The Slaters' Grand Tour

The Muse Newsletter of the Slater Memorial Museum Spring 2007 The Slaters’ Grand Tour: Part II Mysteries of the Orient By Vivian F. Zoë This article is the second of two which will lead the way to discovering the Eastern lands spurring the spread of educational Slater’s passion for travel and collecting. “exchanges”. Yung Wing (1828-1912) who began his The Grand Tour that originated in the sixteenth century studies of English as a small child attended Monson focused primarily on Europe and the Western World’s Academy in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale iconic historic sites. By the nineteenth century, English University, the first Chinese student to do so. He and American travelers were including the middle and founded the Chinese Educational Mission in Hartford in far east in their sojourns. Leisure time, trade and access 1871, bringing 120 Chinese boys to study in the routes, such as the Suez Canal greatly expanded the Northeastern United States over the course of a decade. means to reach further west. Perceived exoticism, The boys, ages 10 to 12, were to study for fifteen years, coupled with the relative amenities of Egypt, India, China th and Japan made them particularly attractive returning to China before their 30 birthdays in order to destinations. bring their newfound skills and education back to their homeland. They landed in private schools across The distance of the far east dictated that the vehicles to Connecticut, including the Norwich Free Academy. get there be a combination of ship and train. Christian Graduating from NFA in 1881 were Woo Ching Yen and missionaries became more and more familiar with easte Kwai Phan Lee. One cannot but presume that William and Eleanor Slater were acquainted with the Norwich contingent of this far-thinking program. Norwichians of the time may have been inspired to visit the native country of these young scholars all the more because of the familiarity. Mark Twain’s 1869 Grand Tour reports became the book The Innocents Abroad and reached from the Azores to Egypt. The book surely inspired both middle class and wealthy Americans to travel abroad and became a sort th of Fodor’s for the 19 century traveler. William and Eleanor Slater, sailing on their newly built, custom yacht “Eleanor” out of New London, followed an almost identical route to Twain’s, then continued on through the far east all the way around the world. Chinese embroidery from the collection of the Slater Memorial Museum half way through.” Walter Bright transcribed all of Charlie’s handwritten letters home with no corrections to spelling or grammar. Egypt must have appeared to Mr. Bright and the Slaters notably foreign and exotic in culture, climate, geography and economy. After its Grecian era, Egypt’s Arabic and Islamic period began in 642 CE, marking its role as the center of the Islamic empire and power. Mamlukes followed, fearsome warriors who ruled Egypt from 1250-1517 CE, ending with Ottoman conquest under Sultan Selim. The new science of "Egyptology" emerged when a small group of Napoleon Bonaparte’s French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone, a tablet that contained symbols enabling scholars to decipher Charles Taylor Bright (seated) and friend in Nagasaki Hieroglyphics, leading to a greater understanding the Courtesy of Walter Bright ancient Egyptian language. Napolean’s 1798 expedition included scholars who created the encyclopedic Twain’s descriptions of many places mirror those of a "Description de l'Egypte". crewmember of the “Eleanor”, with the eye of an educated perspective, but lack the sailor’s fresh Mohamad (or Mehemet) Ali, an officer in the Ottoman perceptions and quotidian activities of life at sea. Army, gained power with the support of the Egyptian people. Ruling from 1805 to 1849, he is regarded as the Launched in May, 1894, the “Eleanor’s” Grand Tour father of modern Egypt. In 1863, Khedive Ismail lasted seventeen months and cruised through the Suez became Mohamad Ali's successor and completed the Canal to Egypt, Bombay, Hong Kong and Nagasaki, with country’s modernization with the inauguration of the month-long stops for land travel in Egypt, India and Suez Canal. The canal was a magnificent success. In Japan. The remarkable letters home of the young its first thirteen years of operation, freight passing fireman from the Bridgeport area, who documented the through it started at less than a half million tons and rose ports of call and life at sea, have been transcribed and to more than five million tons. British ships carried over posted on a website by his grandson, Walter Bright. eighty percent of that tonnage by Charlie Bright’s letters tell us more than any ordinary 1882. travel diary possibly could, packed with his hands-on perspectives and his delight in thoroughly