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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

T >> Thomas Stevens >> Around the World on a Bicycle V1




Fifteen miles of good riding and three of tough trundling, through deep
sand, brings me into Indiana, which for the first thirty-five miles
around the southern shore of Lake Michigan is "simply and solely sand."
Finding it next to impossible to traverse the wagon-roads, I trundle
around the water's edge, where the sand is firmer because wet. After
twenty miles of this I have to shoulder the bicycle and scale the huge
sand-dunes that border the lake here, and after wandering for an hour
through a bewildering wilderness of swamps, sand-hills, and hickory
thickets, I finally reach Miller Station for the night. This place is
enough to give one the yellow-edged blues: nothing but swamps, sand,
sad-eyed turtles, and ruthless, relentless mosquitoes. At Chesterton the
roads improve, but still enough sand remains to break the force of
headers, which, notwithstanding my long experience on the road, I still
manage to execute with undesirable frequency. To-day I take one, and
while unravelling myself and congratulating my lucky stars at being in
a lonely spot where none can witness my discomfiture, a gruff, sarcastic
"haw-haw" falls like a funeral knell on my ear, and a lanky "Hoosier"
rides up on a diminutive pumpkin-colored mule that looks a veritable
pygmy between his hoop-pole legs. It is but justice to explain that this
latter incident did not occur in "Posey County."

At La Porte the roads improve for some distance, but once again I am
benighted, and sleep under a wheat-shock. Traversing several miles of
corduroy road, through huckleberry swamps, next morning, I reach Cram's
Point for breakfast. A remnant of some Indian tribe still lingers around
here and gathers huckleberries for the market, two squaws being in the
village purchasing supplies for their camp in the swamps. "What's the
name of these Indians here?" I ask.. "One of em's Blinkie, and t'other's
Seven-up," is the reply, in a voice that implies such profound knowledge
of the subject that I forbear to investigate further.

Splendid gravel roads lead from Crum's Point to South Bend, and on through
Mishawaka, alternating with sandy stretches to Goshen, which town is
said - by the Goshenites - to be the prettiest in Indiana; but there seems
to be considerable pride of locality in the great Hoosier State, and I
venture there are scores of "prettiest towns in Indiana." Nevertheless,
Goshen is certainly a very handsome place, with unusually broad, well-shaded
streets; the centre of a magnificent farming country, it is romantically
situated on the banks of the beautiful Elkhart Eiver. At "Wawaka I find
a corpulent 300-pound cycler, who, being afraid to trust his jumbolean
proportions on an ordinary machine, has had an extra stout bone-shaker
made to order, and goes out on short runs with a couple of neighbor
wheelmen, who, being about fifty per cent, less bulky, ride regulation
wheels. "Jumbo" goes all right when mounted, but, being unable to mount
without aid, he seldom ventures abroad by himself for fear of having to
foot it back. Ninety-five degrees in the shade characterizes the weather
these days, and I generally make a few miles in the gloaming - not, of
course, because it is cooler, but because the "gloaming" is so delightfully
romantic.

At ten o'clock in the morning, July 17th, I bowl across the boundary
line into Ohio. Following the Merchants' and Bankers' Telegraph road to
Napoleon, I pass through a district where the rain has overlooked them
for two months; the rear wheel of the bicycle is half buried in hot dust;
the blackberries are dead on the bushes, and the long-suffering corn
looks as though afflicted with the yellow jaundice. I sup this same
evening with a family of Germans, who have been settled here forty years,
and scarcely know a word of English yet. A fat, phlegmatic-looking baby
is peacefully reposing in a cradle, which is simply half a monster pumpkin
scooped out and dried; it is the most intensely rustic cradle in the
world. Surely, this youngster's head ought to be level on agricultural
affairs, when he grows up, if anybody's ought. From Napoleon my route
leads up the Maumee River and canal, first trying the tow-path of the
latter, and then relinquishing it for the very fair wagon-road. The
Maumee River, winding through its splendid rich valley, seems to possess
a peculiar beauty all its own, and my mind, unbidden, mentally compares
it with our old friend, the Humboldt. The latter stream traverses dreary
plains, where almost nothing but sagebrush grows; the Maumee waters a
smiling valley, where orchards, fields, and meadows alternate with sugar-
maple groves, and in its fair bosom reflects beautiful landscape views,
that are changed and rebeautified by the master-hand of the sun every hour
of the day, and doubly embellished at night by the moon. It is whispered that
during " the late unpleasantness " the Ohio regiments could out-yell the
Louisiana tigers, or any other Confederate troops, two to one. Who has not
heard the "Ohio yell?" Most people are magnanimously inclined to regard this
rumor as simply a "gag" on the Buckeye boys; but it isn't. The Ohioans
are to the manner born; the "Buckeye yell" is a tangible fact. All along the
Maumee it resounds in my ears; nearly every man or boy, who from the
fields, far or near, sees me bowling along the road, straightway delivers
himself of a yell, pure and simple. At Perrysburg, I strike the famous
"Maumee pike"-forty miles of stone road, almost a dead level. The western
half is kept in rather poor repair these days; but from Fremont eastward it
is splendid wheeling. The atmosphere of Bellevue is blue with politics, and
myself and another innocent, unsuspecting individual, hailing from New York,
are enticed into a political meeting by a wily politician, and dexterously made to
pose before the assembled company as two gentlemen who have come - one
from the Atlantic, the other from the Pacific - to witness the overwhelming
success of the only honest, horny-handed, double-breasted patriots - the...
party. The roads are found rather sandy east of the pike, and the roadful
of wagons going to the circus, which exhibits to-day at Norwalk, causes
considerable annoyance.

Erie County, through which I am now passing, is one of the finest fruit
countries in the world, and many of the farmers keep open orchard. Staying
at Eidgeville overnight, I roll into Cleveland, and into the out-stretched
arms of a policeman, at 10 o'clock, next morning. "He was violating the
city ordinance by riding on the sidewalk," the arresting policeman informs
the captain. "Ah! he was, hey!" thunders the captain, in a hoarse, bass
voice that causes my knees to knock together with fear and trembling;
and the captain's eye seems to look clear through my trembling form.
"P-l-e-a-s-e, s-i-r, I d-i-d-n't t-r-y t-o d-o i-t," I falter, in a weak,
gasping voice that brings tears to the eyes of the assembled officers
and melts the captain's heart, so that he is already wavering between
justice and mercy when a local wheelman comes gallantly to the rescue,
and explains my natural ignorance of Cleveland's city laws, and I breathe
the joyous air of freedom once again. Three members of the Cleveland
Bicycle Club and a visiting wheelman accompany me ten miles out, riding
down far-famed Euclid Avenue, and calling at Lake View Cemetery to pay
a visit to Garfleld's tomb. I bid them farewell at Euclid village.
Following the ridge road leading along the shore of Lake Erie to Buffalo,
I ride through a most beautiful farming country, passing through "Willoughby
and Mentor-Garfield's old home. Splendidly kept roads pass between avenues
of stately maples, that cast a grateful shade athwart the highway, both
sides of which are lined with magnificent farms, whose fields and meadows
fairly groan beneath their wealth of produce, whose fructiferous orchards
arc marvels of productiveness, and whose barns and stables would be
veritable palaces to the sod-housed homesteaders on Nebraska's frontier
prairies. Prominent among them stands the old Garfield homestead - a fine
farm of one hundred and sixty-five acres, at present managed by Mrs.
Garfield's brother. Smiling villages nestling amid stately groves, rearing
white church-spires from out their green, bowery surroundings, dot the
low, broad, fertile shore-land to the left; the gleaming waters of Lake
Erie here and there glisten like burnished steel through the distant
interspaces, and away beyond stretches northward, like a vast mirror,
to kiss the blue Canadian skies. Near Conneaut I whirl the dust of the
Buckeye State from my tire and cress over into Pennsylvania, where, from
the little hamlet of Springfield, the roads become good, then better,
and finally best at Girard-the home of the veteran showman, Dan Rice,
the beautifying works of whose generous hand are everywhere visible in
his native town. Splendid is the road and delightful the country coming
east from Girard; even the red brick school-houses are embowered amid
leafy groves; and so it continues with ever-varying, ever-pleasing beauty
to Erie, after which the highway becomes hardly so good.

Twenty-four hours after entering Pennsylvania I make my exit across the
boundary into the Empire State. The roads continue good, and after
dinner I reach Westfield, six miles from the famous Lake Chautauqua,
which beautiful hill and forest embowered sheet of water is popularly
believed by many of its numerous local admirers to be the highest navigable
lake in the world. If so, however, Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains comes next, as it is about six thousand feet above the level
of the sea, and has three steamers plying on its waters. At Fredonia I
am shown through the celebrated watch-movement factory here, by the
captain of the Fredonia Club, who accompanies me to Silver Creek,
where we call on another enthusiastic wheelman-a physician who uses
the wheel in preference to a horse, in making professional calls
throughout the surround-in' country. Taking supper with the genial "Doc.,"
they both accompany me to the s.ummit of a steep hill leading up out of
the creek bottom. No wheelman has ever yet rode up this hill, save the
muscular and gritty captain of the Fredonia Club, though several have
attempted the feat. From the top my road ahead is plainly visible for miles,
leading through the broad and smiling Cattaraugus Valley that is spread
out like a vast garden below, through which Cattaraugus Creek slowly
winds its tortuous way. Stopping over night at Angola I proceed to
Buffalo next morning, catching the first glimpse of that important " seaport
of the lakes," where, fifteen miles across the bay, the wagon-road is
almost licked by the swashing waves; and entering the city over a " misfit"
plank-road, off which I am almost upset by the most audaciously
indifferent woman in the world. A market woman homeward bound with
her empty truck-wagon, recognizes my road-rights to the extent of barely
room to squeeze past between her wagon and the ditch; and holds her long,
stiff buggy-whip so that it " swipes " me viciously across the face, knocks
my helmet off into the mud ditch, and well-nigh upsets mo into the same.
The woman-a crimson-crested blonde - jogs serenely along without even
deigning to turn her head. Leaving the bicycle at "Isham's "-who volunteers
some slight repairs-I take a flying visit by rail to see Niagara Falls, returning
the same evening to enjoy the proffered hospitality of a genial member of
the Buffalo Bicycle Club. Seated on the piazza of his residence, on
Delaware Avenue, this evening, the symphonious voice of the club-whistle
is cast adrift whenever the glowing orb of a cycle-lamp heaves in sight
through the darkness, and several members of the club are thus rounded
up and their hearts captured by the witchery of a smile-a " smile " in
Buffalo, I hasten to explain, is no kin whatever to a Rocky Mountain "smile"
- far be it from it. This club-wliistle of the Buffalo Bicycle Club happens
to sing the same melodious song as the police - whistle at Washington, D.
C.; and the Buffalo cyclers who graced the national league - meet at the
Capital with their presence took a folio of club music along. A small
but frolicsome party of them on top of the Washington monument, "heaved
a sigh " from their whistles, at a comrade passing along the street
below, when a corpulent policeman, naturally mistaking it for a signal
from a brother "cop," hastened to climb the five hundred feet or thereabouts
of ascent up the monument. When he arrived, puffing and perspiring, to
the summit, and discovered his mistake, the wheelmen say he made such
awful use of the Queen's English that the atmosphere had a blue, sulphurous
tinge about it for some time after. Leaving Buffalo next morning I pass
through Batavia, where the wheelmen have a most aesthetic little club-room.
Besides being jovial and whole-souled fellows, they are awfully sesthetic;
and the sweetest little Japanese curios and bric-d-brac decorate the
walls and tables. Stopping over night at LeBoy, in company with the
president and captain of the LeBoy Club, I visit the State fish-hatchery
at Mumford next morning, and ride on through the Genesee Valley, finding
fair roads through the valley, though somewhat hilly and stony toward
Canandaigua. Inquiring the best road to Geneva I am advised of the
superiority of the one leading past the poor-house. Finding them somewhat
intricate, and being too super-sensitive to stop people and ask them the
road to the poor-house, I deservedly get lost, and am wandering erratically
eastward through the darkness, when I fortunately meet a wheelman in a
buggy, who directs me to his mother's farm-house near by, with instructions
to that most excellent lady to accommodate me for the night. Nine o'clock
next morning I reach fair Geneva, so beautifully situated on Seneca's
silvery lake, passing the State agricultural farm en route; continuing
on up the Seneca Eiver, passing-through Waterloo and Seneca Falls to
Cayuga, and from thence to Auburn and Skaneateles, where I heave a sigh
at the thoughts of leaving the last - I cannot say the loveliest, for all
are equally lovely - of that beautiful chain of lakes that transforms
this part of New York State into a vast and delightful summer resort.

"Down a romantic Swiss glen, where scores of sylvan nooks and rippling
rills invite one to cast about for fairies and sprites," is the word
descriptive of my route from Marcellus next morning. Once again, on
nearing the Camillus outlet from the narrow vale, I hear the sound of
Sunday bells, and after the church-bell-less Western wilds, it seems to
me that their notes have visited me amid beautiful scenes, strangely
often of late. Arriving at Camillus, I ask the name of the sparkling
little stream that dances along this fairy glen like a child at play,
absorbing the sun-rays and coquettishly reflecting them in the faces of
the venerable oaks that bend over it like loving guardians protecting
it from evil. My ears are prepared to hear a musical Indian name -
"Laughing-Waters " at least; but, like a week's washing ruthlessly intruding
upon love's young dream, falls on my waiting ears the unpoetic misnomer,
"Nine-Mile Creek." Over good roads to Syracuse, and from thence my route
leads down the Erie Canal, alternately riding down the canal tow-path,
the wagon-roads, and between the tracks of the New York Central Railway.
On the former, the greatest drawback to peaceful cycling is the towing-mule
and his unwarrantable animosity toward the bicycle, and the awful,
unmentionable profanity engendered thereby in the utterances of the
boatmen. Sometimes the burden of this sulphurous profanity is aimed at
me, sometimes at the inoffensive bicycle, or both of us collectively,
but oftener is it directed at the unspeakable mule, who is really the
only party to blame. A mule scares, not because he is really afraid, but
because he feels skittishly inclined to turn back, or to make trouble
between his enemies - the boatmen, his task-master, and the cycler, an
intruder on his exclusive domain, the Erie tow-path. A span of mules
will pretend to scare, whirl around, and jerk loose from the driver, and
go "scooting" back down the tow-path in a manner indicating that nothing
less than a stone wall would stop them; but, exactly in the nick of time
to prevent the tow-line jerking them sidewise into the canal, they stop.
Trust a mule for never losing his head when he runs away, as does his
hot-headed relative, the horse; who never once allows surrounding
circumstances to occupy his thoughts to an extent detrimental to his own
self-preservative interests. The Erie Canal mule's first mission in life
is to engender profanity and strife between boatmen and cyclists, and
the second is to work and chew hay, which brings him out about even with
the world all round. At Rome I enter the famous and beautiful Mohawk
Valley, a place long looked forward to with much pleasurable anticipation,
from having heard so often of its natural beauties and its interesting
historical associations. "It's the garden spot of the world; and
travellers who have been all over Europe and everywhere, say there's
nothing in the world to equal the quiet landscape beauty of the Mohawk
Valley," enthusiastically remarks an old gentelman in spectacles, whom
I chance to encounter on the heights east of Herkimer. Of the first
assertion I have nothing to say, having passed through a dozen "garden
spots of the world " on this tour across America; but there is no
gainsaying the fact that the Mohawk Valley, as viewed from this vantage
spot, is wonderfully beautiful. I think it must have been on this spot
that the poet received inspiration to compose the beautiful song that
is sung alike in the quiet homes of the valley itself and in the trapper's
and hunter's tent on the far off Yellowstone - "Fair is the vale where
the Mohawk gently glides, On its clear, shining way to the sea." The
valley ia one of the natural gateways of commerce, for, at Little Falls -
where it contracts to a mere pass between the hills - one can almost throw
a stone across six railway tracks, the Erie Canal and the Mohawk River.
Spending an hour looking over the magnificent Capitol building at Albany,
I cross the Hudson, and proceed to ride eastward between the two tracks
of the Boston & Albany Railroad, finding the riding very fair. From the
elevated road-bed I cast a longing, lingering look down the Hudson Valley,
that stretches away southward like a heaven-born dream, and sigh at the
impossibility of going two ways at once. " There's $50 fine for riding
a bicycle along the B. & A. Railroad," I am informed at Albany, but risk
it to Schodack, where I make inquiries of a section foreman. "No; there's
no foine; but av yeez are run over an' git killed, it'll be useless for
yeez to inther suit agin the company for damages," is the reassuring
reply; and the unpleasant visions of bankrupting fines dissolve in a
smile at this characteristic Milesian explanation. Crossing the Massachusetts
boundary at the village of State Line, I find the roads excellent; and,
thinking that the highways of the " Old Bay State " will be good enough
anywhere, I grow careless about the minute directions given me by Albany
wheelmen, and, ere long, am laboriously toiling over the heavy roads and
steep grades of the Berkshire Hills, endeavoring to get what consolation
I can, in return for unridable roads, out of the charming scenery, and
the many interesting features of the Berkshire-Hill country. It is at
Otis, in the midst of these hills, that I first become acquainted with
the peculiar New England dialect in its native home. The widely heralded
intellectual superiority of the Massachusetts fair ones asserts itself
even in the wildest parts of these wild hills; for at small farms - that,
in most States, would be characterized by bare-footed, brown-faced
housewives - I encounter spectacled ladies whose fair faces reflect the
encyclopaedia of knowledge within, and whose wise looks naturally fill
me with awe. At Westfield I learn that Karl Kron, the author and publisher
of the American roadbook, " Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle" - not to be
outdone by my exploit of floating the bicycle across the Humboldt - undertook
the perilous feat of swimming the Potomac with his bicycle suspended at
his waist, and had to be fished up from the bottom with a boat-hook.
Since then, however, I have seen the gentleman himself, who assures me
that the whole story is a canard. Over good roads to Springfield - and on
through to Palmer; from thence riding the whole distance to Worcester
between the tracks of the railway, in preference to the variable country
roads.

On to Boston next morning, now only forty miles away, I pass venerable
weather-worn mile-stones, set up in old colonial days, when the Great
West, now trailed across with the rubber hoof-marks of "the popular steed
of today," was a pathless wilderness, and on the maps a blank. Striking
the famous "sand-papered roads " at Framingham - which, by the by, ought
to be pumice-stoned a little to make them as good for cycling as stretches
of gravelled road near Springfield, Sandwich, and Piano, Ill.; La Porte,
and South Bend, Ind.; Mentor, and Willoughby, O.; Girard, Penn.; several
places on the ridge road between Erie and Buffalo, and the alkali flats
of the Rocky Mountain territories. Soon the blue intellectual haze
hovering over " the Hub " heaves in sight, and, at two o'clock in the
afternoon of August 4th, I roll into Boston, and whisper to the wild
waves of the sounding Atlantic what the sad sea-waves of the Pacific
were saying when I left there, just one hundred and three and a half
days ago, having wheeled about 3,700 miles to deliver the message. Passing
the winter of 1884-85 in New York, I became acquainted with the Outing
Magazine, contributed to it sketches of my tour across America, and in
the Spring of 1885 continued around the world as its special correspondent;
embarking April 9th from New York, for Liverpool, aboard the City of
Chicago.






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 the Atlantic the weather is
delightful; and the passengers - well, half the cabin-passengers are members
of Henry Irving's Lyceum Company en route home after their second
successful tour in America; and old voyagers abroad who have crossed the
Atlantic scores of times pronounce it altogether the most enjoyable trip
they ever experienced. The third day out we encountered a lonesome-looking
iceberg - an object that the captain seemed to think would be better
appreciated, and possibly more affectionately remembered, if viewed at
the respectful distance of about four miles. It proves a cold, unsympathetic
berg, yet extremely entertaining in its own way, since it accommodates
us by neutralizing pretty much all the surplus caloric in the atmosphere
around for hours after it has disappeared below the horizon of our vision.
I am particularly fortunate in finding among my fellow-passengers Mr.
Harry B. French, the traveller and author, from whom I obtain much
valuable information, particularly of China. Mr. French has travelled
some distance through the Flowery Kingdom himself, and thoughtfully
forewarns me to anticipate a particularly lively and interesting time
in invading that country with a vehicle so strange and incomprehensible
to the Celestial mind as a bicycle. This experienced gentleman informs
me, among other interesting things, that if five hundred chattering
Celestials batter down the door and swarm unannounced at midnight into
the apartment where I am endeavoring to get the first wink of sleep
obtained for a whole week, instead of following the natural inclinations
of an AngloSaxon to energetically defend his rights with a stuffed club,
I shall display Solomon-like wisdom by quietly submitting to the invasion,
and deferentially bowing to Chinese inquisitiveness. If, on an occasion
of this nature, one stationed himself behind the door, and, as a sort
of preliminary warning to the others, greeted the first interloper with
the business end of a boot-jack, he would be morally certain of a lively
one-sided misunderstanding that might end disastrously to himself;
whereas, by meekly submitting to a critical and exhaustive examination
by the assembled company, he might even become the recipient of an apology
for having had to batter down the door in order to satisfy their curiosity.
One needs more discretion than valor in dealing with the Chinese. At
noon on the 19th we reach Liverpool, where I find a letter awaiting me
from A. J. Wilson (Faed), inviting me to call on him at Powerscroft
House, London, and offering to tandem me through the intricate mazes of
the West End; likewise asking whether it would be agreeable to have him,
with others, accompany me from London down to the South coast - a programme
to which, it is needless to say, I entertain no objections. As the custom-
house officer wrenches a board off the broad, flat box containing my
American bicycle, several fellow-passengers, prompted by their curiosity
to obtain a peep at the machine which they have learned is to carry me
around the world, gather about; and one sympathetic lady, as she catches
a glimpse of the bright nickeled forks, exclaims, "Oh, what a shame
that they should be allowed to wrench the planks off. They might injure
it;" but a small tip thoroughly convinces the individual prying off the
board that, by removing one section and taking a conscientious squint
in the direction of the closed end, his duty to the British government
would be performed as faithfully as though everything were laid bare;
and the kind-hearted lady's apprehensions of possible injury are thus
happily allayed. In two hours after landing, the bicycle is safely stowed
away in the underground store-rooms of the Liverpool & Northwestern
Railway Company, and in two hours more I am wheeling rapidly toward
London, through neatly cultivated fields, and meadows and parks of that
intense greenness met with nowhere save in the British Isles, and which
causes a couple of native Americans, riding in the same compartment, and
who are visiting England for the first time, to express their admiration
of it all in the unmeasured language of the genuine Yankee when truly
astonished and delighted. Arriving in London I lose no time in seeking
out Mr. Bolton, a well-known wheelman, who has toured on the continent
probably as extensively as any other English cycler, and to whom I bear
a letter of introduction. Together, on Monday afternoon, we ruthlessly
invade the sanctums of the leading cycling papers in London. Mr. Bolton
is also able to give me several useful hints concerning wheeling through
France and Germany. Then comes the application for a passport, and the
inevitable unpleasantness of being suspected by every policeman and
detective about the government buildings of being a wild-eyed dynamiter
recently arrived from America with the fell purpose of blowing up the
place. On Tuesday I make a formal descent on the Chinese Embassy, to
seek information regarding the possibility of making a serpentine trail
through the Flowery Kingdom via Upper Burmah to Hong-Kong or Shanghai.
Here I learn from Dr. McCarty, the interpreter at the Embassy, as from
Mr. French, that, putting it as mildly as possible, I must expect a wild
time generally in getting through the interior of China with a bicycle.
The Doctor feels certain that I may reasonably anticipate the pleasure
of making my way through a howling wilderness of hooting Celestials from
one end of the country to the other. The great danger, he thinks, will
be not so much the well-known aversion of the Chinese to having an
"outer barbarian" penetrate the sacred interior of their country, as the
enormous crowds that would almost constantly surround me out of curiosity
at both rider and wheel, and the moral certainty of a foreigner unwittingly
doing something to offend the Chinamen's peculiar and deep-rooted notions
of propriety. This, it is easily seen, would be a peculiarly ticklish
thing to do when surrounded by surging masses of dangling pig-tails and
cerulean blouses, the wearers of which are from the start predisposed
to make things as unpleasant as possible. My own experience alone,
however, will prove the kind of reception I am likely to meet with among
them; and if they will only considerately refrain from impaling me on a
bamboo, after a barbarous and highly ingenious custom of theirs, I little
reck what other unpleasantries they have in store. After one remains in
the world long enough to find it out, he usually becomes less fastidious
about the future of things in general, than when in the hopeful days of
boyhood every prospect ahead was fringed with the golden expectations
of a budding and inexperienced imagery; nevertheless, a thoughtful,
meditative person, who realizes the necessity of drawing the line
somewhere, would naturally draw it at impalation. Not being conscious
of any presentiment savoring of impalation, however, the only request I
make of the Chinese, at present, is to place no insurmountable obstacle
against my pursuing the even-or uneven, as the case may be-tenor of my
way through their country. China, though, is several revolutions of my
fifty-inch wheel away to the eastward, at this present time of writing,
and speculations in regard to it are rather premature.

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