42 chapters
29 hour read
Selected Chapters
42 chapters
FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO TEHERAN. CHAPTER I. OVER THE SIERRAS NEVADAS.
FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO TEHERAN. CHAPTER I. OVER THE SIERRAS NEVADAS.
The beauties of nature are scattered with a more lavish hand across the country lying between the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the shores where the surf romps and rolls over the auriferous sands of the Pacific, in Golden Gate Park, than in a journey of the same length in any other part of the world. Such, at least, is the verdict of many whose fortune it has been to traverse that favored stretch of country. Nothing but the limited power of man's eyes prevents him from standing on th
33 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
The season of 1885-86 has been an exceptionally mild winter in the Persian capital. Up to Christmas the weather was clear and bracing, sufficiently cool to be comfortable in the daytime, and with crisp, frosty weather at night. The first snow of the season commenced falling while a portion of the English colony were enjoying a characteristic Christmas dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, at the house of the superintendent of the Indo-European Telegraph Station, and during January and February,
31 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II. OVER THE DESERTS OF NEVADA.
CHAPTER II. OVER THE DESERTS OF NEVADA.
Gradually I leave the pine-clad slopes of the Sierras behind, and every revolution of my wheel reveals scenes that constantly remind me that I am in the great "Sage-brush State." How appropriate indeed is the name. Sage-brush is the first thing seen on entering Nevada, almost the only vegetation seen while passing through it, and the last thing seen on leaving it. Clear down to the edge of the rippling waters of the Truckee, on the otherwise barren plain, covering the elevated table-lands, up th
41 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
It rains quite heavily during the night, but clears off again in the early morning, and at eight o'clock I take my departure, Mirza Hassan refusing to allow his son and heir to accept a present in acknowledgment of the hospitality received at his hands. The whole male population of the village is assembled again at the spot where their experience of yesterday has taught them I should probably mount; and the house-tops overlooking the same spot, and commanding a view of the road across the plain
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
A mile or so through the cultivated fields brings me to the village just in time to be greeted by the shouts and hand-clapping of a wedding procession that is returning from conducting the bride to the bath. Men and boys are beating rude, home-made tambourines, and women are dancing along before the bride, clicking castanets, while a crowd of at least two hundred villagers, arrayed in whatever finery they can muster for the occasion, are following behind, clapping their hands in measured chorus.
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III. THROUGH MORMON-LAND AND OVER THE ROCKIES.
CHAPTER III. THROUGH MORMON-LAND AND OVER THE ROCKIES.
A dreary-looking country is the " Great American Desert," in Utah, the northern boundary line of which I traverse next morning. To the left of the road is a low chain of barren hills; to the right, the uninviting plain, over which one's eye wanders in vain for some green object that might raise hopes of a less desolate region beyond; and over all hangs an oppressive silence - the silence of a dead country - a country destitute of both animal and vegetable life. Over the great desert hangs a smok
41 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV. FROM THE GREAT PLAINS TO THE ATLANTIC.
CHAPTER IV. FROM THE GREAT PLAINS TO THE ATLANTIC.
Through the courtesy of the commanding officer at Fort Sidney I am enabled to resume my journey eastward under the grateful shade of a military summer helmet in lieu of the semi-sombrero slouch that has lasted me through from San Francisco. Certainly it is not without feelings of compunction that one discards an old friend, that has gallantly stood by me through thick and thin throughout the eventful journey across the inter-mountain country; but the white helmet gives such a delightfully imposi
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
Shahrood is at the exit from the mountains of the caravan route from Asterabad, Mazanderan, and the Caspian coast. The mountains overlooking it are bare and rocky. A good trade seems to be done by several firms of Russian-Armenians in exporting wool, cotton, and pelts to Russia, and handling Russian iron and petroleum. But for the iniquitous method of taxation, which consists really of looting the producing classes of all they can stand, the volume of trade here might easily be tenfold what it i
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V. FROM AMERICA TO THE GERMAN FRONTIER.
CHAPTER V. FROM AMERICA TO THE GERMAN FRONTIER.
