22 chapters
12 hour read
Selected Chapters
22 chapters
FORTY THOUSAND MILES OVER LAND AND WATER
FORTY THOUSAND MILES OVER LAND AND WATER
THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR THROUGH THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND AMERICA BY MRS. HOWARD VINCENT WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS THIRD AND CHEAPER EDITION. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1886. [ All rights reserved. ] LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. TO OUR FRIENDS, THE CHILDREN OF THE METROPOLITAN AND CITY POLICE ORPHANAGE, This Journal is Dedicated BY THEIR CONSTANT WELL-WISHERS....
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
My husband, during his six years' tenure of the office of Director of Criminal Investigations, took the greatest interest in the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage. In taking leave of his young friends he promised to keep for their benefit a record of our travels through the British Empire and America. I have endeavoured to the best of my power to relieve him of this task. It is but a simple Journal of what we saw and did. But if the Police will accept it, as a further proof of our admiratio
38 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.
CHAPTER I. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.
"That horrible fog-horn!" Lat. 43° 15´ N., Long. 50° 12´ W. All is intensely quiet. The revolution even of the screw has ceased. We are wrapped in a fog so dense that we feel almost unable to breathe. We shudder as we look at the white pall drawn closely around us. The decks and rigging are dripping, and everything on board is saturated with moisture. We feel strangely alone. When hark! A discordant screech, a hideous howl belches forth into the still air, to be immediately smothered and lost in
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II. NEW YORK, HUDSON RIVER, AND NIAGARA FALLS.
CHAPTER II. NEW YORK, HUDSON RIVER, AND NIAGARA FALLS.
As we drove over the rough streets of New York in the early hours of Sunday morning, it appeared as a city of the dead. There was no sign of life as our horses toiled along Broadway and up Fifth Avenue to the Buckingham Hotel, where we had secured rooms. This hotel, though comfortable, had the disadvantage of being too far up town for short sojourners, but it has the merit of being conducted on the European system—that is, the rooms and meals are charged for separately. The American plan is to m
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III. THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
CHAPTER III. THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
Since our arrival at Niagara we had been on Canadian soil, and in view of the falls, which form Canada's greatest glory; but our first experience of the Dominion only really commenced when we left Niagara Station by the Grand Trunk Railway for Toronto. It may have been prejudice, but we thought that the country bore signs of greater prosperity than over the American border. The farms are more English in character and the cattle in greater abundance. The soil looks richer, and the pretty wooden z
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV. THE AMERICAN LAKES, AND THE CENTRES OF LEARNING, FASHION, AND GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER IV. THE AMERICAN LAKES, AND THE CENTRES OF LEARNING, FASHION, AND GOVERNMENT.
Thursday, July 31st. —Up at 6 a.m. this morning to catch the steamer. However early we rise for these matutinal starts there is always a rush in the end to catch the train or boat. It is a depressing thought when we think of what frequent occurrence they will be for the next few months. We were soon plying our way over the placid bosom of Lake Champlain, holding a central course. The shores on either side are flat and ugly, for the beauty of the lake lies in the broad expanse of unruffled waters
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V. TO THE FAR WEST.
CHAPTER V. TO THE FAR WEST.
It was ten o'clock on Monday, the 11th of August, when we arrived at the station of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was to take us to Chicago. We had great difficulty in threading our way amongst several hundreds of negresses bent on a religious excursion. At first the train followed the winding course of the Potomac, through a fertile country; but presently we were going through a mountain gorge, wooded and precipitous, through which the river rushed and foamed. We crossed an iron bridge
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI. SAN FRANCISCO AND THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
CHAPTER VI. SAN FRANCISCO AND THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
I think we never felt more dirty or forlorn in our lives than on that bright morning when, crossing the bay in one of the palatial Oakland ferry steamers, sitting in the deck saloon, we were surrounded by a crowd of smartly-dressed "Frisco" ladies, particularly humiliated by the appearance of two of our fellow-travellers in the cars, in fresh morning toilettes. A bitter east wind was blowing in our teeth, and raising the muddy waters of the bay into "white horses," and the town with its straight
38 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII. ACROSS THE PACIFIC.
