A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




Soon after reaching London I have the pleasure of meeting "Faed," a
gentleman who carries his cycling enthusiasm almost where some people
are said to carry their hearts-on his sleeve; so that a very short
acquaintance only is necessary to convince one of being in the company
of a person whose interest in whirling wheels is of no ordinary nature.
When I present myself at Powerscroft House, Faed is busily wandering
around among the curves and angles of no less than three tricycles,
apparently endeavoring to encompass the complicated mechanism of all
three in one grand comprehensive effort of the mind, and the addition
of as many tricycle crates standing around makes the premises so suggestive
of a flourishing tricycle agency that an old gentleman, happening to
pass by at the moment, is really quite excusable in stopping and inquiring
the prices, with a view to purchasing one for himself. Our tandem ride
through the West End has to be indefinitely postponed, on account of my
time being limited, and our inability to procure readily a suitable
machine; and Mr. Wilson's bump of discretion would not permit him to
think of allowing me to attempt the feat of manoeuvring a tricycle myself
among the bewildering traffic of the metropolis, and risk bringing my
"wheel around the world" to an inglorious conclusion before being fairly
begun. While walking down Parliament Street my attention is called to a
venerable-looking gentleman wheeling briskly along among the throngs
of vehicles of every description, and I am informed that the bold tricycler
is none other than Major Knox Holmes, a vigorous youth of some seventy-eight
summers, who has recently accomplished the feat of riding one hundred
and fourteen miles in ten hours; for a person nearly eighty years of age
this is really quite a promising performance, and there is small doubt
but that when the gallant Major gets a little older - say when he becomes
a centenarian - he will develop into a veritable prodigy on the cinder-path!
Having obtained my passport, and got it vised for the Sultan's dominions
at the Turkish consulate, and placed in Faed's possession a bundle of
maps, which he generously volunteers to forward , to me, as I require
them in the various countries it is proposed to traverse, I return on
April 30th to Liverpool, from which point the formal start on the wheel
across England is to be made. Four o'clock in the afternoon of May 2d
is the time announced, and Edge Hill Church is the appointed place, where
Mr. Lawrence , Fletcher, of the Anfield Bicycle Club, and a number of
other Liverpool wheelmen, have volunteered to meet and accompany me some
distance out of the city. Several of the Liverpool daily papers have
made mention of the affair. Accordingly, upon arriving at the appointed
place and time, I find a crowd of several hundred people gathered to
satisfy their curiosity as to what sort of a looking individual it is
who has crossed America awheel, and furthermore proposes to accomplish
the greater feat of the circumlocution of the globe. A small sea of hats
is enthusiastically waved aloft; a ripple of applause escapes from five
hundred English throats as I mount my glistening bicycle; and, with the
assistance of a few policemen, the twenty-five Liverpool cyclers who
have assembled to accompany me out, extricate themselves from the crowd,
mount and fall into line two abreast; and merrily we wheel away down
Edge Lane and out of Liverpool.

English weather at this season is notoriously capricious, and the present
year it is unusually so, and ere the start is fairly made we are pedaling
along through quite a pelting shower, which, however, fails to make much
impression on the roads beyond causing the flinging of more or less mud.
The majority of my escort are members of the Anfield Club, who have the
enviable reputation of being among the hardest road-riders in England,
several members having accomplished over two hundred miles within the
twenty-four hours; and I am informed that Mr. Fletcher is soon to undertake
the task of beating the tricycle record over that already well-contested
route, from John O'Groat's to Land's End. Sixteen miles out I become
the happy recipient of hearty well-wishes innumerable, with the accompanying
hand-shaking, and my escort turn back toward home and Liverpool - all save
four, who wheel on to Warrington and remain overnight, with the avowed
intention of accompanying me twenty-five miles farther to-morrow morning.
Our Sunday morning experience begins with a shower of rain, which,
however, augurs well for the remainder of the day; and, save for a gentle
head wind, no reproachful remarks are heard about that much-criticised
individual, the clerk of the weather; especially as our road leads through
a country prolific of everything charming to one's sense of the beautiful.
Moreover, we are this morning bowling along the self-same highway that
in days of yore was among the favorite promenades of a distinguished and
enterprising individual known to every British juvenile as Dick Turpin - a
person who won imperishable renown, and the undying affection of the
small Briton of to-day, by making it unsafe along here for stage-coaches
and travellers indiscreet enough to carry valuables about with them.

