Travel Books

CHAPTER I A WALK TO CHURCH IN ROME I know nothing more delightful than a walk to a country church on a fine day at the end of summer. All the lovely promises of spring have been fulfilled; the woods are clothed with their darkest foliage, and not another leaflet is to come anywhere. The lingering plumes of the meadow-sweet in the fields, and the golden trumpets of the wild honeysuckle in the hedges,... more...

THREE FAMOUS CITIES IN THE STREETS OF GENOA BY CHARLES DICKENS The great majority of the streets are as narrow as any thoroughfare can well be, where people (even Italian people) are supposed to live and walk about; being mere lanes, with here and there a kind of well, or breathing-place. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts of colors, and are in every stage and state of damage, dirt,... more...

PREFACE. Although the Journal of a voyage to Brazil, and of a residence of many months in that country, was not written without a view to publication at some time; yet many unforeseen circumstances forced the writer to pause before she committed it to press, and to cancel many pages recording both public and private occurrences. Perhaps there is even yet too much of a personal nature, but what is said... more...

CHAPTER I. We went on board the little iron Swedish propeller, Carl Johan, at Lübeck, on the morning of December 1, A.D. 1856, having previously taken our passage for Stockholm. What was our dismay, after climbing over hills of freight on deck, and creeping down a narrow companion-way, to find the cabin stowed full of bales of wool and barrels of butter. There was a little pantry adjoining it, with a... more...

PREFACE. During a stay of three years and a half in Germany and France, sometimes at work, sometimes tramping through the country, the Author collected a number of facts and stray notes, which he has endeavoured in these pages to present to the public in a readable shape. Of the twenty-eight chapters contained in the volume, sixteen originally appeared in “Household Words.”  They are entitled The... more...

The Australian continent is not distinguished, as are many other continents of equal and even of less extent, by any prominent geographical feature. Its mountains seldom exceed four thousand feet in elevation, nor do any of its rivers, whether falling internally or externally, not even the Murray, bear any proportion to the size of the continent itself. There is no reason, however, why rivers of... more...

CHAPTER 3.1. Route proposed.Equipment.List of the Men.Agreement with a native guide.Livestock.Corrobory-dance of the natives.Visit to the Limestone caves.Osseous breccia.Mount Granard, first point to be attained.Halt on a dry creek.Break a wheel.Attempt to ascend Marga.Snakes.View from Marga.Reach the Lachlan.Find its channel dry. ROUTE PROPOSED. Towards the end of the year 1835 I was apprised that the... more...

After a ramble in this very desultory manner, which the reader has, no doubt, now become accustomed to, I returned to Toronto, having first observed that the harvest looked very ill on the Niagara frontier; that the peaches had entirely failed, and that the grass was destroyed by a long drought; that the Indian corn was sickly, and the potatoes very bad. Cherries alone seemed plentiful; the... more...

THE PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE. EXPERIENCES WITH WILLING FRIENDS AND ADVISERS Ever since I can remember, almost, I have cherished a modest ambition to hunt lions and elephants. At an early age, or, to be more exact, at about that age which finds most boys wondering whether they would rather be Indian fighters or sailors, I ran across a copy of Stanley's Through the Dark Continent. It was full of... more...

CHAPTER I. ON THE WING. It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the swallows and butterflies of our social system are too apt to forsake their native woods and glens in the summer months, and to fly to 'the Continent' for recreation and change of scene; whilst poets tell us, with eloquent truth, that there is a music in the branches of England's trees, and a... more...