Travel Books

INTRODUCTION. Eighty years ago, when the story told in these pages was first published, "forecastle yarns" were more thrilling than they are now. In these days we look for information in regard to a new land's capabilities for pastoral, agricultural, and commercial pursuits; in those days it was customary, with a large portion of the British public, at any rate, to expect sailors to tell... more...

CHAPTER I. CHÂTEAU DE CHAMBORD. We walked through the empty galleries and deserted rooms where spiders spin their cobwebs over the salamanders of Francis the First. One is overcome by a feeling of distress at the sight of this poverty which has no grandeur. It is not absolute ruin, with the luxury of blackened and mouldy débris, the delicate embroidery of flowers, and the drapery of waving vines... more...

INDIA NOISELESS FEET Although India is a land of walkers, there is no sound of footfalls. Most of the feet are bare and all are silent: dark strangers overtake one like ghosts. Both in the cities and the country some one is always walking. There are carts and motorcars, and on the roads about Delhi a curious service of camel omnibuses, but most of the people walk, and they walk ever. In the bazaars... more...

My readers, would you like to goabroad, for just an hour or so,With little friends of different ages? Look at them in these pictured pages—Brothers and sisters you can see,—all children of one family.Their father, too, you here will find, and good Miss Earle, their teacher kind.Three years ago their Mother died, and ever since has Father triedTo give his children in the Spring some tour, or treat,... more...

COMMON LODGING HOUSES, CADGERS, &c., &c. These two subjects are, perhaps now the only ones remaining, in what is termed the “walks of life,” of which a correct description has not yet been given. All the old topics, such as the beauties of the country, and the ancient stories of love and heroism, which have afforded so much employment to the pencil, the muse, and the worker-up of novels,... more...

MISAPPREHENSIONS CORRECTED I should not like to ask an indulgent and idle public to saunter about with me under a misapprehension. It would be more agreeable to invite it to go nowhere than somewhere; for almost every one has been somewhere, and has written about it. The only compromise I can suggest is, that we shall go somewhere, and not learn anything about it. The instinct of the public against any... more...

         As soon as they step into my house and see my strange collection of travel keepsakes, all visitors’ eyes are drawn to the Arabian saddle, which actually deserves credit as the inspiration and author of this story. It has Oriental-red velvet, richly decorated with gold embroidery. This Pasha saddle was fit for a tribal Turkish chieftain, having comfortable stirrups and an accompanying... more...

I visited Cornwall, for the first time, in the summer and autumn of 1850; and in the winter of the same year, I wrote this book. At that time, the title attached to these pages was strictly descriptive of the state of the county, when my companion and I walked through it. But when, little more than a year afterwards, a second edition of this volume was called for, the all-conquering railway had invaded... more...

INTRODUCTION Nearly five years elapsed between Drake's return from his Famous Voyage and the despatch of the formidable armament commemorated in the following pages. During the last of these years the march of events had been remarkably rapid. Gilbert, who had been empowered by Elizabeth, in the year of Frobisher's last expedition, to found colonies in America, had sailed for that purpose to... more...

CHAPTER I. DEPARTURE FROM GREENWICH—THE HISTORY OF THE IRIS YACHT—SHEERNESS—HARWICH—UNDER WEIGH—THE NORTH SEA—SAIL IN SIGHT—THE MAIL OVERBOARD—SPEAKING THE NORWEGIAN. I believe the old Italian proverb says, that every man, before he dies, should do three things: "Get a son, build a house, and write a book." Now, whether or not I am desirous, by beginning at the end, to end at... more...