Travelling Sketches

Most of us are Robinsons. We are so far lucky indeed, the greater number of us, that we need not be solitary Robinsons. We have our friends, and are better advised than to attempt the enjoyment of our tours alone. But as to our capacity for doing so, or our conduct if we should attempt it, I doubt whether many of us would be much stronger than he was.

THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE TOURIST

The unprotected female tourist is generally a much stronger-minded individual than the solitary male traveller, and has a higher purpose, a better courage, and a greater capacity for meeting and conquering the difficulties of the road. The poor fellow, indeed, whose solitary journey we described the other day, had no purpose, unless a vague idea of going where amusement would come to him, rather than of seeking it by any effort of his own, may be called a purpose; but the unprotected female knows what she is about; she has something to do and she does it; she has a defined plan from which nothing moves her; the discomfort of a day will not turn her aside; nor will she admit of any social overtures till she has formed a judgment of their value, and has fair reason to believe that she will receive at any rate as much as she gives. The unprotected female, as she knows and uses the strength of her weakness, so does she perceive and measure the weakness of her strength. She cannot be impetuous, and impulsive, and kitten-like, as may girls who can retreat at once behind their mother's crinoline or under their father's umbrella, should a cloud be seen in the distance or the need for shelter be felt.

How or under what influences the unprotected female commences her tour, who can tell? It will usually be found, if inquiry be made as to her family, that she has a brother, or a father, or a mother; that she need not be an unprotected female tourist, had she not elected that line as the best for her pleasure or her profit. She is seldom very young; – but neither is she very old. The lady whose age would admit of her travelling alone without remark rarely chooses to do so; and when she does, she is not the lady whom we all know as the unprotected female. The unprotected female must be pretty, or must at least possess feminine graces which stand in lieu of prettiness, and which can put forward a just and admitted claim for personal admiration. She is not rich, and travels generally with economy; but she is rarely brought to a shift for money, and her economies conceal themselves gracefully and successfully. She learns the value of every franc, of every thaler, of every zwansiger as she progresses, and gets more change out of her sovereigns than any Englishman will do. She allows herself but few self-indulgences, and controls her appetites. She can enjoy a good dinner as well as her brother could do; but she can go without her dinner with a courageous persistence of which her brother knows nothing. She never pays through the nose in order that people indifferent to her may think her great or generous, though she pays always sufficient to escape unsatisfactory noises and to prevent unpleasant demands. Her dress is quiet and yet attractive; her clothes fit her well; and if, as one is prone to suspect, they are in great part the work of her own hand, she must be an industrious woman, able to go to her needle at night after the heat and dust of the day are over. Her gloves are never worn at the finger-ends; her hat is never shapeless, nor are her ribbons ever soiled; the folds of her not too redundant drapery are never misarranged, confused, or angular. She never indulges in bright colours, and is always the same, and always neat; and they who know her best believe that if she were called out of her room by fire in the middle of the night, she would come forth calm, in becoming apparel, and ready to take an active part in the emergency without any infringement on feminine propriety. She is never forward, nor is she ever bashful. A bashful woman could not play her game, and a forward woman immediately encounters sorrow when she attempts to play it. She can decline all overtures of acquaintanceship without giving offence, and she can glide into intimacies without any apparent effort. She can speak French with fluency and with much more than average accuracy, and probably knows something of German and Italian. Without such accomplishments as these let no woman undertake the part of an unprotected female tourist. She can converse on almost any subject; and, if called on to do so, can converse without any subject. As she becomes experienced in her vocation she learns and remembers all the routes of travelling. She is acquainted with and can explain all galleries, cathedrals, and palaces. She knows the genealogies of the reigning kings, and hardly loses herself among German dukes. She understands politics, and has her opinion about the Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Pope. And she can live with people who know much more than herself, or much less, without betraying the difference between herself and them. She can be gay with the gay, and enjoy that; or dull with the dull, and seem to enjoy that. What man as he travels learns so much, works so hard, uses so much mental power, takes so much trouble in all things, as she does? She is never impatient, never exacting, never cross, never conquered, never triumphant, never humble, never boastful, never ill, never in want of assistance. If she fall into difficulties she escapes from them without a complaint. If she be ill-used she bears it without a murmur; if disappointed, – as must so often be the case with her, – she endures her cross and begins again with admirable assiduity. Yet she is only an unprotected female, and they who meet her on her travels are too apt to declare that she is an old soldier.

