Travel Books

Introductory It is not everyone's business, nor would it be everyone's pleasure, to visit the United States of America. More, perhaps, than in any other country that I know of will what the traveller finds there depend on what he brings with him. Preconception will easily fatten into a perfect mammoth of realisation; but the open mind will add immeasurably to its garner of interests and... more...

We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, rocky road to Nazareth—distant two hours. All distances in the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands for three miles. This method of computation is bothersome and annoying; and until one gets thoroughly accustomed... more...

The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California is always a surprise. Hence he is impatient of outside criticism. Those who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, their shafts, however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that California is commercially asleep, that her... more...

Chapter I Preparations for the Start—Our Dry Goods Relished by the Cattle—I Become a “Compadre”—Beautiful Northern Sonora—Mexican Muleteers Preferable in Their Own Country—Apache Stories—Signs of Ancient Inhabitants—Arrival at Upper Yaqui River—Opata Indians now Mexicanised—A Flourishing Medical Practice—Mexican Manners—Rock-carvings—How Certain Cacti Propagate. Heavy floods... more...

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.You soon find your long-ago dreams of India rising in a sort of vague and luscious moonlight above the horizon-rim of your opaque consciousness, and softly lighting up a thousand forgotten details which were parts of a vision that had once been vivid to you when you were a boy,... more...

A Hero who rose from the Ranks. More than a hundred years ago, there lived a man who dwelt in a mud cottage in the county of York; his name was Cook. He was a poor, honest labourer—a farm servant. This man was the father of that James Cook who lived to be a captain in the British Navy, and who, before he was killed, became one of the best and greatest navigators that ever spread his sails to the... more...

RUSSIAN RAMBLES.I. PASSPORTS, POLICE, AND POST-OFFICE IN RUSSIA. We imported into Russia, untaxed, undiscovered by the custom-house officials, a goodly stock of misadvice, misinformation, apprehensions, and prejudices, like most foreigners, albeit we were unusually well informed, and confident that we were correctly posted on the grand outlines of Russian life, at least. We were forced to begin very... more...

The central shrine of a literary cult is at least as often its hero's home of adoption as his place of birth. To the Wordsworthian, Cockermouth has but a faint, remote interest in comparison with Grasmere and Rydal Mount. Edinburgh, for all its associations with the life and the genius of Scott, is not as Abbotsford, or as that beloved Border country in which his memory has struck its deepest... more...

WE COMMISSION OUR SHIP.  VISIT PORTSMOUTH.  PREPARE TO SAIL. On one of those delicious semi-tropical afternoons, which geologists tell us once bathed the whole of our island, and which even now, as though loath to part from its one-time home, still dwells lovingly in Devonia's summer, I wended my way to Devonport Park to feast my eyes once again on the familiar scenes of early days. What I... more...

ASIA. Of the four quarters of the world—Asia is the most glorious.There the first man lived.There the Son of God lived.There the apostles lived.There the Bible was written.Yet now there are very few Christians in Asia: though there are more peoplethere than in any other quarter of the globe. Of all the countries in the world which would you rather see? Would it not be the land where Jesus lived? He... more...