Travel Books

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...

I. UP AND DOWN MADEIRA. No drop-curtain, at any theatre I have seen, was ever so richly imagined, with misty tops and shadowy clefts and frowning cliffs and gloomy valleys and long, plunging cataracts, as the actual landscape of Madeira, when we drew nearer and nearer to it, at the close of a tearful afternoon of mid-January. The scenery of drop-curtains is often very boldly beautiful, but here Nature,... 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...

PRAISE OF THIS BOOK To every honest reader that may purchase, hire, or receive this book, and to the reviewers also (to whom it is of triple profit), greeting--and whatever else can be had for nothing. If you should ask how this book came to be written, it was in this way. One day as I was wandering over the world I came upon the valley where I was born, and stopping there a moment to speak with them... more...

I.—Italiam Petimus. Italiam petimus! We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost tinkling sound. Down into the gorge,... more...

CHAPTER I This is the third day of sirocco, heavy-clouded, sunless. All the colour has gone out of Naples; the streets are dusty and stifling. I long for the mountains and the sea. To-morrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola. It is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and an image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little marina; a yellowish... 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...

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...

First Impressions of Batavia. When consideration is given to the fact that Java is only two days' steaming from Singapore, that it is more beautiful in some respects than Japan, that it contains marvellous archaeological remains over 1,100 years old, and that its hill resorts form ideal resting places for the jaded European, it is strange that few of the British residents throughout the Far East,... more...

CHAPTER I. Our Plan of Travel Outfitters—​Journey to Marseilles—​Departure—​"The Inevitable"—​Journey Out—​Singapore—​Leave for Kuching—​The Aline—​"Talang-Talang"—​The Sarawak River—​Kuching—​The... more...