Travel Books

PLYMOUTH TO LAND'S END"By Tre, Pol, and Pen,You may know the Cornishmen."The majority of our English counties possess some special feature, some particular attraction which acts as a lodestone for tourists, in the form of a stately cathedral, striking physical beauty, or a wealth of historical or literary associations. There are large districts of rural England that would have remained... more...

Introductory Notice WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of adventurous... more...

CHAPTER XI. EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY TO AMERICA. INTRODUCTION. Although we have already, in the Introduction to the Second Chapter of this Book, Vol. III. p. 346. given some notices of the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot to America in the service of Henry VII. and VIII. it appears proper on the present occasion to insert a full report of every thing that is now known of these early... more...

INTRODUCTION THE MANUSCRIPTS There are here printed two manuscripts by Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, and portions of another. The first[1] is a kind of journal, though it was not written up day by day, containing a narrative of his journey to France and his residence at Orleans and Poictiers, when he was sent abroad by his father at the age of nineteen to study law in foreign schools in... more...

DANGERS ON THE ICE,OFF THE COAST OF LABRADOR T he Moravian Missionaries on the coast of Labrador (a part of North America) for many years suffered much from the severity of the climate, and the savage disposition of the natives. In the year 1782, the brethren, Liebisch and Turner, experienced a remarkable preservation of their lives; the particulars show the dangers the Missionaries underwent in... more...

I. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTURE Books of sporting, travel, and adventure in countries little known to the average reader naturally fall in two classes-neither, with a very few exceptions, of great value. One class is perhaps the logical result of the other. Of the first type is the book that is written to make the most of far travels, to extract from adventure the last thrill, to impress the awestricken... more...

AL-MADINAH contains but few families descended from the Prophet’s Auxiliaries. I heard only of four whose genealogy is undoubted. These were,— 1. The Bayt al-Ansari, or descendants of Abu Ayyub, a most noble race whose tree ramifies through a space of fifteen hundred years. They keep the keys of the Kuba Mosque, and are Imams in the Harim, but the family is no longer wealthy or powerful. 2. The... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY—THE EARLIEST AUSTRALIAN VOYAGERS: THE PORTUGUESE, SPANISH, AND DUTCH. Learned geographers have gone back to very remote times, even to the Middle Ages, and, by the aid of old maps, have set up ingenious theories showing that the Australian continent was then known to explorers. Some evidence has been adduced of a French voyage in which the continent was discovered in the youth... more...

Chapter I We have progressed appreciably beyond the days of the old horseless carriage, which, it will be remembered, retained even the dashboard. To-day the modern automobile somewhat resembles, in its outlines, across between a decapod locomotive and a steam fire-engine, or at least something concerning the artistic appearance of which the layman has very grave doubts. The control of a restive horse,... 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...