Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water : the Journal of a Tour Through
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LIBRARY ANNEX 2 ifSillllllllilllil UJarttEU Uninetaitg Hibranj Mkata, Nmu fork CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library G 440.V77 3 1924 023 253 143 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023253143 : FORTY THOUSAND MILES OVER LAND AND WATER THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR THROUGH THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND AMERICA MflfS. HOWARD, VINCENT /WITH WMKOuPlLLUSTRATIIMlS THIRD AND CHEAPER EDITION. Hontioii SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, i88, FLEET STREET. 1886. [All rights reserved.] LONDON t printed bv gilbert and rivington, limited, st. joiin's square. TO OUR FRIENDS, THE CHILDREN OF THE METROPOLITAN AND CITY POLICE ORPHANAGE, €\)is SSouvnal is ©etitcatrtJ THEIR CONSTANT WELL-WISHERS. PREFACE. My husband, during his six years' tenure of the office of Director of Criminal Investigations, took the greatest interest in the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage. In taking leave of his young friends he promised to keep for their benefit a record of our travels through the British Empire and America. I have endeavoured to the best of my power to relieve him of this task. It is but a simple Journal of what we saw and did. But if the Police will accept it, as a further proof of our admiration and respect for them as a body, then I feel sure that others who may be kind enough to read it will be lenient towards the shortcomings of a first publication. ETHEL GWENDOLINE VINCENT, i, Grosvenor Square, London. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Across the Atlantic i CHAPTER II. New York, Hudson River, and Niagara Falls . 4 CHAPTER III. The Dominion of Canada 17 CHAPTER IV. The American Lakes, and the Centres of Learn- ing, Fashion, and Government .... 26 CHAPTER V. To the Far West 43 r CHAPTER VI. San Francisco and theYosemite Valley, . 66 CHAPTER VII. Across the Pacific 88 x Contents. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Coaching through the North Island of New- Zealand ; its Hot Lakes and Geysers . 102 CHAPTER IX. The South Island of New Zealand ; its Alps and Mountain Lakes 146 CHAPTER X. Australia—Tasmania, and Victoria . .161 CHAPTER XL Australia—New South Wales, and Queensland . 181 CHAPTER XII. Within the Barrier Reef, through Torres Straits to Batavia 200 CHAPTER XIII. Netherlands India 212 CHAPTER XIV. The Straits Settlements 235 CHAPTER XV. The Metropolis of India and its Himalayan Sanatorium 250 CHAPTER XVI. The Shrines of the Hindu Faith .... 274 CHAPTER XVII. The Scenes of the Indian Mutiny .... 287 CHAPTER XVIII. The Cities of the Great Mogul . .304 Contents. xi CHAPTER XIX. PAGE GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA 332 CHAPTER XX. The Home of the Parsees 352 CHAPTER XXI, Through Egypt— Homewards ... .361 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I'AGE The White Terrace, Hot Lakes, New Zealand Frontispiece Route Map to face i " " That horrible fog-horn ! i Elevated Railway, New York . 6 Parliament Buildings, Ottawa . to face 22 The Capitol, Washington . 40 The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas to face 58 The Sentinel, Yosemite Valley . 77 The Cathedral Spires, Yosemite Valley 79 Big Tree, California .... 83 Maori Chieftain no Tuhuatahi Geyser, New Zealand 128 Lake Wakitipu, New Zealand . 157 Government House, Melbourne to face 165 Sydney Harbour .... 182 Govett's Leap, Blue Mountains . 191 Zig-zag on Railway, Blue Mountains . to face 192 Banyan Trees, Buitenzorg, Java ,, 227 Traveller's Palm, Singapore 236 Jinricksha • 249 The Hooghley, Calcutta to face 251 The Darjeeling and Himalayan Railway 263 Benares Bathing Ghat „ 276 The Residency, Lucknow . 288 The Imambara, Lucknow . to face 291 The Taj Mahal, Agra „ 312 Column, Kutub Minar, Delhi „ 329 The Caves of Elephanta, Bombay 356 Cairene Woman • 372 The Sphinx toface 377 FORTY THOUSAND MILES OVER LAND AND WATER. CHAPTER I. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. AT. 43 15' N., Long. 50° 12' W. All is intensely quiet. The re- volution even of the screw has ceased. We are wrapped in a fog so dense that we feel almost unable to breathe. We shudder as we look at the white pall drawn closely around us. The decks and rigging are dripping, and everything on board is saturated with moisture. We feel strangely alone. When hark ! A discordant screech, a hideous howl belches forth into the still air, to be immediately smothered and lost in the fog. It is the warning cry of the fog- horn. That horrible fog-horn We are on board the White Star steamer Germanic, in mid-Atlantic, not far off the great ice-banks of Newfoundland. It was