Unprotected female tourists, such as I have described, are not very numerous; but there are enough of them to form a class by themselves. From year to year, as we make our autumn excursions, we see perhaps one of them, and perhaps a second. We meet the same lady two or three times, making with her a pleasant acquaintance, and then passing on. The farther we go afield the more likely we are to encounter her. She is always to be met with on the Nile; she is quite at home at Constantinople; she goes frequently to Spain; you will probably find her in Central America; but her head-quarters are perhaps at Jerusalem. She prefers the saddle to any other mode of travelling, and can sit on horseback for any number of hours without flinching. For myself, I have always liked the company of the unprotected female, and have generally felt something like the disruption of a tender friendship when circumstances have torn me from her.

But why is she what she is? As to the people that one ordinarily meets when travelling, no one stops to inquire why they are what they are. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have come together, naturally enough; and, naturally enough, there are three or four Miss Thompsons. And when young Mr. Thompson turns up alone, no one thinks very much about him. But one is driven to think why Miss Thompson is there at Cairo all by herself. You go to the Pyramids with her, and you find her to be very pleasant. She sits upon her donkey as though she had been born sitting on a donkey; and through dust and heat and fleas and Arabs she makes herself agreeable as though nothing were amiss with her. You find yourself talking to her of your mother, your sister, or your friend, – but not of your wife or sweetheart. But of herself, excepting as regards her life at Cairo, she says nothing to you. You ask yourself many questions about her.

Who was her father? who was her mother?Had she a sister? had she a brother?Or was there a dearer one still, and a nearer oneYet than all other?

Why is she alone? and how is it possible that a girl whose dress fits her so nicely should not have "a nearer one and dearer one yet than all other?"

But you may take it for granted that she has not; or if she has, that he is no better than he should be; – that his nature is such as to have driven her to think solitude better than his company. Love of independence has probably made the unprotected female tourist what she is; – that and the early acquired knowledge that such independence in a woman requires very special training. She has probably said to herself that she would rise above the weakness of her sex, – driven, perhaps, to that resolve by some special grief which, as a woman, she has incurred. She is something of a Bohemian, but a Bohemian with a regret that Bohemianism should be necessary to her. She will not be hindered by her petticoats from seeing what men see, and from enjoying that which Nature seems to bring within a man's reach so easily, but which is so difficult to a woman. That there might be something more blessed than that independence she is ready enough to admit to herself. Where is the woman that does not admit it? But she will not admit that a woman should live for that hope alone; and therefore she is riding with you to the Pyramids, – others of course accompanying you, – and talking to you with that studied ease which is intended to show that, though she is an unprotected female, she knows what she is about, and can enjoy herself without any fear of you, or of Mrs. Grundy. You find her to be very clever, and then think her to be very pretty; and if, – which may probably be the case, – you are in such matters a fool, you say a word or two more than you ought to do, and the unprotected female shows you that she can protect herself.

