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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1920 The Letters entitled 'FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY' were published originally in The Times ; those entitled 'LETTERS TO THE FAMILY' in The Morning Post ; and those entitled 'EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS' in Nash's Magazine . COPYRIGHT This Edition is intended for circulation only in India and the British Dominions over the Seas
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1920 The Letters entitled 'FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY' were published originally in The Times ; those entitled 'LETTERS TO THE FAMILY' in The Morning Post ; and those entitled 'EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS' in Nash's Magazine . COPYRIGHT This Edition is intended for circulation only in India and the British Dominions over the Seas
FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY (1892)— In Sight of Monadnock Across a Continent The Edge of the East Our Overseas Men Some Earthquakes Half-a-Dozen Pictures 'Captains Courageous' On One Side Only Leaves from a Winter Note-Book LETTERS TO THE FAMILY (1907)— The Road to Quebec A People at Home Cities and Spaces Newspapers and Democracy Labour The Fortunate Towns Mountains and the Pacific A Conclusion EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS (1913)— Sea Travel A Return to the East A Serpent of Old Nile Up the River Dead Ki
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IN SIGHT OF MONADNOCK
IN SIGHT OF MONADNOCK
After the gloom of gray Atlantic weather, our ship came to America in a flood of winter sunshine that made unaccustomed eyelids blink, and the New Yorker, who is nothing if not modest, said, 'This isn't a sample of our really fine days. Wait until such and such times come, or go to such and a such a quarter of the city.' We were content, and more than content, to drift aimlessly up and down the brilliant streets, wondering a little why the finest light should be wasted on the worst pavements in
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ACROSS A CONTINENT
ACROSS A CONTINENT
It is not easy to escape from a big city. An entire continent was waiting to be traversed, and, for that reason, we lingered in New York till the city felt so homelike that it seemed wrong to leave it. And further, the more one studied it, the more grotesquely bad it grew—bad in its paving, bad in its streets, bad in its street-police, and but for the kindness of the tides would be worse than bad in its sanitary arrangements. No one as yet has approached the management of New York in a proper sp
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THE EDGE OF THE EAST
THE EDGE OF THE EAST
The mist was clearing off Yokohama harbour and a hundred junks had their sails hoisted for the morning breeze, so the veiled horizon was stippled with square blurs of silver. An English man-of-war showed blue-white on the haze, so new was the daylight, and all the water lay out as smooth as the inside of an oyster shell. Two children in blue and white, their tanned limbs pink in the fresh air, sculled a marvellous boat of lemon-hued wood, and that was our fairy craft to the shore across the stil
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OUR OVERSEAS MEN
OUR OVERSEAS MEN
All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world—those that stay at home and those that do not. The second are the most interesting. Some day a man will bethink himself and write a book about the breed in a book called 'The Book of the Overseas Club,' for it is at the clubhouses all the way from Aden to Yokohama that the life of the Outside Men is best seen and their talk is best heard. A strong family likeness runs through both buildings and members, and a large and careless
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SOME EARTHQUAKES
SOME EARTHQUAKES
A Radical Member of Parliament at Tokio has just got into trouble with his constituents, and they have sent him a priceless letter of reproof. Among other things they point out that a politician should not be 'a waterweed which wobbles hither and thither according to the motion of the stream.' Nor should he 'like a ghost without legs drift along before the wind.' 'Your conduct,' they say, 'has been both of a waterweed and a ghost, and we purpose in a little time to give you proof of our true Jap
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HALF-A-DOZEN PICTURES
HALF-A-DOZEN PICTURES
'Some men when they grow rich, store pictures in a gallery,' Living, their friends envy them, and after death the genuineness of the collection is disputed under the dispersing hammer. A better way is to spread your picture over all earth; visiting them as Fate allows. Then none can steal or deface, nor any reverse of fortune force a sale; sunshine and tempest warm and ventilate the gallery for nothing, and—in spite of all that has been said of her crudeness—Nature is not altogether a bad frame-
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'CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS'
'CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS'
From Yokohama to Montreal is a long day's journey, and the forepart is uninviting. In three voyages out of five, the North Pacific, too big to lie altogether idle, too idle to get hands about the business of a storm, sulks and smokes like a chimney; the passengers fresh from Japan heat wither in the chill, and a clammy dew distils from the rigging. That gray monotony of sea is not at all homelike, being as yet new and not used to the procession of keels. It holds a very few pictures and the best
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ON ONE SIDE ONLY
ON ONE SIDE ONLY
NEW OXFORD, U.S.A., June-July 1892. 'The truth is,' said the man in the train, 'that we live in a tropical country for three months of the year, only we won't recognise. Look at this.' He handed over a long list of deaths from heat that enlivened the newspapers. All the cities where men live at breaking-strain were sending in their butcher-bills, and the papers of the cities, themselves apostles of the Gospel of Rush, were beseeching their readers to keep cool and not to overwork themselves whil
