to them, as they watched the pretty scenes from the car-window. The lady who had met them at the steamer, was an old friend of the family, who had often been to America, and was well known to the... more...

PREFACE. This Guide-book consists of Routes which follow the course of the main Railways. To adapt these Routes as far as possible to the requirements of every one the Branch Lines are also pointed out, together with the stations from which the Coaches run, in connection with the trains, to towns distant from the railway. The description of the places on these branch lines is printed either in a closer... more...

CHAPTER I THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN Far away from our land, on the other side of the world, lies a group of islands which form the kingdom of Japan. The word "Japan" means the "Land of the Rising Sun," and it is certainly a good name for a country of the Far East, the land of sunrise. The flag of Japan, too, is painted with a rising sun which sheds its beams on every hand, and this... more...

Foreword In furtherance of giving the utmost service to the public, the New York Central Lines asked the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica to prepare this booklet descriptive of and vivifying the historical development of what has been termed "The Greatest Highway in the World." It is presented to you in the hope that it may prove a pleasant companion on a journey over our Lines. The... more...

PREFACE "Beyond doubt the finished historian must be a traveller: he must see with his own eyes the true look of a wide land; he must see, too, with his eyes the very spots where great events happened; he must mark the lie of a city, and take in, as far as a non-technical eye can, all that is special about a battle-field." So wrote Mr. Freeman in his Methods of Historical Study, and he... more...