Travel Books

CHAPTER I. THE BENEFITS OF COMMERCE HAVE INDUCED SEVERAL PRINCES TO SEEK AN EASIER ROUTE FOR TRAFFIC WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST.—SEVERAL UNSUCCESSFUL VOYAGES.—DETERMINATION OF THE FRENCH FOR THIS PURPOSE.—UNDERTAKING OF SIEUR DE MONTS: HIS COMMISSION AND ITS REVOCATION.—NEW COMMISSION TO SIEUR DE MONTS TO ENABLE HIM TO CONTINUE HIS UNDERTAKING. The inclinations of men differ according to their... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWARD STANLEY THE letters which are collected in this volume were written from abroad during the opening years of the nineteenth century, at three different periods: after the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and 1803, after the Peace of Paris in 1814, and in the year following Waterloo, June, 1816. The writer, Edward Stanley, was for thirty-three years an active country clergyman, and... more...

Letter 1. Astor House, New York, April 1, 1851. Dear Charley:— I have just arrived at this place, and have found my companions on hand, all ready for the commencement of the long-anticipated voyage. We regret the circumstances which render it your duty to remain, and we all feel very sorry for the disappointment of your wishes and our hopes. You will, however, feel happy in the thought that you are... more...

THE VOYAGE WEDNESDAY, June 26, 1754.—On this day the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doted with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school... more...

Oswald, Lord Nelville, Peer of Scotland, quitted Edinburgh for Italy during the winter of 1794-5. He possessed a noble and handsome figure, an abundance of wit, an illustrious name, and an independent fortune, but his health was impaired by deeply-rooted sorrow, and his physicians, fearing that his lungs were attacked, had prescribed him the air of the South. Though indifferent as to the preservation... more...

ARGENTINA FROM A BRITISH POINT OF VIEW. Argentina, which does not profess to be a manufacturing country, exported in 1909 material grown on her own lands to the value of £79,000,000, and imported goods to the extent of £60,000,000. This fact arrests our attention, and forces us to recognise that there is a trade balance of nearly 20 millions sterling in her favour, and to realise the saving power of... more...

Preface Forty years ago John Muir wrote to a friend; "I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer. . . . Civilization and fever, and all the morbidness that has been hooted at me, have not dimmed my glacial eyes, and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness." How gloriously he fulfilled the promise of his early manhood! Fame, all unbidden, wore a path to his door,... more...

WORKSOP AND THE MANOR Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many changes, unfortunate enough from an æsthetic point of view, the Dukeries end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship—a building with projecting upper story and carved... more...

CHAPTER I—OVER THE BORDER At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day.  Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman’s fortress—austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube—historic Belgrade.  I had come, as it... more...

CHAPTER I ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS It is unwise, generally speaking, to write about countries and peoples when they are in a state of political flux, for what is true at the moment of writing may be misleading the next. But the conditions which prevailed in the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year succeeding the signing of the Armistice were so extraordinary, so picturesque, so wholly without... more...