Travel Books

BADDECK AND THAT SORT OF THING I "Ay, now I am in Arden: the more fool I; when I was at home,I was in a better place; but travellers must be content."—TOUCHSTONE. Two comrades and travelers, who sought a better country than the United States in the month of August, found themselves one evening in apparent possession of the ancient town of Boston. The shops were closed at early candle-light;... more...

CHAPTER I A “Sleeping Beauty” land—The coming of the English—Early explorations—The resourceful Australian. The fairy-story of the Sleeping Beauty might have been thought out by someone having Australia in his mind. She was the Sleeping Beauty among the lands of the earth—a great continent, delicately beautiful in her natural features, wonderfully rich in wealth of soil and of mine, left... more...

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I. HOW I KILLED A BEAR So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer that in justice to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused. The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was... more...

Foreword Enthroned on hills, San Francisco captivates the stranger who sees it from the Bay by the vivacity of its landscape long before revealing any of its intimate lures. Whether you approach in the early morning, when gulls arc wheeling above the palette of tones of the Bay, or at night, when illuminated ferryboats glide by like the yellow-bannered halls of fable, the buoyancy of San Francisco is... more...

Chapter One. April 3, 1835. Reader, did you ever feel in that peculiarly distressing state of mind in which one oppressing idea displaces or colours every other, absorbing, intermingling with, empoisoning, and, like the filth of the harpy, turning every thing into disgust—when a certain incubus rides upon the brain, as the Old Man of the Mountain did upon the shoulders of Sinbad, burdening,... more...

AS WE ARE AND AS WE MAY BE THE ENDOWMENT OF THE DAUGHTER. Those who begin to consider the subject of the working woman discover presently that there is a vast field of inquiry lying quite within their reach, without any trouble of going into slums or inquiring of sweaters. This is the field occupied by the gentlewoman who works for a livelihood. She is not always, perhaps, gentle in quite the old... more...

In a certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the present to the future, and impart to it the significance of what may soon be a "portion and parcel" of our... more...

Introduction—The African Association—Ledyard—Lucas—First information respecting the Niger, or Quorra, and the Gambia—Timbuctoo heard of—Thompson and Jobson’s voyage up the Gambia—Major Haughton’s expedition and death. When the fathers of the present generation were young men, and George the Third ruled the land, they imagined that the whole interior of Africa was one howling... more...

INTRODUCTION. In days of hurried action I have been astonished at the depth of interest which a re-perusal of this wonderful old narrative has held for me. Wonderful it is in its simplicity and its revelation of the simplicity of character and faith of the man who wrote it. It is old only by comparison—scarcely ninety years have elapsed since the adventures it described were enacted—yet such a... more...