CHAPTER VII. ACROSS THE PACIFIC.
At 1.30 p.m. the Australia was crowded with a motley throng of passengers and weeping friends, who were rushing up and down in search of the cabins they were to occupy, claiming the same by the depositing of bags and parcels. There was the luggage coming on board, the chief steward receiving contributions of fresh provisions, a last supply of water being given, apparently to the hold of the ship, by means of a long hose on the wharf, and finally at the eleventh hour arrived the mails. The warnin
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII. COACHING THROUGH THE NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND; ITS HOT LAKES AND GEYSERS.
CHAPTER VIII. COACHING THROUGH THE NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND; ITS HOT LAKES AND GEYSERS.
Sunday, September 21st. Auckland. —-The day following our landing was a clear, spring morning, for summer is coming to these parts of the world, and we were completely charmed by the view of Auckland from the top of Princes Street, where we were staying. The harbour still and blue lay before us, looking like an inland lake from the law, flat hills that run out into the sea and nearly surround it. It is dotted with islands, the chief of which is Kawau, Sir George Grey's island home, and Rangitoto
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX. THE SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND: ITS ALPS AND MOUNTAIN LAKES.
CHAPTER IX. THE SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND: ITS ALPS AND MOUNTAIN LAKES.
Very cold and miserable we looked and felt as we stood on the platform of the station at Christchurch that morning, when Mr. Scott, who had read for the bar at the same time as my husband, having heard of our probable arrival, greeted and took us off to Coker's Hotel. He came at twelve o'clock again, and drove us down Manchester Street, which looks exactly like the High Street of some pretty, quiet English town, to the Cathedral of Christchurch. It is the only cathedral in New Zealand, and is bu
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X. TASMANIA AND VICTORIA.
CHAPTER X. TASMANIA AND VICTORIA.
Friday, October 24th, Invercargill. —The morning had come on which we were leaving New Zealand, and it was blowing a terrible hurricane. As we went in the train down to the "Bluff," we received no encouragement as to the abatement of the wind in the waving of the tussock-grass and ti-tree waste we passed through. A simoon was being raised on the vast sand dunes in the distance. Arrived at the "Bluff," we found the greatest difficulty, from the violence of the wind, in walking along the wooden pi
35 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI. NEW SOUTH WALES AND QUEENSLAND.
CHAPTER XI. NEW SOUTH WALES AND QUEENSLAND.
We left the Spencer Street Station by five o'clock, and began the long, tedious journey of eighteen hours by rail to Sydney. We dined at Seymour, and arrived at Albury at 11 p.m., where we changed into the sleeping-car, the "Lady Parkes." These cars are much better arranged than those in America. The berths are wider and higher, and the four at the end of the carriage are reserved for ladies and divided off by a curtain. At Albury we crossed the boundary-line between Victoria and New South Wales
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII. WITHIN THE BARRIER REEF, THROUGH TORRES' STRAITS TO BATAVIA.
CHAPTER XII. WITHIN THE BARRIER REEF, THROUGH TORRES' STRAITS TO BATAVIA.
Queensland, farewell! A hurried breakfast, a hasty departure from Government House, and we were down at the wharf and on board the tender, hardly realizing that we were leaving Australia's shores for ever. It took us nearly two hours to steam the thirty miles down the river, to get out to the open sea, and the breezes kept ever freshening, and the tender ever more heavily rolling. The banks grew flatter and uglier, tapering off to the sandbanks of St. Helena, where the low buildings of the convi
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII. NETHERLANDS INDIA.
CHAPTER XIII. NETHERLANDS INDIA.