"Think I'll get such roads as this all through England." I ask of my
escort as we wheel joyously southward along smooth, macadamized highways
that would make the "sand-papered roads" around Boston seem almost
unfit for cycling in comparison, and that lead through picturesque
villages and noble parks; occasionally catching a glimpse of a splendid
old manor among venerable trees, that makes one unconsciously begin
humming:- "The ancient homes of England, How beautiful they stand Amidst
the tall ancestral trees O'er all the pleasant land." "Oh, you'll get
much better roads than this in the southern counties," is the reply;
though, fresh from American roads, one can scarce see what shape the
improvements can possibly take. Out of Lancashire into Cheshire we wheel,
and my escort, after wishing me all manner of good fortune in hearty
Lancashire style, wheel about and hie themselves back toward the rumble
and roar of the world's greatest sea-port, leaving me to pedal pleasantly
southward along the green lanes and amid the quiet rural scenery of
Staffordshire to Stone, where I remain Sunday night. The country is
favored with another drenching down-pour of rain during the night, and
moisture relentlessly descends at short, unreliable intervals on Monday
morning, as I proceed toward Birmingham. Notwithstanding the superabundant
moisture the morning ride is a most enjoyable occasion, requiring but a
dash of sunshine to make everything perfect. The mystic voice of the
cuckoo is heard from many an emerald copse around; songsters that inhabit
only the green hedges and woods of "Merrie England" are carolling their
morning vespers in all directions; skylarks are soaring, soaring skyward,
warbling their unceasing paeans of praise as they gradually ascend into
cloudland's shadowy realms; and occasionally I bowl along beneath an
archway of spreading beeches that are colonized by crowds of noisy rooks
incessantly "cawing" their approval or disapproval of things in general.
Surely England, with its wellnigh perfect roads, the wonderful greenness
of its vegetation, and its roadsters that meet and regard their steel-ribbed
rivals with supreme indifference, is the natural paradise of 'cyclers.
There is no annoying dismounting for frightened horses on these happy
highways, for the English horse, though spirited and brim-ful of fire,
has long since accepted the inevitable, and either has made friends with
the wheelman and his swift-winged steed, or, what is equally agreeable,
maintain a a haughty reserve. Pushing along leisurely, between showers,
into Warwickshire, I reach Birmingham about three o'clock, and, after
spending an hour or so looking over some tricycle works, and calling for
a leather writing-case they are making especially for my tour, I wheel
on to Coventry, having the company, of Mr. Priest, Jr., of the tricycle
works, as far as Stonehouse. Between Birmingham and Coventry the recent
rainfall has evidently been less, and I mentally note this fifteen-mile
stretch of road as the finest traversed since leaving Liverpool, both
for width and smoothness of surface, it being a veritable boulevard.
Arriving at Coventry I call on "Brother Sturmey, " a gentleman well and
favorably known to readers of 'cycling literature everywhere; and, as I
feel considerably like deserving reasonably gentle treatment after
perseveringly pressing forward sixty miles in spite of the rain, I request
him to steer me into the Cyclists' Touring Club Hotel - an office which
he smilingly performs, and thoughtfully admonishes the proprietor to
handle me as tenderly as possible. I am piloted around to take a hurried
glance at Coventry, visiting, among other objects of interest, the Starley
Memorial. This memorial is interesting to 'cyclers from having been
erected by public subscription in recognition of the great interest Mr.
Starley took in the 'cycle industry, he having been, in fact, the father
of the interest in Coventry, and, consequently, the direct author of the
city's present prosperity. The mind of the British small boy along my
route has been taxed to its utmost to account for my white military
helmet, and various and interesting are the passing remarks heard in
consequence. The most general impression seems to be that I am direct
from the Soudan, some youthful Conservatives blandly intimating The
Starley Memorial, Coventry, that I am the advance-guard of a general
scuttle of the army out of Egypt, and that presently whole regiments of
white-helmeted wheelmen will come whirling along the roads on
nickel-plated steeds, some even going so far as to do me the honor of
calling me General Wolseley; while others - rising young Liberals,
probably - recklessly call me General Gordon, intimating by this that the
hero of Khartoum was not killed, after all, and is proving it by sweeping
through England on a bicycle, wearing a white helmet to prove his identity!

