sleeve falling off from her rounded arm. "There! |ened that "it should certainly be locked up in

Best of all would it be if you could have seen Andrew's face, as he sat opposite to her. He quite forgot to eat his supper till Prue threat-given.

THE AMERICANS ON THEIR

THE

TRAVELS.

almost unconscious of space, and so habituated to travel that he thinks no more of counting the hundreds of miles of his frequent journeys, by railway and steamer, than the steps of his daily walk.

THE American is a migratory animal. He changes place with such facility that he never seems so much at home as when leaving Business, not pleasure, is the main motive of it. Go where you may-north, south, east, or travel with Americans in their own country. west-you will be sure to meet with him. Fore- There are a thousand points of interest to a most among the explorers of the regions of per- foreigner on our continent which are hardly petual frost, he drives his sledge to the farthest heeded by our fellow-countrymen. The Amerlimits of discovery, and builds his ice-hut on the ican is conscious enough of the grandeur, in the polar verge of the earth. Turning toward the aggregate, of his vast and bounteous land, and hot zone of the tropics, he swings his hammock exults even to satiety in its qualities. He, howas readily beneath the shade of the equatorial ever, is not disposed to analyze its characterispalm. Populous cities and untracked deserts tics, and observe minutely its particular elements are alike trodden by his ubiquitous feet. He of interest. He cares not a fig for the sublime, walks the streets of London, Paris, St. Peters- the beautiful, and picturesque, if they are only burg, Berlin, Vienna, Naples, Rome, Constan- seen by him in his own country. Let him travel tinople, Canton, and even the causeways of in foreign countries, and he quickly becomes as Japan, with as confident a step as he treads the capable of a sensation as the most sentimental pavements of Broadway. He is so universally and rapturous. A mountain at home is less abroad that he even anticipates discovery. The visible than a mole-hill abroad. Miss Araminta, explorer no sooner sails upon some terra incog-who is hardly moved at the sublime spectacles nita in remote seas, than he is hailed by one of nature in her own land, has no sooner crossed of our vagrant countrymen whom chance has the ocean and sipped her first cup of café au lait washed to the unknown shore in crazy boat or at Meurice's, than she is aroused to the intensest on broken spar. emotion at the sight of the piddling fountains in the garden of the Tuileries, and the toy islets, built up of Parisian filth and mud, in the pools of the Bois de Boulogne.

It is true that of our people of means and leisure who are disposed to travel few venture upon a European tour without a sight of Niagara.

nature, and its awful roar of waters has so echoed throughout the world, that an American is sure to find, wherever he goes abroad, those who, however ignorant of every thing else in his country, are conscious of its existence. It would not do to meet the universal inquiry about "the falls" with a confession of not having seen

The Americans are necessarily great travelers. Such is the spaciousness of their country that they can not perform many of the ordinary duties of life without a great deal of locomotion. The affairs of state and the business of trade, in which they all more or less share, are conducted at points often so remote from their hab-The great cataract is so stupendous a work of itations as to necessitate long journeys. The member of Congress from California must travel five thousand miles before he can give his vote or deliver his speech in the Capitol. The tradesman from Oregon makes a still longer journey to purchase his hardware or dry-goods in New York. The mere interchange of visits among friends and relatives, in our land of remote dis-them. Not to know Niagara would argue one's tances, compels passages over great extents of self unknown. This motive alone sends a great space. The American thus, in the course of many of our fashionable friends there on the eve his daily life, becomes so habituated to travel of a contemplated tour to Europe. that he packs his portmanteau, and starts on a journey of hundreds of miles, as readily as he puts on his coat and comes down to his break-caught in the course of a steam-flight to Sarafast. An Englishman in Liverpool will consult with his family and friends months before about a proposed visit to Dublin, and, after all, probably never accomplish it. A citizen of New York will make up his mind to a visit to California over his second egg at breakfast, and will sail for San Francisco before dinner, without hardly stating to his acquaintances the cause of his long journey, or they caring to ask for it.

The facilities for travel are in proportion to the American necessity of practicing it. With miles of railroad and length of navigable river more than those of all the rest of the world together, a citizen of our vast republic passes with ease and rapidity from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, or from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus readily moving over a great continent, within the limits of his own country, he becomes

Apart from the compulsory sight of the great cataract and the passing glances of the country

toga and Newport and back, our thriving people who have the money to spend and the disposition to spend it in gratifying their curiosity see but little of their own land. Yet many of these same people go to Europe and keep wandering for years from country to country until they have exhausted every mile of route, feature of landscape, canvas of picture-gallery, foot of churchspire, and stone of ruin in Murray's whole library of guide-books.

The best preparation for a journey abroad is a knowledge of home. Every man, supposing that he does not wish to denationalize himself, should, before he travels, become familiar with his own country. Otherwise he will lose that chief benefit of a visit to foreign countries, the occasion that it gives of comparing other lands with his own, and thus discovering the good to

of travel are not for the few but the many. The only relief for this discomfort of being in a perpetual crowd must come from an improvement in the national manners; for the mass in America will continue to assert, as it has always done, its right to motion as to all the other privileges

cling to and the ill to reject. To the American | ing whole called the traveling public. This is traveler especially this preliminary knowledge of unavoidable in a land where the conveniences his own country is essential. His native land is involved in a great experiment, social, economical, and æsthetical, as well as political. It behooves him to observe well its degrees of progress, in order to compare them with the stages of advancement of other countries. The freshness and growth of America are to be confront-of civilized man. With, however, extended ed with the maturity and decay of Europe. Youth is to be brought face to face with manhood, alternately vigorous and feeble, that it may learn from its lips of experience what has conduced to make it the one and the other. Our young country has much to learn from older countries, but it should first study itself, that, knowing its own character and conduct, it may make proper application of the lessons from abroad. "A man," said Dr. Johnson, "must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge." If Americans learned more and talked less of their great country it would be better for themselves and others.

Few travelers, however, are actuated by the elevated motive of improving themselves and their country. Most seek amusement, distraction, or health, and care little about political institutions, national resources, manners and customs, provided their passports are en regle, their bankers in funds, and they are civilly treated and not overcharged. Most of the ordinary motives of travel exist in abundance in our own country, though our wealthy citizens who hasten abroad seem hardly conscious of the fact. Our extensive and diversified land presents every variety of natural scenery, from the picturesque to the sublime, and almost every kind of climate. The American admirer of nature can gratify to the utmost his taste for lofty mountains, sonorous cataracts, sinuous streams, dark forests, and variegated landscapes; and the seeker after health may invigorate his languid nerves by northern blasts or warm his chilled blood with southern breezes without crossing the boundaries of his own country. It is true that there are no fusty feudal ruins and great galleries of ancient art; but there are brand-new cities and endless scenes of busy enterprise. If the romantic traditions and departing glories of the one have an interest, so have the surprising realities and the fresh vigor of the other. Of places of historic association in America there is already an abundance, which this war will increase a thousandfold. We shall have numberless fields of battle, illustrated by greater heroism and patriotic devotion than have made Blenheim and Waterloo memorable.

Traveling in America, great as are its facilities, has certain drawbacks. The fastidious complain that its modes, so favorable to the gregarious propensities of our countrymen, are opposed to all reserve and retirement. Whether at rest in the hotel, or in motion on steamboat and rail, you are forced to herd with the crowd. You are obliged to sink the individual in the mass, and form an indistinct part of that flow

freedom there should be increased grace. As we must continue to live and move in crowds, we should learn to live and move harmoniously. This is not a question only between clean and dirty linen, glossy silk and faded calico, the poor and rich-though in our land of abundance it is not too much to demand of the humblest traveler that he should be dressed so neatly, and live so cleanly, as not to offend, in the course of his close companionship, the most delicate of his fellow-citizens. Miss Sophronia Peabody has no right, and may have no disposition, to refuse Patrick O'Donoghue, a republican like herself, a seat by her side in railway carriage or at steamboat table; Miss Sophronia, however, in her best silk and in the purity of feminine sensation, may reasonably object to the proximity of Patrick still unwashed from his last sewerage operation, and redolent of the mixed odor of whisky and tobacco. It is no infringement of O'Donoghue's lately-acquired privileges of citizenship, as it is no interference of aristocratic capital with democratical labor, to demand of him a freer use of water and a temporary abstinence from the pipe and the glass. There is no objection to the presence of Patrick among the "ghintlemen and leddies," provided he does not bring his mud and a smell of the "critter" with him. To make him a good democrat it is not enough that he should vote. Citizenship has its social as well as political obligations. Patrick, on his travels, should present himself decently to his cleanly fellowcitizens, whose close companionship he claims. We know of no reason why railway companies should not have their regulations of decency, forbidding the reception in carriages of obviously uncleanly persons. No one in Paris is allowed to pass through the public gardens and parks without a coat on his back, in order that the general becomingness of these places of diversion may be secured. This example, however, may be contemned, as a specimen of the tyranny of Europe, though it is taken from a country where the greatest social independence exists. A republican illustration will perhaps better serve our purpose. We recollect reading in prominent letters hung up in the saloon of a United States mail steamship bound to California this peremptory command: "No one is allowed to sit down to table in his shirtsleeves."