Our first voyage across the Atlantic began the fate which has since pursued us, of arriving at our destination on Sunday. We have landed at New York, at Auckland, at Wellington on Sunday, and now, after our three weeks' voyage through the Torres Straits, the Arafura Sea, and Indian Ocean, we find ourselves at anchor early on a Sunday morning inside the little breakwater of Tandjong Priok, the harbour of Batavia. The scene which greets me as I go up on deck is truly Dutch. I see low stretches of
42 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV. THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
CHAPTER XIV. THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
The Straits Settlements, which comprise Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, besides the protected states of Salangore Perak, and Sungeilljong, contain about 1500 square miles, and nearly half a million of inhabitants. They were transferred from the control of the Indian Government to that of the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1867. Singapore is an island about twenty-seven miles long, situated at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. It is a port of call for all vessels to the east,
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV. THE METROPOLIS OF INDIA AND ITS HIMALAYAN SANATORIUM.
CHAPTER XV. THE METROPOLIS OF INDIA AND ITS HIMALAYAN SANATORIUM.
On this bright, yet foggy morning of January 7, 1885, we find ourselves at anchor in the mouth of the Hooghley—that vast delta and network of channels where the most ancient of historical rivers, the Ganges, loses itself in the ocean. The sun is struggling through the bank of fog, and as it slowly lifts, it is difficult to believe that the broad expanse of dun-coloured waters, with its dim outline of mud-banks forming a shore, is a river and not the sea. The white tower of the lighthouse of Saug
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI. THE SHRINES OF THE HINDU FAITH.
CHAPTER XVI. THE SHRINES OF THE HINDU FAITH.
The next morning we awoke to find ourselves on the fruitful and cultivated plain of Bengal. We were flying by mud settlements, and passing through numberless paddy-fields, rice, pân, or betel-nut plantations. Here and there we came upon a field white with the poppy of the opium plant, or with a tall, standing crop of castor-oil shrub. Others again were filled with barley, and those coarse millets on which the natives subsist; and all the crops were kept alive and green by that terribly laborious
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII. THE SCENES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SCENES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.
Thursday, January 22nd. —Lucknow has been given by the natives the pretty name of the "City of Roses." It is needless to say that on this our first morning in Lucknow, our steps were naturally directed to the Residency, before whose grand and grim remembrances the gimcrack beauty of the palaces, the mosques, and the tombs, pale into uninteresting insignificance. A bright, chill October morning it was, and I say October because, added to the keenness of the air, the leafless and withered branches
32 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII. THE CITIES OF THE GREAT MOGUL.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE CITIES OF THE GREAT MOGUL.
Monday, January 25th. —Agra is essentially the city of Akbar, the great Mogul. Founded and created by him in 1506, it had no previously known history. Here he established his metropolis—his palace within the fort. One looks forward to seeing some of the splendour with which we have always learnt to associate the name of the greatest of ancient emperors, save only Alexander the Great. Nor ought one to be disappointed. The fort is a superb structure, recalling the days of barbarous warfare in the
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX. GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA.
CHAPTER XIX. GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA.
Friday, January 30th. —Left Agra at 7.30 on our way to Gwalior. After crossing the Chumbla on one of the finest bridges in India, we came to a very strange bit of country. Every foot of the bare ground was gulched, upturned, upheaved, into conical mounds. We saw a quantity of curious little sugar-loaf cones, apparently of natural origin, and the whole represents a series of miniature valleys and mountains. This broken ground alone would form a formidable obstacle to the enemy's approach to Gwali
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX. THE HOME OF THE PARSEES.
CHAPTER XX. THE HOME OF THE PARSEES.
Monday, February 9th. —Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeeboy very kindly called for us in the morning with his break and magnificent pair of English carriage-horses, undertaking to show us something of Bombay. Sir Jamsetjee is the well-known and respected head of the Parsees, whose home may be said to be in Bombay. The Parsees claim to follow the oldest religion in the world, that of the Persian religion of Zoroaster the Fire Worshipper, and of the 100,000 which their sect numbers, 60,000 live in Bombay. "Ram
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter