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PREFACE
PREFACE
If ‘Dagonet Abroad’ is found to be mainly a record of personal adventure, my excuse must be that I have always endeavoured to attend to my own business and leave other people’s alone. I have described the cities and peoples of Europe entirely from my own personal observation. In no instance have I described a country without visiting it. I trust that this admission will not in any way injure my reputation as a traveller, or as a journalist. GEO. R. SIMS. London , September 1, 1895 ....
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CHAPTER I. IN BORDEAUX.
CHAPTER I. IN BORDEAUX.
I am in Bordeaux in February, and in a hotel; which hotel I am not quite sure. Over the top of the front door it is called ‘Hôtel de la Paix,’ on the left side of the door it is called ‘Hôtel des Princes,’ on the right side of the door it is called ‘Hôtel de Paris.’ It is three single hotels rolled into one; but its variety of nomenclature is slightly confusing. It is nice to be in so many hotels all at once, but I hope they won’t all send me in a separate bill. The key to the enigma is this: Ma
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CHAPTER II. IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY.
CHAPTER II. IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY.
Bayonne , as all good little girls and boys who take prizes at school for geography and history are aware, is a fortified town commanding the passes of the West Pyrenees, and is a high road to Spain. It was here that the citadel which formed the key to an entrenched camp of Marshal Soult was invested by a portion of the army of the Duke of Wellington in 1814. The whole neighbourhood teems with memories of the halcyon days of the British arms. One comes to many a spot immortalized by a story whic
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CHAPTER III. FROM BIARRITZ TO BURGOS.
CHAPTER III. FROM BIARRITZ TO BURGOS.
Biarritz disappoints one at first, and then grows upon one. It is like a jumble of Ilfracombe, Westgate-on-Sea, the Land’s End, Ostend, and Broadstairs. The sea dashes in gloriously, and makes tremendous breaches in coast and cliff. The hotels are as grand as money can make them, and on the Parade, in all their glory, I came suddenly upon Mary Ann and Susan, two English nursemaids, in the usual hats and feathers, and the usual imitation fur-trimmed jackets, and the usual fingers through the glov
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CHAPTER IV. MADRID—BULL FIGHTS, THEATRES, CAFÉS, AND COCIDO.
CHAPTER IV. MADRID—BULL FIGHTS, THEATRES, CAFÉS, AND COCIDO.
The journey from Burgos to Madrid takes ten hours by the express. There is only one good train a day to anywhere in Spain. When it doesn’t start at eight at night it starts at eight in the morning. This is a dreadful nuisance to people who object equally to travelling all night and to getting up at six in the morning. All trains, except the one express, are fearfully slow. You can take twenty-two hours to do a hundred miles on some of the lines. The Spaniards have a couplet which runs thus:—‘El
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CHAPTER V. SEVILLE.
CHAPTER V. SEVILLE.
I spent a pleasant week in Madrid, and I then went on to Seville. On three days a week there is an express train which does the journey of 350 miles in fifteen hours. This is fortunate, because the ordinary trains take twenty-four, and even this is fast in comparison with the trains on less frequented lines. The express journey was not without its interesting features. We stopped now and again for fifteen minutes or half an hour. When we stopped, everybody got out of the train and went into the
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CHAPTER VI. GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA AND CORDOBA.
CHAPTER VI. GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA AND CORDOBA.
The journey from Seville to Granada is a fearful affair. The distance is only 179 miles, but it takes all day. Directly you come into the province of Granada the train is besieged with beggars. At every station ragged boys leap up on the steps of the carriages and whine for alms. When you arrive at the terminus, beggars by dozens pounce upon you. You get into an omnibus to go to the town (I selected a real Spanish hotel to escape from the English), and you are rattled over stones so huge that th
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CHAPTER VII. COSAS DE ESPAÑA.
CHAPTER VII. COSAS DE ESPAÑA.
From Cordova I came on to San Sebastian, the Brighton of Spain. How people can go to Biarritz while there is a San Sebastian, I cannot imagine. I have never seen such a beautiful watering-place, or one surrounded by such magnificent scenery. And all around is hallowed English ground, for here and at Pasajes are hundreds of graves of English officers and soldiers who fell in the siege. The graves on the hill at San Sebastian are terribly neglected. Many of the stones are overgrown with weeds, and
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CHAPTER VIII. OFF TO AFRICA.
CHAPTER VIII. OFF TO AFRICA.
‘ Africa ’ has not a very taking sound about it. When I told my friends and acquaintances that I was going to Africa, they had visions of lions and snakes, and jungles and swamps, and they insisted on my taking with me an armoury of guns and rifles, and a pharmacy of drugs and antidotes. I am going, however, to keep as much out of the track of the lions as possible; at least, I shall avoid the lions that have to be attacked with firearms, but the lions that you attack with a visiting-card I cert
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CHAPTER IX. ALGIERS.
