Travel Books

In recasting Paris and its Story for issue in the "Mediæval Towns Series," opportunity has been taken of revising the whole and of adding a Second Part, wherein we have essayed the office of cicerone. Obviously in so vast a range of study as that afforded by the city of Paris, compression and selection have been imperative: we have therefore limited our guidance to such routes and edifices as... more...

THE HUDSON Among all the rivers of the world the Hudson is acknowledged queen, decked with romance, jewelled with poetry, clad with history, and crowned with beauty. More than this, the Hudson is a noble threshold to a great continent and New York Bay a fitting portal. The traveler who enters the Narrows for the first time is impressed with wonder, and the charm abides even with those who pass daily to... more...

Of the group of notables who in the middle of the last century made the little Massachusetts town of Concord their home, and who thus conferred on it a literary fame both unique and enduring, Thoreau is the only one who was Concord born. His neighbor, Emerson, had sought the place in mature life for rural retirement, and after it became his chosen retreat, Hawthorne, Alcott, and the others followed;... more...

ONE. Farms and Roads At ten minutes past four, of an evening late in September, I sat in the buggy and swung out of the livery stable that boarded my horse. Peter, the horse, was a chunky bay, not too large, nor too small; and I had stumbled on to him through none of my sagacity. To tell the plain truth, I wanted to get home, I had to have a horse that could stand the trip, no other likely looking... more...

In the late fall and early winter of the year 1819 Dr. Richard Lee Mason made a journey from Philadelphia to Illinois, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Some of his adventures were remarkable, and these, together with his observations on the country, the towns and the people whom he encountered, were recorded in a diary kept by him, which is now in the possession of his only surviving... more...

The Diligence Office. Rollo went to Rome in company with his uncle George, from Naples. They went by the diligence, which is a species of stage coach. There are different kinds of public coaches that ply on the great thoroughfares in Italy, to take passengers for hire; but the most common kind is the diligence. The diligences in France are very large, and are divided into different compartments, with a... more...

PREFACE. This volume is one result of a scientific expedition to the equatorial Andes and the river Amazon. The expedition was made under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and consisted of the following gentlemen besides the writer: Colonel Staunton, of Ingham University, Leroy, N.Y.; F.S. Williams, Esq., of Albany, N.Y.; and Messrs. P.V. Myers and A. Bushnell, of Williams College. We sailed... more...

PREFACE South America is, to my mind, "the Coming Continent"—the Continent of the future. Everybody knows the wealth of the Argentine, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia; but the interior of Brazil, the largest and richest country of all, not unlike forbidden Tibet, was perhaps better known a century or two ago than now. Few people realize that Brazil is larger than the United States of North America,... more...

CHAPTER ITHE PILGRIMS' ROAD TO CANTERBURYFROM THE TABARD INN TO DARTFORDWhen I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possess England of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. Therefore I sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark. For true delight, it seems to me, a journey, especially if it be for love or... more...

The Hudson Valley, above all other places in this country, combines historic and romantic interest with the beauties of nature. It is one hundred and fifty miles crowded with the splendors of mountain and forest and river, and replete with incident and legend. To quote George William Curtis: "Its morning and evening reaches are like the lakes of a dream." Everyone who visits New York comes or... more...