Travel Books

PART I The name Chelsea, according to Faulkner and Lysons, only began to be used in the early part of the eighteenth century. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the place was known as Chelsey, and before that time as Chelceth or Chelchith. The very earliest record is in a charter of King Edward the Confessor, where it is spelt Cealchyth. In Doomsday Book it is noted as Cercehede and... more...

CHAPTER I.CTCE. H, 505; H, 484; P, 340; N, 326;E, 146; C, 100; S, 50.Hanno, the Carthaginian—Herodotus visits Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Babylon, Persia, India, Media, Colchis, the Caspian Sea, Scythia, Thrace, and Greece—Pytheas explores the coasts of Iberia and Gaul, the English Channel, the Isle of Albion, the Orkney Islands, and the land of Thule—Nearchus visits the Asiatic... more...

THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. If it is only by an effort that we appreciate the valour of Columbus in the XV century, his secret doubts, his temerity, how much fainter is our conception of the heroism of the early Mediterranean navigators. Steam has destroyed for us the awful majesty of distance, and we can never realise the immensity of this “great Sea” to the ancients. To Virgil the adventures of the... more...

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N the following accounts of the Cathedral Cities of England, technical architectural terms will necessarily appear, and to the end that they should be comprehensive, I give here a slight sketch of the origin of the various forms, and the reasons for their naming, together with dates; and to the end that I may supply a glossary of easy reference, I place as side headings in this introduction the various... more...

MADRID AL FRESCO Madrid is a capital with malice aforethought. Usually the seat of government is established in some important town from the force of circumstances. Some cities have an attraction too powerful for the court to resist. There is no capital of England possible but London. Paris is the heart of France. Rome is the predestined capital of Italy in spite of the wandering flirtations its... more...

PREFACE It is probable that every book contains, besides misprints, some statements which the author would be glad to modify if he could.  In Chapter V of Diversions in Sicily it is stated that the seating arrangements of the marionette theatre in Catania would be condemned by the County Council, which I believe to be correct, but, on visiting the theatre since, I find I was wrong in saying that there... more...

Of the group of notables who in the middle of the last century made the little Massachusetts town of Concord their home, and who thus conferred on it a literary fame both unique and enduring, Thoreau is the only one who was Concord born. His neighbor, Emerson, had sought the place in mature life for rural retirement, and after it became his chosen retreat, Hawthorne, Alcott, and the others followed;... more...

My Dearest Mother, I suppose we are both addressing our letters to you, which might at first appear an unequal distribution of our favours, but as I know they will be read aloud to the assembled breakfast table, it is a small matter who opens the envelope. To begin with, I should explain that I am writing in the saloon of the S.S. "Montreal," Sunday evening, August 30th (I believe), and it is... more...

The following pages have been written at the request of many old friends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British rule over the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America. In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, in search of health. In 1861 I went there on an anxious mission of business; and for some years afterwards I frequently crossed the... more...