At one P.M., on that day, the ponderous but shapely hull of the City of Chicago, with its living and lively freight, moves from the dock as though it, too, were endowed with mind as well with matter; the crowds that a minute ago disappeared down the gangplank are now congregated on the outer end of the pier, a compact mass of waving handkerchiefs, and anxious-faced people shouting out signs of recognition to friends aboard the departing steamer. >From beginning to end of the voyage across
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Warning spits of snow accompany my early morning departure from the wayside caravanserai, and it quickly develops into a blinding snow-storm that effectually obscures the country around, although melting as it touches the ground. A mile from the caravanserai the trails fork, and, taking the wrong one, I wander some miles up the mountains ere discovering my mistake. Retracing my way, the right road is finally taken; but the gale increases in violence, the cold is numbing to unprotected hands and
39 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI. GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND HUNGARY.
CHAPTER VI. GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND HUNGARY.
Notwithstanding Alsace was French territory only fourteen years ago (1871) there is a noticeable difference in the inhabitants, to me the most acceptable being their great linguistic superiority over the people on the French side of the border. I linger in Saarburg only about thirty minutes, yet am addressed twice by natives in my own tongue; and at Pfalzburg, a smaller town, where I remain over night, I find the same characteristic. Ere I penetrate thirty kilometres into German territory, howev
54 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
During the afternoon I traverse a rocky canon, crossing and recrossing a clear, cold stream that winds its serpentine course from one precipitous wall to another. Mountain trout are observed disporting in this stream, and big, gray lizards scuttle nimbly about among the loose rocks on the bank. The canon gradually dwindles into a less confined passage between sloping hills of loose rock and bowlders, a wild, desolate region through which the road leads gradually upward to a pass. Taken all in al
42 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THROUGH SLAVONIA AND SERVIA.
THROUGH SLAVONIA AND SERVIA.
The editor of Der Drau, the semi-weekly official organ of the Slavonian capital, and Mr. Freund, being the two citizens of Eszek capable of speaking English, join voices at the supper-table in hoping it will rain enough to compel us to remain over to-morrow, that they may have the pleasure of showing us around Eszek and of inviting us to dinner and supper; and Igali, I am constrained to believe, retires to his couch in full sympathy with them, being possessed of a decided weakness for stopping o
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
Thirty miles over hill and dale, after leaving the little hamlet, and behold, the city of Beerjand appears before me but a mile or thereabouts away, at the foot of the hills I am descending. One's first impression of Beerjand is a sense of disappointment; the city is a jumbled mass of uninteresting mud buildings, ruined and otherwise, all of the same dismal mud-brown hue. Not a tree exists to relieve the eye, nor a solitary green object to break the dreary monotony of the prospect; the impressio
40 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
For some hours we are traversing a singularly wild-looking country; it seems as though the odds and ends of all creation were tossed indiscriminately together. Rocky cliffs, sloping hills, riverbeds, dry save from last night's thunder-storm, bits of sandy desert, strips of alkaline flat or hard gravel, have been gathered up from various parts of the earth and tossed carelessly in a heap here. It is an odd corner in which the chips, the sweepings and trimmings, gathered up after the terrestrial g
35 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY.
BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY.
The road leading into Bulgaria from the Zaribrod custom-house is fairly good for several kilometres, when mountainous and rough ways are encountered; it is a country of goats and goat-herds. A rain-storm is hovering threateningly over the mountains immediately ahead, but it does not reach the vicinity I am traversing: it passes to the southward, and makes the roads for a number of miles wellnigh impassable. Up in the mountains I meet more than one " Bulgarian national express " - pony pack- trai
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
A few miles across a stretch of gravelly river-bottom, interspersed with scattering patches of cultivation, brings us to a hamlet of some twenty mud dwellings. The houses are small, circular structures, unattached, and each one removed some dozen paces from its neighbor; they are built of mud with the roof flat, as in Asia Minor. The sun is setting as we reach this little Harood hamlet, and, as Ghalakua is some three farsakhs distant, we decide to remain here for the night. We pitch our camp on
26 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THROUGH EUROPEAN TURKEY.