new In 1882, British troops landed at experiences. Alexandria marking the beginning of 74 years of British occupation. In our last issue, William and Eleanor Slater and family It was in had arrived at Messina in Sicily. From the the midst of this era that the Mediterranean, the Yacht Eleanor traveled through the Slaters visited Egypt. Mark Twain Suez Canal. In a letter to his mother at home in opined that “Alexandria was too Bridgeport, Charlie Bright described the canal as “… much like a European city to be novel … We … came up to Cairo, Cairo, c. 1890, built through a desert and there was a sand storm. It is a courtesy of the very big peace of work. We could only run five miles a which is an Oriental city and of the Griffith Institute, hour so not to make a swell as the sides are sand and completest pattern. There is little Oxford. about it to disabuse one’ mind of Marble figure Jain Tirthankara, the 23rd Tirthankara Lord the error if he should take it into Pasuanath the collection of the his head that he was in the heart of Arabia. Stately Slater Memorial Museum camels and dromedaries, swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, would fill up very fast with so and blazing in a rich variety of Oriental costumes of all many vessels going through. shades of flashy colors, are what one sees on every We seen a carrivan with two hand crowding the narrow streets and the honeycombed camels and one mule and bazars…” four men traveling through the desert. This place is forty Both Mark Twain and the Slaters were riding a tide of miles from Port Said and American, European and British fascination with all thirty miles from the city of things Egyptian. Fueled by the Orientalist paintings of Suez so we are a little over Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugene Delacroix and The Carpet Market by Jean Retro Technology claims that “Incredible as it may seem, Gerome, oil on canvas around the end of the nineteenth century, small boats really were powered by boiling petrol [gasoline] and Jean-Leon Gerome, using the vapour to drive a sort of ‘steam’ engine. The among others English, ‘petrol’ … called ‘naptha’ at the time … was a mixture of French and American low-boiling point hydrocarbons distilled directly from Grand Tourists streamed crude oil rather than the sophisticated brew we know as into Egypt in the late 19th ‘petrol’ nowadays. … Certainly they were recreational and early 20th centuries. craft for the rich rather than working boats.” It is entirely The ready availability of likely that Charlie understood the privileges he was images in magazines and enjoying while serving on The Eleanor as he seemed to books made visiting the take advantage of every opportunity to experience new middle and far east all the more alluring. According to its website, “The Griffith Institute in Oxford has one of the largest collections of 19th-century "studio photographs" of Egypt. They were taken by professional photographers who, between about 1860 and 1890, established studios in the major tourist centers such as Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Luxor and Aswan. Naptha Launch, c. 1890 courtesy of The photographs depict ancient Egyptian, Christian and Museum of Retro Technology Islamic monuments, as well as scenes of contemporary 19th-century life.” The publication in 1890 of The Nile: adventures in travel, eating, visiting major sites and Notes for travelers to Egypt by Thomas Cook includes interacting with natives. One can only guess the translations of hieroglyphics intended to aid English reactions of the Slaters to the wonders around them with speaking tourists to better understand the tombs, no written record of their thoughts. temples and monuments. Charlie’s mother at home surely enjoyed reading of his The completely different approach to life and commerce escapades and the remarkable things he was seeing. of the middle and far east made them seem all the more “This a the place where they get a great many sponges. exotic to western travelers. Charlie Bright exhibits an adventurous spirit, learning through trial and error how to Ushabti, a little statue in stone or glazed navigate land travel and tourism in Egypt. “I was ashore composition found in yesterday and had a great time. When the natives saw tombs surrogate for the us comming in the naptha launch, about twenty five dead- green glaze on came down to the shore with mules and wanted 20 cts to wood block - from Cairo Museum - Egyptian - 1500 ride to the city + back 8 miles each way. …. When we BC arrived in the City it was a very old place mostly stone houses and it is a happy family that lives in them for All they boys are in fine there is the family with there donkeys camels, chickens, condition to go through the pigeons and goats.

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