A pleasant ride along a splendid road, shaded for miles with rows of
spreading elms, brings me to the charming old village of Dunchurch, where
everything seems moss-grown and venerable with age. A squatty,
castle-like church-tower, that has stood the brunt of many
centuries, frowns down upon a cluster of picturesque, thatched
cottages of primitive architecture, and ivy-clad from top to bottom;
while, to make the picture complete, there remain even the old wooden
stocks, through the holes of which the feet of boozy unfortunates were
wont to be unceremoniously thrust in the good old times of rude simplicity;
in fact, the only really unprimitive building about the place appears
to be a newly erected Methodist chapel. It couldn't be - no, of course it
couldn't be possible, that there is any connecting link between the
American peculiarity of elevating the feet on the window-sill or the
drum of the heating-stove and this old-time custom of elevating the feet
of those of our ancestors possessed of boozy, hilarious proclivities!
At Weedon Barracks I make a short halt to watch the soldiers go through
the bayonet exercises, and suffer myself to be persuaded into quaffing
a mug of delicious, creamy stout at the canteen with a genial old sergeant,
a bronzed veteran who has seen active service in several of the tough
expeditions that England seems ever prone to undertake in various
uncivilized quarters of the world; after which I wheel away over old
Roman military roads, through Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire,
reaching Fenny Stratford just in time to find shelter against the
machinations of the "weather-clerk", who, having withheld rain nearly all
the afternoon, begins dispensing it again in the gloaming. It rains
uninterruptedly all night; but, although my route for some miles is now
down cross-country lanes, the rain has only made them rather disagreeable,
without rendering them in any respect unridable; and although I am among
the slopes of the Chiltern Hills, scarcely a dismount is necessary during
the forenoon. Spending the night at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, I pull
out toward London on Thursday morning, and near Watford am highly gratified
at meeting Faed and the captain of the North London Tricycle Club, who
have come out on their tricycles from London to meet and escort me into
the metropolis. At Faed's suggestion I decide to remain over in London
until Saturday to be present at the annual tricycle meet on Barnes Common,
and together we wheel down the Edgeware Road, Park Road, among the
fashionable turnouts of Piccadilly, past Knightsbridge and Brompton to
the "Inventories" Exhibition, where we spend a most enjoyable afternoon
inspecting the thousand and one material evidences of inventive genius
from the several countries represented.

Five hundred and twelve 'cyclers, including forty-one tandem tricycles
and fifty ladies, ride in procession at the Barnes Common meet, making
quite an imposing array as they wheel two abreast between rows of
enthusiastic spectators. Here, among a host of other wheeling celebrities,
I am introduced to Major Knox Holmes, before mentioned as being a gentleman
of extraordinary powers of endurance, considering his advanced age. After
tea a number of tricyclers accompany me down as far as Croydon, which
place we enter to the pattering music of a drenching rain-storm,
experiencing the accompanying pleasure of a wet skin, etc. The threatening
aspect of the weather on the following morning causes part of our company
to hesitate about venturing any farther from London; but Faed and three
companions wheel with me toward Brighton through a gentle morning shower,
which soon clears away, however, and, before long, the combination of
the splendid Sussex roads, fine breezy weather, and lovely scenery, amply
repays us for the discomforts of yester-eve. Fourteen miles from Brighton
we are met by eight members of the Kempton Rangers Bicycle Club, who
have sallied forth thus far northward to escort us into town; having
done which, they deliver us over to Mr. C---, of the Brighton Tricycle
Club, and brother-in-law to the mayor of the city. It is two in the
afternoon. This gentleman straightway ingratiates himself into our united
affections, and wins our eternal gratitude, by giving us a regular
wheelman's dinner, after which he places us under still further obligations
by showing us as many of the lions of Brighton as are accessible on
Sunday, chief among which is the famous Brighton Aquarium, where, by his
influence, he kindly has the diving-birds and seals fed before their
usual hour, for our especial delectation-a proceeding which naturally
causes the barometer of our respective self-esteems to rise several
notches higher than usual, and doubtless gives equal satisfaction to the
seals and diving-birds. We linger at the aquarium until near sun-down,
and it is fifteen miles by what is considered the smoothest road to
Newhaven. Mr. C---- declares his intention of donning his riding-suit
and, by taking a shorter, though supposably rougher, road, reach Newhaven
as soon as we. As we halt at Lewes for tea, and ride leisurely, likewise
