Travel Books

PREFACE Nearly a century ago, James Boswell made an expedition to Corsica, and was entertained with distinction by Pascal Paoli. Next to conducting Samuel Johnson to the Hebrides, the exploit of penetrating to what was then considered a sort of Ultima Thule in southern Europe, was the greatest event in the famous biographer's life; and, next to his devotion to the English sage, was the homage he... more...

CHAPTER I.   I was born September 17th, 1838, in the town of Penryn, County of Cornwall, England, and was educated at the national and private schools. When my education was sufficiently advanced, I was apprenticed to learn the trade of carpenter and joiner. My father was a paper-maker, and lived all his lifetime in the town. He was a strict teetotaler, and brought up his family, four boys and one... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Yonder lies our ... village—Art and Grace are less and less: Science grows and Beauty dwindles—roofs of slated hideousness! —LOCKSLEY HALL, SIXTY YEARS AFTER Those who love with a deep reverence the work of their forefathers, whether because of the character and beauty of their handiwork, or from the historical associations which are indissolubly connected with it, cannot... more...

FOREWORD That vast stretch of opal islands; jade continents; sapphire seas of strange sunsets; mysterious masses of brown-skinned humanity; brown-eyed, full-breasted, full-lipped and full-hipped women; which we call the Orient, can only be caught by the photographer's art in flash-light pictures. It is like a photograph taken in the night. It cannot be clear cut. It cannot have clean outlines. It... more...

INTRODUCTION. The evening before leaving for one of my periodical excursions, I was putting in order my guns, my insect-cases, and all my travelling necessaries, when my eldest son, a lad nine years old, came running to me in that wheedling manner—using that irresistible diplomacy of childhood which imposes on fathers and mothers so many troublesome treaties, and which children so well know how to... more...

You probably know that it was a Queen of Spain, Isabella, who made it possible for America to be discovered in 1492. It was an Italian sailor, Christopher Columbus, who first had the strange new idea that he could sail westward from Spain in order to reach the Far East. He came to Spain to tell people about his idea, and everybody he met thought he was crazy because they knew, or thought they knew,... more...

Chapter I — A Great Transaction in Land The people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract of land known as the country of Louisiana. The details of this purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of the United States) by Robert R. Livingston and James... more...

THE VOYAGE OUT. Paris in 1860.––Notre Dame.––Our Hotel.––Nero and the Groom.––The Steamer for Algeria.––Gallic Peculiarities.––Life on Board. In medias res. I will not stop to describe my journey to Paris, viâ Folkestone, nor to chronicle the glasses of pale ale––valedictory libations to perfide Albion, quaffed at the Pavilion––nor to portray the sea-sickness of... 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. Arrival of Jung Bahadoor in Ceylon—Voyage to Calcutta—Rifle practice on board the Atalanta—Rifle-shooting—Colonel Dhere Shum Shere—A journey along the Grand Trunk Road of Bengal—The experimental railway—The explosion at Benares. Towards the close of the year 1850 a considerable sensation was created in the usually quiet town of Colombo by the arrival in Ceylon of His Excellency... more...