CHAPTER IX. ALGIERS.
‘ High Street , Africa,’ is a very nice address to give to your creditors or to people who worry you with letters about nothing at all, and require an immediate and categorical answer; but it is not an address which facilitates the reception of the latest news from England. I have been able to leave nothing more definite at home for the guidance of the officials of the International Postal Service. For this reason I am in a state of the most blissful ignorance as to what is happening at home. I
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CHAPTER X. SAINTS AND SINNERS.
CHAPTER X. SAINTS AND SINNERS.
I bring a message from across the seas. I am requested by the venerable Father Antoine, of the monastery of La Trappe, at Staouëli, near Algiers, to make it known that the Trappists of Africa are very anxious to have an English brother among them. The monastery is delightfully situated. Its advantages are that you take a vow of perpetual silence; you only have one meal a day, which never includes meat; you labour healthfully in the fields, and, by way of recreation, you dig your own grave. The E
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CHAPTER XI. MONTE CARLO.
CHAPTER XI. MONTE CARLO.
‘ The Beauty Spot of the Riviera’ is the flattering title which a resident English physician has given to his book upon Monte Carlo. It is getting difficult nowadays to give a new name to a place which has been raved about, reviled, flattered, slandered, discussed, and described ad nauseam . That it is a paradise is a fact as widely advertised as that somebody’s soap is matchless for the complexion, and that somebody else’s mustard is the best. It is a paradise—a fool’s paradise. All that Nature
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CHAPTER XII. GENOA.
CHAPTER XII. GENOA.
From Monte Carlo to Genoa by rail in a hurricane doesn’t sound anything very tremendous, unless you happen to know that the rail runs for almost the entire distance at the extreme foot of the Maritime Alps, on the uttermost verge of the coast; so close, in fact, to the sea, that in many places if you dropped your hat out of the window it would fall into the ocean. To walk along the line would turn many people unaccustomed to exercise upon the tight-rope giddy, for, as well as running along the b
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CHAPTER XIII. FLORENCE.
CHAPTER XIII. FLORENCE.
Some time before I left London, while indulging in the pernicious habit of reading in bed, I was much amused and instructed by the narrative of travel of a distinguished confrère who had set out in search of sunshine. The writer’s name is a household word in England, and in Italy it is also a ‘household word’ in the most literal manner possible, for you find a ‘Sala’ in nearly every house. I don’t remember whether the ‘Prince of Specials’ found all the sunshine he wanted, but if he did not he ha
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CHAPTER XIV. ROME.
CHAPTER XIV. ROME.
I came , I saw, and I—was conquered. For once I prefer the old to the new, and Rome has exorcised the evil spirit that has taken up its residence within me. I came into Rome from Florence on a day that would have passed without attracting attention in Camden Town, Nunhead, or even the Seven Dials. The rain was pouring in torrents, the streets were rivers, and in the filthy byways, much affected by coachmen as short-cuts, the stucco was peeling from tumble-down tenements, and all was dirt and dar
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CHAPTER XV. NAPLES.
CHAPTER XV. NAPLES.
Naples ! What marvellous scenes that one word conjures up! Everybody knows Naples. Those who have not seen it have read about it, and its thousand marvels are familiar as household words. Vesuvius is known to every street arab who sells matches in the street. The story of Pompeii is as the story of Noah’s Ark. And Naples itself! Are not Neapolitan ices sold from barrows at a halfpenny each wherever the English language is spoken—from Hampstead Heath to Donnybrook Fair? The Neapolitan fisherman,
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CHAPTER XVI. VENICE.
CHAPTER XVI. VENICE.
It was an awful journey from Naples to Venice. I had another half-hour in Rome en route . ‘Half an hour in Rome'—doesn’t it sound terrible? Fancy being in Rome and going no further than the refreshment-room in the railway-station! And at Bologna I was nearly frozen to death. The snow lay thick everywhere, and the mountain passes looked like seas of ice. When I arrived in Venice there was a dull November fog lying over the city, and my heart went down into my boots. But I recovered myself suffici
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CHAPTER XVII. MILAN.
CHAPTER XVII. MILAN.
I am going to see a gentleman cremated at the famous monumental cemetery of Milan. I am specially invited to be present at nine o’clock in the morning, and if my courage does not ooze out of my fingers’ ends, I shall certainly go in the interest of my readers who may wish to be cremated, and who would like to know beforehand what they have to go through and what it is like. To the ‘crematorio’ of Milan people are brought from all parts of the world. The room in which the furnace is situated is a
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CHAPTER XVIII. A REVOLUTION IN TICINO.