submitting to being photographed en route, he actually arrives there
ahead of us. It is Sunday evening, May 10th, and my ride through "Merrie
England " is at an end. Among other agreeable things to be ever remembered
in connection with it is the fact that it is the first three hundred
miles of road I ever remember riding over without scoring a header - a
circumstance that impresses itself none the less favorably perhaps when
viewed in connection with the solidity of the average English road. It
is not a very serious misadventure to take a flying header into a bed
of loose sand on an American country road; but the prospect of rooting
up a flint-stone with one's nose, or knocking a curb-stone loose with
one's bump of cautiousness, is an entirely different affair; consequently,
the universal smoothness of the surface of the English highways is
appreciated at its full value by at least one wheelman whose experience
of roads is nothing if not varied. Comfortable quarters are assigned me
on board the Channel steamer, and a few minutes after bidding friends
and England farewell, at Newhaven, at 11.30 P.M., I am gently rocked
into unconsciousness by the motion of the vessel, and remain happily and
restfully oblivious to my surroundings until awakened next morning at
Dieppe, where I find myself, in a few minutes, on a foreign shore. All
the way from San Francisco to Newhaven. there is a consciousness of being
practically in one country and among one people-people who, though
acknowledging separate governments, are bound so firmly together by the
ties of common instincts and interests, and the mystic brotherhood of a
common language and a common civilization, that nothing of a serious
nature can ever come between them. But now I am verily among strangers,
and the first thing talked of is to make me pay duty on the bicycle.

The captain of the vessel, into whose hands Mr. C---- assigned me at
Newhaven, protests on my behalf, and I likewise enter a gentle demurrer;
but the custom-house officer declares that a duty will have to be
forthcoming, saying that the amount will be returned again when I pass
over the German frontier. The captain finally advises the payment of the
duty and the acceptance of a receipt for the amount, and takes his leave.
Not feeling quite satisfied as yet about paying the duty, I take a short
stroll about Dieppe, leaving my wheel at tho custom-house and when I
shortly return, prepared to pay the assessment, whatever it may be, the
officer who, but thirty minutes since, declared emphatically in favor
of a duty, now answers, with all the politeness imaginable: "Monsieur
is at liberty to take the velocipede and go whithersoever he will." It
is a fairly prompt initiation into the impulsiveness of the French
character. They don't accept bicycles as baggage, though, on the Channel
steamers, and six shillings freight, over and above passage-money, has
to be yielded up.

Although upon a foreign shore, I am not yet, it seems, to be left entirely
alone to the tender mercies of my own lamentable inability to speak
French. Fortunately there lives at Dieppe a gentleman named Mr. Parkinson,
who, besides being an Englishman to the backbone, is quite an enthusiastic
wheelman, and, among other things, considers it his solemn duty to take
charge of visiting 'cyclers from England and America and see them safely
launched along the magnificent roadways of Normandy, headed fairly toward
their destination. Faed has thoughtfully notified Mr. Parkinson of my
approach, and he is watching for my coming - as tenderly as though I were
a returning prodigal and he charged with my welcoming home. Close under
the frowning battlements of Dieppe Castle - a once wellnigh impregnable
fortress that was some time in possession of the English - romantically
nestles Mr. Parldnson's studio, and that genial gentleman promptly
proposes accompanying me some distance into the country. On our way
through Dieppe I notice blue-bloused peasants guiding small flocks of
goats through the streets, calling them along with a peculiar, tuneful
instrument that sounds somewhat similar to a bagpipe. I learn that they
are Normandy peasants, who keep their flocks around town all summer,
goat's milk being considered beneficial for infants and invalids. They
lead the goats from house to house, and milk whatever quantity their
customers want at their own door - a custom that we can readily understand
will never become widely popular among AngloSaxon milkmen, since it
leaves no possible chance for pump-handle combinations and corresponding
profits. The morning is glorious with sunshine and the carols of feathered
songsters as together we speed away down the beautiful Arques Valley,
over roads that are simply perfect for wheeling; and, upon arriving at
the picturesque ruins of the Chateau d'Arques, we halt and take a casual
peep at the crumbling walls of this of the famous fortress, which the
trailing ivy of Normandy now partially covers with a dark-green mantle
of charity, as though its purpose and its mission were to hide its fallen
grandeur from the rude gaze of the passing stranger. All along the roads
we meet happy-looking peasants driving into Dieppe market with produce.
They are driving Normandy horses - and that means fine, large, spirited
animals - which, being unfamiliar with bicycles, almost invariably take
exception to ours, prancing about after the usual manner of high-strung
steeds. Unlike his English relative, the Norman horse looks not supinely
upon the whirling wheel, but arrays himself almost unanimously against
us, and umially in the most uncompromising manner, similar to the phantom-
eyed roadster of the United States agriculturist. The similarity between
the turnouts of these two countries I am forced to admit, however,
terminates abruptly with the horse itself, and does not by any means
extend to the driver; for, while the Normandy horse capers about and
threatens to upset the vehicle into the ditch, the Frenchman's face is
wreathed in apologetic smiles; and, while he frantically endeavors to
keep the refractory horse under control, he delivers himself of a whole
dictionary of apologies to the wheelman for the animal's foolish conduct,
touches his cap with an air of profound deference upon noticing that we
have considerately slowed up, and invariably utters his Bon jour, monsieur,
as we wheel past, in a voice that plainly indicates his acknowledgment
of the wheelman's - or anybody else's - right to half the roadway. A few
days ago I called the English roads perfect, and England the paradise
of 'cyclers; and so it is; but the Normandy roads are even superior, and
the scenery of the Arques Valley is truly lovely. There is not a loose
stone, a rut, or depression anywhere on these roads, and it is little
exaggeration to call them veritable billiard-tables for smoothness of
surface. As one bowls smoothly along over them he is constantly wondering
how they can possibly keep them in such condition. Were these fine roads
in America one would never be out of sight of whirling wheels. A luncheon
of Normandy cheese and cider at Cleres, and then onward to Bouen is the
word. At every cross-roads is erected an iron guide-post, containing
directions to several of the nearest towns, telling the distances in
kilometres and yards; and small stone pillars are set up alongside the
road, marking every hundred yards. Arriving at Rouen at four o'clock,
Mr. Parkiuson shows me the famous old Rouen Cathedral, the Palace of
Justice, and such examples of old mediaeval Rouen as I care to visit,
and, after inviting me to remain and take dinner with him by the murmuring
waters of the historic Seine, he bids me bon voyage, turns my head
southward, and leaves me at last a stranger among strangers, to "cornprendre
Franyais" unassisted. Some wiseacre has placed it on record that too
much of a good thing is worse than none at all; however that may be,
from having concluded that the friendly iron guide-posts would be found
on every corner where necessary, pointing out the way with infallible
truthfulness, and being doubtless influenced by the superior levelness
of the road leading down the valley of the Seine in comparison with the
one leading over the bluffs, I wander toward eventide into Elbeuf, instead
of Pont de l' Arques, as I had intended; but it matters little, and I
am content to make the best of my surroundings. Wheeling along the
crooked, paved streets of Elbeuf, I enter a small hotel, and, after the
customary exchange of civilities, I arch my eyebrows at an intelligent
-looking madaine, and inquire, " Comprendre Anglais." "Non," replies
the lady, looking puzzled, while I proceed to ventilate my pantomimic
powers to try and make my wants understood. After fifteen minutes of
despairing effort, mademoiselle, the daughter, is despatched to the other
side of the town, and presently returns with a be whiskered Frenchman,
who, in very much broken English, accompanying his words with wondrous
gesticulations, gives me to understand that he is the only person in all
Elbeuf capable of speaking the English language, and begs me to unburden
myself to him without reserve. He proves himself useful and obliging,
kindly interesting himself in obtaining me comfortable accommodation at
reasonable rates. This Elbeuf hotel, though, is anything but an elegant
establishment, and le proprietaire, though seemingly intelligent enough,
brings me out a bottle of the inevitable vin ordinaire (common red wine)
at breakfast-time, instead of the coffee for which my opportune interpreter
said he had given the order yester-eve. If a Frenchman only sits down
to a bite of bread and cheese he usually consumes a pint bottle of vin
ordinaire with it. The loaves of bread here are rolls three and four
feet long, and frequently one of these is laid across - or rather along,
for it is oftentimes longer than the table is wide - the table for you to
hack away at during your meal, according to your bread-eating capacity
or inclination.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.