on Wednesday, the 2nd of July, that we left London, and embarked from Liverpool on the 3rd. I need not describe the previous bustle of preparation, the farewells to be gone through for a long absence of 2 Forty Thousand Miles nine months, the little crowd of kind friends who came to see us off at Euston, nor our embarkation and our last view of England. I remember how dull and gloomy that first evening on board closed in, and how a slight feeling of depression was not absent from us. The next morning we were anchoring in Queenstown Harbour, and whilst waiting for the^arrival of the mails in the afternoon we went by train to Cork. The mails were on board the Germanic by four o'clock. We weighed anchor, and our voyage to America had com- menced. The often advertised quick passages across the Atlantic are only reckoned to and from Queenstown. The sea-sick traveller hardly sees the point of this computation of time, for the coasts of " ould Ireland " are as stormy and of as much account as the remainder of the passage. And now we have settled down into the usual idle life on board ship, a life where eating and drinking plays the most important part. There is a superfluity of concerts and literary entertainments, the proceeds in one instance being devoted to the aid of a poor electrical engineer who has had his arm fearfully torn in the machinery, and whose life was only saved by the presence of mind of a comrade in cutting the strap. Fine weather again at last, for we are past the banks so prolific in storms and fog. The story goes that a certain captain much harassed by the questioning of a passenger, who asked him " if it was always rough here ? " replied, " How should I know, sir? I don't live here." We are nearing America, and may hope to land to- morrow. The advent of the pilot is always an exciting event. There was a lottery for his number "and much betting upon the foot with which he would first step on deck. A boat came in sight early in the afternoon. There was general excitement. But the captain refused this pilot as he had previously nearly lost one of the com- pany's ships. At this he stood up in his dinghy and fiercely denounced us as we swept onwards, little heeding. Another pilot came on board soon afterwards, but the news and papers he brought us were very stale. These pilots have a very hard life ; working in firms of two or three, they often go out 500 miles in their cutters, and over Land and Water. 3 lie about for days waiting to pick up vessels coming into port. The fee varies according to the draught of the ship, but often exceeds 30/. At two o'clock a white line of surf is seen on the horizon. Land we know is behind, and great is the joy of all on board. We watched and waited till behind the white line appears a dark one, which grew and grew, until Long Island and Fire Island lighthouse are plainly visible. Three hours more and we see the beautiful Highlands of the Navesink on the New Jersey shore ; then the long sandy plain with the lighthouse which marks the entrance— and we cross the bar of Sandy Hook. As we do so the sunset gun goes off, and tells us that we must pass yet another night on board, for it closes the day of the officer of health. We pass the quarantine station, a white house on a lonely rock—then entering the Narrows, anchor in the dusk off lovely Statten Island. The lights of Manhattan and New Brighton beach twinkle in the darkness. Steamers with flashing signals ply swiftly backwards and forwards. A line of electricity marks the beautiful span of Brooklyn Bridge, and over all a storm is gathering, making the surrounding hills resound with the cannon of its thunder and the sky bright with sheets of lightning. And so we pass the night, within sight of the lights of New York, with pleasurable excitement looking forward to our first impressions on the morrow. Sunday, July ii,th. —By six o'clock all is life on board the Germanic, for a great steamer takes some time getting under weigh. Breakfast is a general scramble, interspersed with declarations to the revenue officials who are sitting in the saloon. We pass the Old Fort on Governor's Island, now the military station, in our upward progress, see the round tower of Castle Garden, the emigrants' depot, and by eight o'clock are safely moored alongside the company's pier. On the wharf are presently to be seen passengers sitting forlorn on their trunks, awaiting the terrible inspection of the custom-house officer. The one detailed to us showed signs of becoming offensive, being unwilling to believe the statement that a dress some six months' old was not being B 2 4 Forty Thousand Miles taken round the world for sale; but on making repre- sentations to his superior we were able to throw the things back into the boxes and " Express " them to the hotel.