THROUGH EUROPEAN TURKEY.
ON Monday morning I am again awakened by the muezzin calling the Mussulmans to their early morning devotions, and, arising from my mat at five o'clock, I mount and speed away southward from Eski Baba, Not less than a hundred people have collected to see the wonderful performance again. All pretence of road-making seems to have been abandoned; or, what is more probable, has never been seriously attempted, the visible roadways from village to village being mere ox-wagon and pack-donkey tracks, cro
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE START THROUGH ASIA.
THE START THROUGH ASIA.
In addition to a cycler's ordinary outfit and the before-mentioned small wedge tent I provide myself with a few extra spokes, a cake of tire cement, and an extra tire for the rear wheel. This latter, together with twenty yards of small, stout rope, I wrap snugly around the front axle; the tent and spare underclothing, a box of revolver cartridges, and a small bottle of sewing-machine oil are consigned to a luggage-carrier behind; while my writing materials, a few medicines and small sundries fin
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
Perhaps no stranger occurrence in the field of personal adventure in Central Asia has happened for many a year than my entrance into Furrah on a bicycle. Only those who know Afghanistan and the Afghans can fully realize the ticklish character of this little piece of adventure. My soldier-escort are fine-looking fellows, wearing the well-known red jackets of the British Army, evidently the uniform of some sepoy regiment. Forming around me, they conduct me through the gate of an inner enclosure ne
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
Our party camps near a village not far from the river, but it takes us till after dark to reach the place, owing to ditches and overflow. A few miles of winding trails and intricate paths through the reedy river-bottom next morning, and we emerge upon a flinty upland plain. At first a horseman is required to ride immediately ahead of the bicycle, my untutored escort being evidently suspicious lest I might suddenly forge ahead, and with the swiftness of a bird disappear from their midst. As this
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ON THROUGH ASIA.
ON THROUGH ASIA.
Early dawn on Tuesday morning finds me already astir and groping about the hotel in search of some of the slumbering employees to let me out. Pocketing a cold lunch in lieu of eating breakfast, I mount and wheel down the long street leading out of the eastern end of town. On the way out I pass a party of caravan-teamsters who have just arrived with a cargo of mohair from Angora; their pack-mules are fairly festooned with strings of bells of all sizes, from a tiny sleigh-bell to a solemn-voiced s
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII. TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA.
CHAPTER XII. TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA.
The Governor of Herat sends "khylie salaams" and permission for me to ride the bicycle, stipulating that I keep near the escort. So, with many an injunction to me about dasht-adam, kooh, dagh, etc., by way of warning me against venturing too far ahead, we bid farewell to the garden, with its strange associations, in the early morning. Beside Mohammed Ahzim Khan and myself are three sowars, mounted on splendid horses. The morning is bright and cheerful, and shortly after starting the animal spiri
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THROUGH THE ANGORA GOAT COUNTRY.
THROUGH THE ANGORA GOAT COUNTRY.
The other members of the caravan company, while equally anxious to see the performance, and no doubt thinking me quite an unreasonable person, disapprove of the young man's proposition; and the Man-jee severely reprimands him for talking about resorting to force, and turning to the others, he lays his forefingers together and says something about Franks, Mussulmans, Turks, and Ingilis; meaning that even if we are Franks and Mussulmans, we are not prevented from being at the same time allies and
49 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
Baku looks the inartistic, business-like place it is, occupying the base of brown, verdureless hills. Scarcely a green thing is visible to relieve the dull, drab aspect roundabout, and only the scant vegetation of a few gardens relieves the city a trifle itself. To the left of the city the slopes of one hill are dotted with neatly kept Christian cemeteries, and the slopes of another display the disorderly multitude of tombstones characteristic of the graveyards of Islam. On the right are seen nu
55 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
BEY BAZAAR, ANGORA, AND EASTWARD.
BEY BAZAAR, ANGORA, AND EASTWARD.