The great fault of our traveling public is its disregard of individual rights. Every man is supposed to be common property, and for the time being he is forced to give up to others the possession of his body and mind, in which he

himself is only allowed to have a reversionary steamboat proprietary, slyly insinuating its re-
interest after the journey is over. His eyes, quest with an appeal to their proverbial regard
ears, limbs, and even his thoughts, are seized for the female sex. The cabin floor, however,
upon by the crowd, as soon as he enters hotel, we are ashamed to say, continues to be soiled.
steamboat, or railway carriage, and held for its A sea-captain of our acquaintance had a more
own use until he leaves. The general conver-effective remedy. He detailed a man with a
sation is carried on in so loud a tone that the
traveler is forced to hear every word. He thus
has expressions, observations, opinions, sensa-
tions, thoughts, and sights thrust upon him so
continually and emphatically that his faculties
become too oppressed with the work of others to
be capable of doing their own.

Disposed to allow the largest freedom of thought, sentiment, and expression to our fellows, we claim the same liberty for ourselves; and we don't care that they should think, feel, and talk for us. We more especially object to being made the involuntary organs, as we often are when traveling, of our neighbors' shallow opinions, gross sentiment, and ribald conversation.

swab to follow each expectorating passenger,
and absorb his superfluous saliva as it fell upon
the deck. Some of the most inveterate spitters,
finding themselves thus officially and persistent-
ly tracked, and their offensive deposit made so
manifest by the constant application of the re-
medial absorbent, were shamed out of their dis-
gusting practice.

A habit akin to the one we have just spoken
of, and no less offensive, is that noisy forcing up
of the secretions of the throat known as hawk-
ing, so general among our countrymen that it
would seem that the greater part of the nation
was affected with a chronic bronchitis. It is,
however, in most cases, only a habit, and so bad
a one that it behooves all who possess it, and

One of the most annoying forms of this pub-care for decent companionship, to abandon it. lic intrusiveness is reading aloud. After having conscientiously performed the daily duty of perusing the morning's paper, it is not pleasant to be forced to listen again and again, at each station of a long railway route, to the ephemeral effusions of Mr. Jefferson Brick, with the added comments of a succession of his admirers. We have our own opinion of the sentiments and style of that editorial Boanerges, and, having once submitted to his thunder, care not to be exposed to a repetition of its shocks.

Of all migratory animals within our knowledge, and we have had an extensive opportunity of studying their natural history, the American traveler is the most omnivorous. The locomotive which is so swiftly carrying him on his way is not more constantly in motion than is his masticatory apparatus. All kinds of edibles are welcomed by his indiscriminate voracity. Apart from the annoyance of being constantly jostled and importuned by a ceaseless throng of eager hucksters, and the disgust of seeing We by no means approve of the churlishness every where the scattered refuse of food, where of the "respectable" John Bull, who so smoth-shells of peanuts are tossing about in oceans of ers himself in his English reserve that he can saliva, which alternately wash continents of ornot breathe a word of sympathy with his fellow-ange and apple peel, it is not pleasant to contravelers, lest he might perchance speak to a template our dyspeptic and ravenous countrycommon son of Adam one degree lower in the men in the throes of the bolting process. British social scale than himself. Much of the We boast much of the luxurious appointments pleasure of travel, and the profit too, is often of our great hotels and steamboats, and the conderived from the conversation of the casual veniences of our railway carriages. Comfort, companion of the steamboat or railway, and however, and safety are often sacrificed for show he not always clothed in the finest broadcloth. and facility. Much of the space and expense While we, however, would encourage converse given, in our enormous caravansaries, to the reamong fellow-travelers, when mutually in the splendent reception-rooms might be curtailed humor, we protest against being forced by the to the manifest advantage of the bedchambers, pertinaciously inquisitive into a communion for which are generally small and comfortless. If, which we may feel indisposed. Our country-moreover, there were less height and extent to men are too apt to disregard the right of every man to reserve in the presence of strangers, and will harry a traveler by question after question from his retreat within himself, for which he may have the best of reasons, like so many dogs scratching out of his burrow their concealed victim.

the parlors and saloons, it would be possible to
bring down the high-perched sleeping-cells to
within escaping distance to the street, in case
of fire. In regard to the gingerbread-work of
our steamboat saloons, it always suggests to us
the suspicion that it is at the cost of soundness
to the hull and completeness to the machinery.
But if not, we would rather dispense with an
ornamentation that is not seldom incongruous
and offensive to taste. The less that is said