CHAPTER XVIII. A REVOLUTION IN TICINO.
All things come to those who wait. I have waited nearly a fortnight in Ticino for a revolution, and I have seen it at last. I have seen the soldiers charge the mob, and I have seen the mob stone the soldiers. I have seen the soldiers retire with cracked skulls, and I have seen the citizens flying to the chemists and the doctors to have their bayonet wounds dressed. I have seen a town suddenly seized with panic, the streets cleared, the shops shut, and the cafés barred and bolted. And it all happ
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CHAPTER XIX. LOCARNO.
CHAPTER XIX. LOCARNO.
From Bellinzona a local train conveys the traveller to Locarno, which is a small town at the extreme head of Lake Maggiore. I had heard a wonderful account of Locarno, and had been assured that in its perfect peace and pure air the malady from which I was suffering would rapidly disappear. I arrived at Locarno full of hope. I also arrived in a heavy storm of rain. I looked around me, and I saw nothing but water and mist and mud. The mountains were wrapped in black cloaks of cloud. The walls of t
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CHAPTER XX. BERLIN EN PASSANT.
CHAPTER XX. BERLIN EN PASSANT.
Snow ! Last night the moon shone with a steel-blue light in the cloudless heavens, and the sentinel stars stood out clear and bright, as on a frosty winter’s evening. Never had I seen Berlin look more beautiful. Long after the good citizens had retired to their homes, I lingered under the lime-trees and gave myself up to the enchantment of the scene. It was five-and-twenty years almost to the day since I had set foot within the Prussian capital, and old memories crowded about me as I was lost in
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CHAPTER XXI. PRAGUE.
CHAPTER XXI. PRAGUE.
When a man wakes up in the morning and can’t quite make out where he is, and the first thing that catches his eyes as they wander inquiringly round an unfamiliar bedroom is an electric bell, and underneath it these words: he may fairly be excused if he feels like a stranger in a strange land. It will probably dawn upon him that somewhere amid these printed specimens of an unknown tongue there is lurking a request that if he wants the waiter he will ring once; that if he requires the chambermaid
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CHAPTER XXII. VIENNA.
CHAPTER XXII. VIENNA.
Under a domed roof, a green garden with flower-beds and gravel paths. In the centre a fountain. The outer circle built as a series of stages, each with a set scene—one a scene from a Russian play, another a scene from a German opera, another a scene from a Hungarian comedy, and so forth, until about a dozen set scenes have been set out. Around, in outer rings, with rooms branching off, various galleries containing old musical instruments, cases of theatrical costumes, portraits of actors and act
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CHAPTER XXIII. BUDAPEST.
CHAPTER XXIII. BUDAPEST.
After my nocturnal adventure in Prague, I made up my mind that if I wanted to do Austria thoroughly in a fortnight it was absolutely necessary I should have someone familiar with the tongues of Bohemia and Hungary, to say nothing of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro. I met Herr Julius, cosmopolitan courier, promiscuously at a café in Vienna. We fell into conversation, and I secured him then and there to accompany me upon my Hungarian explorations. Herr Julius not only speaks German, French, En
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CHAPTER XXIV. A MAD KING’S PALACE.
CHAPTER XXIV. A MAD KING’S PALACE.
Not being able to drink beer and eat turnip radishes, and the theatres all being closed, I went off to the mountains and made for Herrenchiemsee, the lovely lake on which the wide world’s wonder, King Ludwig’s gorgeous palace, is situated. Weird and woful is the tale of Bavaria’s mad monarch, Ludwig II. He was cursed with that form of insanity which is called ‘la folie des grandeurs.’ He rode about in carriages of eye-dazzling magnificence, the panels of which were hand-painted by great artists
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CHAPTER XXV. HOLLAND.
CHAPTER XXV. HOLLAND.
I cannot swim. It is a humiliating confession to make at the best of times, but the admission at the present moment is an absolutely painful one. I am staying in a place where I am in hourly fear of falling into the water. My present address is Amsterdam, and no one but a native can walk about Amsterdam without an uneasy feeling that sooner or later he will find himself in a canal. There is a canal in front of my door, my bedroom window at the back of the house opens on to a canal, and there is
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CHAPTER XXVI. ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS.
CHAPTER XXVI. ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS.
London was hot, and London was noisy. Everybody was leaving London, but the more the people poured out of it the noisier it seemed to get. Moreover, it was dull. So I said to myself, said I, ‘I’ll get out of it.’ Thus said I to myself, said I, and off I went; and on a hot Saturday afternoon I got into a train at Liverpool Street, and went down to the sea with three Dutchmen and two Belgians; and when for two mortal hours we had been baked and boiled and fried in a compartment that must have been
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