But Miss Thompson is wrong for all this, and I think it will be admitted that I have made the best of Miss Thompson's case. The line which she has taken up is one which it is impossible that a woman should follow with ultimate satisfaction. She cannot unsex herself or rid herself of the feeling that admiration is accorded to her as a pretty woman. She has probably intended, – honestly intended, – to be quit of that feeling, and to move about the world as though, for her, men and women were all the same, as though no more flirting were possible, and love-making were a thing simply good to be read of in novels. But if so, why has she been so careful with her gloves, and her hat, and all her little feminine belongings? It has been impossible to her not to be a woman. The idea and remembrance of her womanly charms have always been there, always present to her mind. Unmarried men are to her possible lovers and possible husbands, – as she is also a possible wife to any unmarried man, – and also a possible love. Though she may have devoted herself to celibacy with her hand on the altar, she cannot banish from her bosom the idea which, despite herself, almost forms itself into a hope. We will not ask as to her past life; but for the future she will be what she is, – only till the chance comes to her of being something better. It is that free life which she leads, – which she leads in all innocency, – which makes it impossible for her to be true to the resolution she has made for herself. Such a woman cannot talk to men without a consciousness that intimacy may lead to love, or the pretence of love, or the dangers of love. Nor, it may be said, can any unmarried woman do so. And therefore it is that they do not go about the world unprotected, either at home or abroad. Therefore it is that the retreat behind mamma's ample folds or beneath papa's umbrella is considered to be so salutary.

You, my friend, with your quick, impulsive, and, allow me to say, meaningless expression of admiration, received simply the rebuke which you deserved. Then there was an end of that, and Miss Thompson, being somewhat used to such misadventures, thought but little of it afterwards. She has to do those things when the necessity comes upon her. But it does happen, sometimes, that the unprotected female, – who has a heart, though other women will say that she has none, – is touched, and listens, and hopes, and at last almost thinks that she has found out her mistake. The cold exterior glaze of the woman is pricked through, and there comes a scratch upon the stuff beneath. A tone in her voice will quaver as though everything were not easy with her. She will forget for the moment her prudence, and the usual precautions of her life, and will dream of retiring within the ordinary pale of womanhood. She will think that to cease to be an unprotected female may be sweet, and for a while she will be soft, and weak, and wavering. But with unprotected females such ideas have to pass away very fleetly. I am afraid it must be said that let a woman once be an unprotected female, so she must remain to the end. Who knows the man that has taken an unprotected female to his bosom and made her the mistress of his home, and the chief priestess of his household gods? And if any man have done so, what have his friends said of him and his adventure?

And so the unprotected female goes on wandering still farther afield, increasing in cleverness every year, and ever acquiring new knowledge; but increasing also in hardness, and in that glaze of which I have spoken, till at last one is almost driven to confess, when one's wife and daughters declare her to be an old soldier, that one's wife and daughters are not in justice liable to contradiction.

THE UNITED ENGLISHMEN WHO TRAVEL FOR FUN

The United Englishmen who travel for fun are great nuisances to other tourists, are great nuisances to the towns they visit and the scenes they disturb, are often nuisances in a small way to the police, are nuisances to people saying their prayers in churches, are nuisances to visitors in picture galleries, are nuisances to the ordinary travellers of the day, and are nuisances to the world at large – except the innkeepers and the railway companies; but they generally achieve their own object, and have what the Americans call a good time of it. A United Englishman travelling for fun should not be over twenty-five years of age, but up to that age what he does, though he be a nuisance, should be forgiven him. Though we ourselves may be annoyed by the freaks of such travellers, shocked by their utter disregard of apparel, stunned by their noises, and ashamed of them as our countrymen, yet we are well pleased that our sons should be among their number, and are conscious that amidst all that energetic buffoonery and wild effrontery, education is going on, and that much is being learned, though the recipient of the learning would himself be ashamed to own any such fact to himself.

The men of whom I am now speaking are generally gentlemen by birth, – who have been educated or missed being educated, as education is obtained or missed by the sons of English gentlemen, – are pleasant fellows who have learned to love each other at school or college, and have nothing about them that is mean or in itself ignoble; but they are young of their age, men for whom nature has hitherto done more than art, who have hardly as yet learned to think, and are still enjoying all the irresponsible delights of boyhood at a time of life at which others less fortunate are already immersed in the grievous cares of earning their bread. I do not know that any country except England produces such a crop. We see United Frenchmen on their travels; but they are discreet, well dressed, anticipating the life of middle age rather than adhering to the manners of boyhood, – much given to little attentions to women, and very decorous in their language. And young German tourists are encountered everywhere, though more often alone than in union; but the German tourist is almost always a German student. Life is a serious thing to him, and he is resolved that he will not lose this most precious period of it. United Germans, rough in their pleasures, and noisy in their demonstrations, may no doubt be found; but they are to be found in their own cities, at their universities, among their own people. It does not come in their way to go forth and exhibit their rowdiness among strangers. And as to Americans, who has ever seen a young American? An American who travels at eighteen, travels because he is blasé with the world at home, tired of democratic politics, and anxious to see whether anything may still be gleaned from European manners to improve the not yet perfected institutions of his own country. Among tourists of the order of United Englishmen an American young man is altogether out of his element. He will attempt sometimes to live as they live, but will soon retire, disgusted partly by them and partly by his own incompetence. I have known an American who could be loud, and jolly, and frolicsome, and yet carry himself like a gentleman through it all; but I have never known a young American who could do so.

Englishmen of the class in question are boys for a more protracted period of their life, and remain longer in a state of hobbledehoyhood, than the youths probably of any other nation. They are nurtured on the cold side of the wall, and come slowly to maturity; but the fruit, which is only half ripe at the end of summer, is the fruit that we keep for our winter use. I do not know that much has been lost in life by him who, having been a boy at twenty, is still a young man at forty. But even in England we are changing all this now-a-days, and by a liberal use of the hot-water pipes of competition are in a way to force our fruit into the market as early as any other people. Let us hope that what we gain in time may not be lost in flavour.

But we have not yet advanced so far as to put down the bands of United Englishmen who travel for fun. Who does not know the look of the band, and cannot at a glance swear to their vocation? The smallest number of such a party is three, and it does not often exceed five. They are dressed very much alike. The hat, whatever be its exact shape, is chosen with the purpose of setting all propriety instantly at defiance. No other description can be given of it. To say that it is a slouch hat, or a felt hat, or a Tom-and-Jerry hat, conveys no idea of the hat in question. The most discreet Low Church parson may wear a slouch hat, and may look in it as discreet and as Low Church as he does in his economically preserved chimney-pot at home. But the United English tourist batters his hat, and twists it, and sits on it, and rumples and crumples it, till it is manifestly and undeniably indicative of its owner. And having so completed its manufacture he obtrudes it upon the world with a remarkable ingenuity. In a picture gallery he will put it on the head of a bust of Apollo; in a church he will lay it down on the railing of the altar, or he will carry it on high on the top of his stick, so that all men may see it and know its owner by the sign. Sitting in public places he will chuck it up and catch it, and at German beer-gardens he will spread it carefully in the middle of the little table intended for the glasses. He never keeps it on his head when he should take it off, – because he is a gentleman; but he rarely keeps it on his head when that is the proper place for it, – because he is a United Englishman who travels for fun. He wears a suit of grey clothes, the coat being a shooting coat, and the trousers, if he be loud in his vocation, being exchanged for knickerbockers. And it is remarkable that the suit in which you will see him will always strike you as that which he had procured for last year's tour, and that he is economically wearing it to shreds on the present occasion. But this is not so. The clothes were new when he left London; but he has been assiduous with his rumpling and crumpling here as he has been with his hat, and at the expiration of his first week out he is able to boast to himself that he has, at any rate, got rid of the gloss. He wears flannel shirts, and in warm weather goes about without a cravat. He carries in his portmanteau a dress-coat, waistcoat, and trousers, which are of no use to him, as who would think of asking such a man to dinner? But, as he abhors the extra package which a decent hat would make needful, he is to be seen in Paris, Vienna, or Florence with that easily-recognized covering for his head which I have above described. He has a bludgeon usually in his hand, and often a pipe in his mouth. He knows nothing of gloves, but is very particular as to the breadth and strength of his shoes. He often looks to be very dirty; but his morning tub is a religious ceremony, and, besides that, he bathes whenever he comes across a spot which, from its peculiar difficulties, is more than ordinarily inappropriate for the exercise.