A Trundle of half an hour up the steep slopes leading out of another of those narrow valleys in which all these towns are situated, and then comes a gentle declivity extending with but little interruption for several miles, winding in and out among the inequalities of an elevated table-land. The mountain-breezes blow cool and exhilarating, and just before descending into the little Charkhan Valley I pass some interesting cliffs of castellated rocks, the sight of which immediately wafts my memory
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
The heat is intense, being at the end of the heated term at the commencement of the earliest monsoons. It is certainly not less than 130 deg. Fahr., in the sun, when at 3 p.m. I mount and shape my course toward Amritza, some thirty-five miles down the Grand Trunk Road. In such a temperature and beneath such a sun it behooves the discreet Caucasian to dress as carefully for protection against the heat as he would against the frost of an Arctic winter. The United States army helmet which I have co
45 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ACROSS THE KIZIL IRMAK RIVER TO YUZGAT.
ACROSS THE KIZIL IRMAK RIVER TO YUZGAT.
The country continues much the same as yesterday, with the road indifferent for wheeling. Reaching the expected village about eight o'clock, I breakfast off ekmek and new buffalo milk, and at once continue on my way, meeting nothing particularly interesting, save a lively bout occasionally with goat-herds' dogs - the reminiscences of which are doubtless more vividly interesting to myself than they would be to the reader - until high noon, when I arrive at another village, larger, but equally wre
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
From the police-thana of Rai, where the night is spent, to Delhi, the character of the road changes to a mixture of clay and rock, altogether inferior to kunkah. The twenty-one miles are covered, however, by 8.30 a.m., that hour finding me wheeling down the broad suburban road to the Lahore Gate amid throngs of country people carrying baskets of mangoes, plantains, pomegranates, and other indigenous products into the markets of the old Mogul capital. Massive archways, ruined forts and serais, pl
40 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
FROM THE KOORDISH CAMP TO YUZGAT.
FROM THE KOORDISH CAMP TO YUZGAT.
>From the Koordish encampment my route leads over a low mountain spur by easy gradients, and by a winding, unridable trail down into the valley of the eastern fork of the Delijah Irmak. The road improves as this valley is reached, and noon finds me the wonder and admiration of another Koordish camp, where I remain a couple of hours in deference to the powers of the midday sun. One has no scruples about partaking of the hospitality of the nomad Koords, for they are the wealthiest people in
29 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
A couple of miles from the cantonment, and the broad Jumna is crossed on a pontoon bridge, the buoys of which are tubular iron floats instead of boats. Crocodiles are observed floating, motionless as logs, their heads turned up-stream and their snouts protruding from the water. The road is undulating for a few miles and then perfectly level, as, indeed, it has been most of the way from Lahore. Pilgrims carrying little red flags, and sometimes bits of red paper tied to sticks, are encountered by
57 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THROUGH THE SIVAS VILAYET INTO ARMENIA.
THROUGH THE SIVAS VILAYET INTO ARMENIA.
It is six hours distant from Yuzgat to the large village of Koelme, as distance is measured here, or about twenty-three English miles; but the road is mostly ridable, and I roll into the village in about three hours and a half. Just beyond Koehne, the roads fork, and the mudir kindly sends a mounted zaptieh to guide me aright, for fear I shouldn't quite understand by his pantomimic explanations. I understand well enough, though, and the road just here happening to be excellent wheeling, to the d
49 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
Daily rains characterize our voyage from Singapore through the China Sea—rather unseasonable weather, the captain says; and for the second time in his long experience as a navigator of the China Sea, St. Elmo's lights impart a weird appearance to the spars and masts of his vessel. The rain changes into misty weather as we approach the Ladrone Islands, and, emerging completely from the wide track of the typhoon's moisture-laden winds on the following morning, we learn later, upon landing at Hong-
58 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THROUGH ERZINGAN AND ERZEROUM.
THROUGH ERZINGAN AND ERZEROUM.
For mile after mile, on the following morning, my route leads through broad areas strewn with bowlders and masses of rock that appear to have been brought down from the adjacent mountains by the annual spring floods, caused by the melting winter's snows; scattering wheat-fields are observed here and there on the higher patches of ground, which look like small yellow oases amid the desert-like area of loose rocks surrounding them. Squads of diminutive donkeys are seen picking their weary way thro
49 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
MOUNT ARARAT AND KOORDISTAN.
MOUNT ARARAT AND KOORDISTAN.
The shades of evening are beginning to settle down over the wild mountainous country round about. It is growing uncomfortably chilly for this early in the evening, and the prospects look favorable for a supperless and most disagreeable night, when I descry a village perched in an opening among the mountains a mile or thereabouts off to the right. Repairing thither, I find it to be a Koordish village, where the hovels are more excavations than buildings; buffaloes, horses, goats, chickens, and hu
50 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The country is still nothing but river and mountains, and a sampan is engaged to float me down the Kan-kiang as far as Kan-tchou-foo, from whence I hope to be able to resume my journey a-wheel. The water is very low in the upper reaches of the river, and the sampan has to be abandoned a few miles from where it started. I then get two of the boatmen to carry the wheel, intending to employ them as far as Kan-tchou-foo. From the stories current at Canton, the reputation of Kan-tchou-foo is rather c
51 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
An uneventful run of two days, and the Yokohama Maru steams into the beautiful harbor of Nagasaki. The change from the filth of a Chinese city to Nagasaki, clean as if it had all just been newly scoured and varnished, is something delightful. One gets a favorable impression of the Japs right away; much more so, doubtless, by coming direct from China than in any other way. Two days of preparation and looking about leaves almost a pang of regret at having to depart so soon. The American consul her
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PERSIA AND THE TABREEZ CARAVAN TRAIL.
PERSIA AND THE TABREEZ CARAVAN TRAIL.
A SHORT trundle to the summit of a sloping pass, and then a winding descent of several miles brings me to a position commanding a view of an extensive valley that looks from this distance as lovely as a dreamy vision of Paradise. An hour later and I am bowling along beneath overhanging peach and mulberry trees, following a volunteer horseman to Mohammed Ali Khan's garden. Before reaching the garden a gang of bare-legged laborers engaged in patching up a mud wall favor me with a fusillade of ston
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
During the afternoon the narrow kuruma road merges into a broad, newly made macadam, as fine a piece of road as I have seen the whole world round. Wonderful work has been done in grading it from the low-lying rice-fields, up, up, up, by the most gentle and even gradient, to where it seemingly terminates, far ahead between high rocky cliffs. The picture of charming houses and beautiful terraced gardens climbing to the very upper stories of the mountains here beggars description; one no longer mar
33 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TABREEZ TO TEHERAN.
TABREEZ TO TEHERAN.
The wheeling improves in the afternoon, and alongside my road runs a bit of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either si
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TEHERAN.
TEHERAN.
There is sufficient similarity between the bazaar, the mosques, the residences, the suburban gardens, etc., of one Persian city, and the same features of another, to justify the assertion that the description of one is a description of them all. But the presence of the Shah and his court; the pomp and circumstance of Eastern royalty; the foreign ambassadors; the military; the improvements introduced from Europe; the royal palaces of the present sovereign; the palaces and reminiscences of former
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ITINERARY: GIVING THE NAME AND DATE OF EACH SLEEPING-POINT ON THE BICYCLE TOUR AROUND THE WORLD.
ITINERARY: GIVING THE NAME AND DATE OF EACH SLEEPING-POINT ON THE BICYCLE TOUR AROUND THE WORLD.
6,000 miles wheeled from San Francisco. ASIA. ASIA MINOR. Aug. 10 Ismidt 11 Geiveh 12 Terekli 13 Beyond Torbali 14 Nalikhan 15 Bey Bazaar 16-17 Angora 18 Village 19 Camped out 20 Koordish Camp 21 Yuzgat 22 Camped out 23 Village 24-25 Sivas 26 Zara Mar. 27 Armenian Village 28 Camp in a cave 29 Merriserriff 30 Erzingan 31 Houssenbeg Khan Sept. 1 Village in Euphrates Valley 2-6 Erzeroum 7 Hassan Kaleh
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter