Travel Books

I THE COASTERS No matter how often one sets out, "for to admire, and for to see, for to behold this world so wide," he never quite gets over being surprised at the erratic manner in which "civilization" distributes itself; at the way it ignores one spot upon the earth's surface, and upon another, several thousand miles away, heaps its blessings and its tyrannies. Having settled in... more...

PREFACE. Averse to writing, as well as to reading, diffuse Prolegomena, the author finds himself compelled to relate, at some length, the circumstances which led to the subject of these pages. In May 1849, the late Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, formerly Superintendent of the Indian Navy, in conjunction with Mr. William John Hamilton, then President of the Royal Geographical Society of Great... more...

Introduction—A.D. 1486. Columbus before the conclave of Professors at Seville—His parentage and early history—Battle with Venetian galleys—Residence in Portugal—Marries widow of a navigator—Grounds on which he founded his theory—Offers his services to the King of Portugal—His offer declined—Sends his brother Bartholomew to Henry the Seventh of England—Don John sends out a squadron... more...

FOREWORD It is a curious thing, when you stop to think about it, that, though of late the public has been deluged with books on the South Seas, though the shelves of the public libraries sag beneath the volumes devoted to China, Japan, Korea, next to nothing has been written, save by a handful of scientifically-minded explorers, about those far-flung, gorgeous lands, stretching from the southern... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND TERRITORIES. That part of British North America known by the name of the Hudson's Bay territory extends from the eastern coast in about 60° W. long. to the Russian boundary in 142° W.; and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, along the Ottawa River and the northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, and thence to the boundary line of the United States;... more...

PROLOGUE. I. This book is a record of things seen, and of conversations had, during a series of visits to Ireland between January and June 1888. These visits were made in quest of light, not so much upon the proceedings and the purposes of the Irish “Nationalists,”—with which, on both sides of the Atlantic, I have been tolerably familiar for many years past—as upon the social and economical... 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...

The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest, lightest hearted, most pleasure loving city of the western continent, and in many ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of refugees living among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will; but those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate, have caught its flavor of the Arabian Nights, feel that it can never be the same. It is as though a... more...

Introduction In an issue of the London World in April, 1890, there appeared the following paragraph: "Two small rooms connected by a tiny hall afford sufficient space to contain Mr. Rudyard Kipling, the literary hero of the present hour, 'the man who came from nowhere,' as he says himself, and who a year ago was consciously nothing in the literary world." Six months previous to this... more...

INTRODUCTION. The sentiment of Antiquity—that "The life of no man is pleasing to the gods which is not useful to his fellows,"—has been my guiding principle of action during the last twelve years of my life. To live for my own simple and sole gratification, to have no other object in view but my own personal profit and renown, would be to me an intolerable existence. To be useful, or to... more...