These tourists for fun are known well by all that large class of men who are engaged in supplying the wants of summer travellers. No one ever doubts their solvency; no innkeeper ever refuses them admittance; no station-master or captain of a steamboat ever takes them for other than they are. They are not suspected, but known; and therefore a certain tether is allowed to them which is not to be exceeded. They are looked after good-humouredly, and are so restrained that they shall not be made to feel the restraint if the feeling can be spared them. "Three mad Englishmen! They're all right. I've got my eye on them. They won't do any harm?" That seems to be the ordinary language which is held about them by those to whom falls the duty of watching them and supplying their wants. The waiters were very good-natured to them, patting them, as it were on the back, and treating them much as though they were children. But it is understood that they must have wherewithal to eat and to drink well, and that their bells must be answered if any quiet is to be preserved in the houses. Sometimes there will be a row, and the English pride will flare up and conceive itself to have been insulted. The United Englishman who travels for fun has a great idea of his country's power, and resents violently any uncourteous interference with his vagaries. But it is so generally known that the "mad Englishman" is all right, and that he won't do any real harm if an eye be kept on him, that such rows seldom end disastrously.

These united tourists often quarrel among themselves, but their quarrels do not come to much. Green tells White that Brown is the most ill-tempered, evil-minded, cross-grained brute that was ever born, that he thought so before and that now he knows it; that he was a fool to come abroad with such a beast, and that he was absolutely, finally, and irrevocably resolved that never, under any circumstances, will he speak to the man again. The party will be broken up, but he cannot help that. There will be difficulty about the division of money, but he cannot help that. Yes; it is true that he is fond of Brown's sister, but neither can he help that. It has always been his wonder that such a sister should have such a brother. Only for Mary Brown he never would have come abroad with this pig of a fellow. The quarrel while it rages is very hot, and Brown tells White that Green is the greatest ass under the sun. Nevertheless the quarrel is made up before breakfast on the following morning, and the three men go on together without much remembrance of the language which they had used.

I have said that most of us would like to see our sons go out on such parties, and I think that we should be right in sending them. The United Englishmen who travel for fun rarely get into much evil. They do not get drunk, nor do they gamble at the public tables. And undoubtedly they learn much, though it seems that they are always averse to learn anything. How education is accomplished or of what it consists, who yet has been able to explain to us? That by far the greater portion of our education is involuntary all men will probably admit. We learn to speak, to walk, to express our emotions, and to control such expression; to be grave and gay, and to understand the necessity of alternating between the two, by copying others unconsciously. We exercise a thousand arts which we do not know how we acquired, and the more we see of the world the more do we learn of such arts, – even though we are not aware of the process. That our friends Brown, Green, and White might have learned more than they did learn on that tour of theirs, may be true enough; but for all that, they do not come back as empty as they went.

And they have had this merit, – that they have in truth enjoyed what they have done. Little clouds there have been, – such as that quarrel between Brown and his future brother-in-law; but they have been passing mists which have hardly served to disturb the sunshine of their tour. Together they started, together they have been over mountains and through cities, performing feats which, in their own judgments, are little short of marvellous, and together they return at the end of their holiday satisfied with themselves and with the world at large. They have seen pictures and walked through cathedrals; but, above all, they have stood upon the slopes of the hills and have looked at the mountains. They have listened to the little rivers as they tumbled, and have laid their hands upon the edges of mighty rocks; they have smelt the wild thyme as it gave out its fragrance beneath their feet, and have peered wondering through the blue crevasses of the glacier. They have sat in the sweet gloom of the evening and have watched the surface of the lake as it lay beneath them without a ripple, and have waited there till the curtain of night has hid the water from their view. Then they have thrown themselves idly on their backs, and have counted the stars in the firmament over their head, wondering at the beauty of the heavens. They have said little perhaps to each other of the romance of such moments, of the poetry, which has filled their hearts; but the romance and the poetry have been there; and they have brought home with them a feeling for beauty which will last them through their lives, in spite of their crumpled hats, their big bludgeons, their short pipes, and their now almost indecent knickerbockers.