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(1895)
(1895)
We had walked abreast of the year from the very beginning, and that was when the first blood-root came up between the patches of April snow, while yet the big drift at the bottom of the meadow held fast. In the shadow of the woods and under the blown pine-needles, clots of snow lay till far into May, but neither the season nor the flowers took any note of them, and, before we were well sure Winter had gone, the lackeys of my Lord Baltimore in their new liveries came to tell us that Summer was in
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1908
1908
These letters appeared in newspapers during the spring of 1908, after a trip to Canada undertaken in the autumn of 1907. They are now reprinted without alteration. THE ROAD TO QUEBEC. A PEOPLE AT HOME. CITIES AND SPACES. NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY. LABOUR. THE FORTUNATE TOWNS. MOUNTAINS AND THE PACIFIC. A CONCLUSION....
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(1907)
(1907)
It must be hard for those who do not live there to realise the cross between canker and blight that has settled on England for the last couple of years. The effects of it are felt throughout the Empire, but at headquarters we taste the stuff in the very air, just as one tastes iodoform in the cups and bread-and-butter of a hospital-tea. So far as one can come at things in the present fog, every form of unfitness, general or specialised, born or created, during the last generation has combined in
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A PEOPLE AT HOME
A PEOPLE AT HOME
An up-country proverb says, 'She was bidden to the wedding and set down to grind corn.' The same fate, reversed, overtook me on my little excursion. There is a crafty network of organisations of business men called Canadian Clubs. They catch people who look interesting, assemble their members during the mid-day lunch-hour, and, tying the victim to a steak, bid him discourse on anything that he thinks he knows. The idea might be copied elsewhere, since it takes men out of themselves to listen to
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CITIES AND SPACES
CITIES AND SPACES
What would you do with a magic carpet if one were lent you? I ask because for a month we had a private car of our very own—a trifling affair less than seventy foot long and thirty ton weight. 'You may find her useful,' said the donor casually, 'to knock about the country. Hitch on to any train you choose and stop off where you choose.' So she bore us over the C.P.R. from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back, and when we had no more need of her, vanished like the mango tree after the trick. A pri
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NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY
NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY
Let it be granted that, as the loud-voiced herald hired by the Eolithic tribe to cry the news of the coming day along the caves, preceded the chosen Tribal Bard who sang the more picturesque history of the tribe, so is Journalism senior to Literature, in that Journalism meets the first tribal need after warmth, food, and women. In new countries it shows clear trace of its descent from the Tribal Herald. A tribe thinly occupying large spaces feels lonely. It desires to hear the roll-call of its m
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LABOUR
LABOUR
One cannot leave a thing alone if it is thrust under the nose at every turn. I had not quitted the Quebec steamer three minutes when I was asked point-blank: 'What do you think of the question of Asiatic Exclusion which is Agitating our Community?' The Second Sign-Post on the Great Main Road says: 'If a Community is agitated by a Question—inquire politely after the health of the Agitator,' This I did, without success; and had to temporise all across the Continent till I could find some one to he
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THE FORTUNATE TOWNS
THE FORTUNATE TOWNS
After Politics, let us return to the Prairie which is the High Veldt, plus Hope, Activity, and Reward. Winnipeg is the door to it—a great city in a great plain, comparing herself, innocently enough, to other cities of her acquaintance, but quite unlike any other city. When one meets, in her own house, a woman not seen since girlhood she is all a stranger till some remembered tone or gesture links up to the past, and one cries: 'It is you after all.' But, indeed, the child has gone; the woman wit
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MOUNTAINS AND THE PACIFIC
MOUNTAINS AND THE PACIFIC
The Prairie proper ends at Calgary, among the cattle-ranches, mills, breweries, and three million acre irrigation works. The river that floats timber to the town from the mountains does not slide nor rustle like Prairie rivers, but brawls across bars of blue pebbles, and a greenish tinge in its water hints of the snows. What I saw of Calgary was crowded into one lively half-hour (motors were invented to run about new cities). What I heard I picked up, oddly enough, weeks later, from a young Dane
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A CONCLUSION
A CONCLUSION
Canada possesses two pillars of Strength and Beauty in Quebec and Victoria. The former ranks by herself among those Mother-cities of whom none can say 'This reminds me.' To realise Victoria you must take all that the eye admires most in Bournemouth, Torquay, the Isle of Wight, the Happy Valley at Hong-Kong, the Doon, Sorrento, and Camps Bay; add reminiscences of the Thousand Islands, and arrange the whole round the Bay of Naples, with some Himalayas for the background. Real estate agents recomme
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1913
1913
SEA TRAVEL. A RETURN TO THE EAST. A SERPENT OF OLD NILE. UP THE RIVER. DEAD KINGS. THE FACE OF THE DESERT. THE RIDDLE OF EMPIRE. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments .—EXODUS vii. 22....
