Europe Books

Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day's journey from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel to Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony of French plains,—their sluggish streams and never-ending poplar trees—for the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual... more...

The late eminent genealogist, Sir W. Betham of Dublin, Ulster King-at-Arms, well known as the author of numerous works on the Antiquities of Ireland, and Mr. Richard Sainthill, an equally zealous antiquary still living in Cork, were two of the most intimate friends and correspondents of the late Mr. Crofton Croker. The first-named gentleman drew up an elaborate table tracing the Croker pedigree as far... more...

CHAPTER XXXI. THE BURIED CITY OF POMPEII They pronounce it Pom-pay-e. I always had an idea that you went down into Pompeii with torches, by the way of damp, dark stairways, just as you do in silver mines, and traversed gloomy tunnels with lava overhead and something on either hand like dilapidated prisons gouged out of the solid earth, that faintly resembled houses. But you do nothing the kind. Fully... more...

PREFACE. Those who have long known the poetry of Wordsworth will be no strangers to the existence of this Journal of his sister, which is now for the first time published entire.  They will have by heart those few wonderful sentences from it which here and there stand at the head of the Poet’s ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland in 1803.’  Especially they will remember that ‘Extract from the... more...

HOW WE GOT TO JOHN O' GROAT'S Thursday, September 7th. It was one o'clock in the morning when we started on the three-mile walk to Warrington, where we were to join the 2.18 a.m. train for Glasgow, and it was nearly ten o'clock when we reached that town, the train being one hour and twenty minutes late. This delay caused us to be too late for the steamboat by which we intended to... more...

PREFACE Readers who are acquainted with the earlier volumes of this series will not need to be told that they are less guide-books than appreciations of the districts with which they are concerned. In the pages that follow my aim has been to gather a Sussex bouquet rather than to present the facts which the more practical traveller requires. The order of progress through the country has been determined... more...

I A FEW GENERALITIES Stratford-on-Avon stands first on the itinerary of nearly every American who proposes to visit the historic shrines of Old England. Its associations with Britain's immortal bard and with our own gentle Geoffrey Crayon are not unfamiliar to the veriest layman, and no fewer than thirty thousand pilgrims, largely from America, visit the delightful old town each year. And who ever... more...

DEDICATORY LETTER TOM. ARETZ, TAILOR, ETC.27, RUE RICHELIEU, PARIS.SIR,—It becomes every man in his station to acknowledge and praise virtue wheresoever he may find it, and to point it out for the admiration and example of his fellow-men. Some months since, when you presented to the writer of these pages a small account for coats and pantaloons manufactured by you, and when you were met by a... more...

CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE. Limits, dimensions, and population of Roumania—Comparison with England—Configuration of the surface—Altitudes of towns—Mountains—Appearance of the country—The region of the plains—Plants and agricultural condition—The peasantry—Female navvies—Costumes—Wells—Subterranean dwellings—Marsh fever—Travelling, past and present—Zone of the... more...

PREFACE. The Author of the following Observations, made during , will doubtless be allowed to possess but a moderate degree of literary ambition. He has not qualified himself, by foreign travels, to transport his readers above the clouds, on the Andes, the Alps, or the ; to alarm them by descriptions of Earthquakes, or Eruptions; or to astonish them by accounts of tremendous Chasms, Caverns, and... more...