Our people, in spite of the admonitions they
have received, still persist in an indiscriminate
ejection, wherever they pass, of their saliva, of
which they seem to have an abundance not pos-about the rapidity and convenience of our rail-
sessed by any other race of mankind. This
habit is so inveterate that it is even proof against
their gallantry. "Out of respect to the ladies,
gentlemen are requested not to soil the floor of
this cabin with tobacco-juice," gently urges the

way travel the better, until some means are dis-
covered of arresting its career of murder. Syd-
ney Smith thought that to check railroad disas-
ter in England a burned bishop might be effect-
live: "Let the burned bishop, the unwilling

Latimer," said he, consolingly, “remember that, | splendent of the London parks or the Bois de however painful gradual cineration by fire may Boulogne? Are not their wives and daughters— be, his death will produce unspeakable benefit thanks to the facile presentations of their politic to the public." A director perpetually tied to national representatives-able to glitter their a locomotive in the guise of a modern Mazeppa, diamonds in imperial and queenly eyes at court might perhaps serve a good purpose in America. ball and levee? He and his fellows might then be more zealous to secure soundness to their steam-horses and clearness to their tracks. They would certainly discover by personal experience that life is more valuable to the traveler than a dividend to a stockholder. Though in favor, generally, of the greatest possible freedom of enterprise, the illmanagement of our railroads, as far as the security of passengers is concerned, disposes us to wish for the interference of Government. In France and Germany, where travel on the railways is managed by the public authorities, accidents have become so rare that the risk to life has been reduced almost to zero.

It is not easy to analyze the vague and confused motives which induce our wealthy people to travel abroad. Many of them go for no better reason than because traveling costs money, and being necessarily more or less exclusive, is approved by fashion. Paterfamilias may have some vague notion of getting more worth for his dollars by greater opportunities for display or the enjoyment of luxury. His wife is bent, perhaps, on a presentation to court, that on her return she may hold up her head with her neighbor, Mrs. Jones, who has enjoyed the honor before her. His daughter is probably indulging in pleasant anticipatory visions of a close approximation to the whiskers of a genuine count, or of the possession of a French bonnet fresh from the hands of the Empress's own modiste. His son, no doubt, is dreaming of Parisian boots, the freedom of Parisian cafés, and the facility of Parisian damsels. With these motives may be mixed some indefinite expectations of beholding cities of palaces, great galleries of statues and paintings, brilliant assemblages in operas and theatres, court shows, and live monarchs and noblemen. To prepare for a journey prompted by such motives, Paterfamil

Business carries more Americans to Europe, as it does to every part of the world, than any other motive. Our representatives abroad were in past times almost exclusively some enterprising Yankee traders, who, accompanied by their wives and daughters, made an occasional trip to London, Paris, and the Continent, on the prospective profits of their ventures to Liverpool, and purchases of dry-goods and hardware at Manchester and Birmingham. It was then that our fastidious countryman, Fenimore Cooper, declared that his respectable fellow-citizens passed throughout Europe for second-class English-ias and his family have nothing to do but to semen. They were worthy bourgeois, as the French cure an unlimited credit at their banker's, obcall them; and though their pretensions may tain passports, letters of introduction to our have occasionally provoked a higher comparison, ministers abroad, and the addresses from their they should have been estimated by the standard traveled friends of the most fashionable and exof decent citizenship, and judged accordingly. pensive hotels, shop-keepers, boot-makers, moIf their manners wanted the grace of the debo-distes, and marchands de modes in Europe, buy nair milors and miladies of the English aristocra- | a library of guide-books, and pack their portcy, who were flashing their orders and diamonds manteaus. All they shall have to show on from court to court, and exercising their practiced connoisseurship in the picture-galleries of Europe, it was no reason to sneer at our fellowcitizens. If in traveling they sought to furbish themselves by the hasty application of foreign polish, or gratify a natural curiosity of seeing what was to be seen, they were exercising an undeniable right, and engaging in a not illaudable pursuit. Their substantial virtues, of which they possessed at least an average share, should have warded off all scorn of their attempts, however awkward, at acquiring the graces.

We have now, with the rapid increase of wealth in our country, a large number of travelers to Europe of more exalted pretensions than the worthy itinerant tradesmen of former times. You would fall far short of their estimate of themselves if you should rank them with secondclass Englishmen, or any grade of mankind lower than the highest. Can't many of them count incomes with the richest of Europe? Don't they occupy more expensive apartments in the Place Vendôme than the British peer in the same hotel? Are not their equipages as fine and their liveries as showy as the most re

their return will be a heavy bill of expense, a stock of Parisian dresses, bonnets, boots, shoes, and gloves, an increased assumption of importance, which will make them disliked by their acquaintances, and a taste for foreign luxury which will render their own country unpalatable to themselves.

Lord Bacon thought more gravely of travel. "It is," he said, "in the younger sort a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school and not to travel.........The things to be seen and observed are the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to embassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations, and lectures, where they are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, bourses, ware