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I SEA TRAVEL
I SEA TRAVEL
I had left Europe for no reason except to discover the Sun, and there were rumours that he was to be found in Egypt. But I had not realised what more I should find there. A P. & O. boat carried us out of Marseilles. A serang of lascars, with whistle, chain, shawl, and fluttering blue clothes, was at work on the baggage-hatch. Somebody bungled at the winch. The serang called him a name unlovely in itself but awakening delightful memories in the hearer. 'O Serang, is that man a fool?' 'Ver
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II A RETURN TO THE EAST
II A RETURN TO THE EAST
The East is a much larger slice of the world than Europeans care to admit. Some say it begins at St. Gothard, where the smells of two continents meet and fight all through that terrible restaurant-car dinner in the tunnel. Others have found it at Venice on warm April mornings. But the East is wherever one sees the lateen sail—that shark's fin of a rig which for hundreds of years has dogged all white bathers round the Mediterranean. There is still a suggestion of menace, a hint of piracy, in the
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III A SERPENT OF OLD NILE
III A SERPENT OF OLD NILE
Modern Cairo is an unkempt place. The streets are dirty and ill-constructed, the pavements unswept and often broken, the tramways thrown, rather than laid, down, the gutters neglected. One expects better than this in a city where the tourist spends so much every season. Granted that the tourist is a dog, he comes at least with a bone in his mouth, and a bone that many people pick. He should have a cleaner kennel. The official answer is that the tourist-traffic is a flea-bite compared with the co
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IV UP THE RIVER
IV UP THE RIVER
Once upon a time there was a murderer who got off with a life-sentence. What impressed him most, when he had time to think, was the frank boredom of all who took part in the ritual. 'It was just like going to a doctor or a dentist,' he explained. ' You come to 'em very full of your affairs, and then you discover that it's only part of their daily work to them . I expect,' he added, 'I should have found it the same if—er—I'd gone on to the finish.' He would have. Break into any new Hell or Heaven
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V DEAD KINGS
V DEAD KINGS
The Swiss are the only people who have taken the trouble to master the art of hotel-keeping. Consequently, in the things that really matter—beds, baths, and victuals—they control Egypt; and since every land always throws back to its aboriginal life (which is why the United States delight in telling aged stories), any ancient Egyptian would at once understand and join in with the life that roars through the nickel-plumbed tourist-barracks on the river, where all the world frolics in the sunshine.
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VI THE FACE OF THE DESERT
VI THE FACE OF THE DESERT
Going up the Nile is like running the gauntlet before Eternity. Till one has seen it, one does not realise the amazing thinness of that little damp trickle of life that steals along undefeated through the jaws of established death. A rifle-shot would cover the widest limits of cultivation, a bow-shot would reach the narrower. Once beyond them a man may carry his next drink with him till he reaches Cape Blanco on the west (where he may signal for one from a passing Union Castle boat) or the Karac
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VII THE RIDDLE OF EMPIRE
VII THE RIDDLE OF EMPIRE
At Halfa one feels the first breath of a frontier. Here the Egyptian Government retires into the background, and even the Cook steamer does not draw up in the exact centre of the postcard. At the telegraph-office, too, there are traces, diluted but quite recognisable, of military administration. Nor does the town, in any way or place whatever, smell—which is proof that it is not looked after on popular lines. There is nothing to see in it any more than there is in Hulk C. 60, late of her Majesty
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