yet in travelling abroad, at least for a period of any duration, some thought must be bestowed upon the impedimenta, and it is very proper to take such boxes as will stand the immense fatigue to which all luggage is exposed, and to which the foreign system of registration greatly adds. Very little regard is paid by porters to the conservation of the luggage. It is tossed and dragged along over iron-bound tables; and huge heavy iron-bound and iron-cornered American chests, with their piercing little iron castors, are often thrown or deposited remorselessly on the top of smaller and weaker packages. Very small articles, indeed, should never be put in the vans. It is better, and in the long run cheaper, to have fewer packages and of a larger size. At the same time, they are very inconvenient if unwieldily large, as too often one sees them to be, requiring two men for their carriage, and needing to be left outside the bedroom—an inconvenience both to the traveller herself and her fellow-travellers; for it is the ladies who are in this respect the great transgressors. Some ladies seem to travel with their whole wardrobe, or at all events with a useless number of changes of raiment. On one occasion we met a gentleman and lady, who had with them nine huge boxes, nearly filling up the top of a large omnibus, besides smaller articles, including their maid’s modest provision. This is a grievous mistake. Ladies ought to travel with the least possible quantity of changes. More than is fairly needful is inconvenient in many ways. Apart from causing detentions to others, it is a source of anxiety, and is most expensive in countries where the luggage is all weighed, and every pound or extra pound must be paid for.
Among the little things to be taken, no good traveller will, of course, omit a pocket corkscrew and a flask of cognac; nor will he neglect soap. If he have not made it a rule in all travelling to use his own soap, he is charged at foreign hotels 1 franc for savon. I have heard a man growling over the ‘imposition,’ but it served him right, while the article was just sold to him like anything else, with the usual 200 or 300 per cent. hotel profit added.
We considered it advisable, especially in view of travelling in Italy, where the water is said to be often impure, and consequently unsafe to drink, to take with us a small filter; but although we used our filter occasionally, I cannot say we were frequently conscious of drinking bad water. It is, however, a proper precaution, as water may be bad without betraying its quality by the taste. An Ashantee filter with a quart tin bottle, to be had from Atkins and Co., 62 Fleet Street, London, occupies little space, and costs 8s. Were Messrs. Atkins to devise a portable little filter for use at the table by insertion in a tumbler, so as to purify the drinking water without the fuss of a large filter, which it is inconvenient to carry, and which one cannot bring to the public room, it would be of much use. It must be borne in mind, however, that filters do not destroy organic matter suspended in the water, and for this purpose permanganite of potash may be employed. A drop or two of a solution of this substance, which may be purchased in dry grains at any chemist’s (easily dissolved when wanted), effects destruction of organic matter, but gives so unpleasant a bitterness to the flavour of the water that we scarcely ever used it.
There are, however, things more important to provide, and among them are good guide-books. The rapid growth and extraordinary ramifications of the railway system have created a new branch of literature in the railway time-tables. It is curious to take up an early copy of Bradshaw, consisting only of a few pages, small pocket size, neatly got up, and to contrast it with English Bradshaw of the present time. If such a book be needful in Great Britain, people are even more helpless without it abroad. Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, special edition, will always be found to be most useful, both as a preparatory and as an accompanying handbook. It contains a great deal of information, which, however, ought to be taken in a general way, or as the lawyers say, cum nota. Perfect reliance cannot always be placed upon the accuracy of its railway and other time-tables and its tariffs. On arriving in a country, it is especially necessary to secure, in addition, one of its latest official railway guides. In France there is published once a week, on the Sundays, L’Indicateur des Chemins de fer et de la Navigation service officielle. This costs 60 centimes (6d.), and is a long folio of inconvenient size. As nearly all French travellers purchase a copy when they start on a journey, it doubtless obtains a large sale. The Livret Chaix Spécial pour France (there is another edition for Europe generally) is an official guide of a more convenient size. It is published once a month, book shape duodecimo, costs 1 franc, and has no advertisements, which are scattered through the Indicateur in a tormenting way, though sometimes useful when desired information is thereby discovered, which it might much more readily be if, as in Bradshaw, all the advertisements were thrown systematically to the end of the book. It is, however, troublesome to follow these French guides when divergence from the main lines is desired to be made. The lines are cut up into fragments without the references contained in Bradshaw to other pages where the connecting railways occur, and the neat little well-engraved maps in the Livret Chaix do not bear, as in Bradshaw’s map, the page references where the tables of the railways are to be found. Bradshaw is puzzling enough, but sometimes it is felt that the Livret Chaix is one of those mysteriously-arranged productions ‘which no fella can understand.’
In Italy there is published once a month, costing 1 franc or lira, L’Indicatore Ufficiale. This is peculiarly arranged, and requires study; but the Italian lines are so few, compared with those of France, that there is no insuperable difficulty in discovering the time-bills of particular railways. The Italian Indicatore contains various preliminary directions which it is well to read. They are curious, and embrace, inter alia, regulations relative to the transport of cats and monkeys.
The Italians have also a long Indicatore similar to the French weekly one; and in both countries smaller and cheaper district guides, with more limited information, are to be had.
In Switzerland, a Guide des Voyageurs en Suisse is published, apparently twice a year—at least those procured in the Swiss travelling season are marked ‘Saison d’été,’ 1877 or 1878, as the case may be.
It is never safe to trust to a guide of a past month, although changes are generally only made in the beginning of the winter season, or about 15th or 16th October, and in the beginning of the summer or spring season. By not observing a change of this kind which had just been made, we were detained at Toulon for three or four hours waiting for the next train to Hyères.
Although it is not desirable to burden oneself with many books in travelling, Bædeker’s Guide-Books, which on the whole are very accurate and useful, ought not to be dispensed with. Italy is embraced in three little volumes—Northern, Central, and Southern; and Bædeker has separate Guides to Switzerland, France, and other countries; so that if one has to travel much, quite a little library requires to be taken. Bædeker’s Northern Italy, however, embraces the Riviera di Ponente, in which Cannes and Mentone are, and the journey thither from Paris, and towns on the way, such as Lyons, Avignon, Nismes, and Marseilles, while southward it extends as far as Florence. Murray’s Guide-Books are very useful, and are much more full and detailed, but consequently are more bulky, and are therefore more suitable for protracted visits to a town such as Venice. Neither Bædeker nor Murray, however, are to be wholly relied upon, especially for the latest information. For example, we found in Italy that while it is said in Bædeker there are no fees to pay, in the different Academie delle Belle Arti there is now charged 1 franc per person for admission. I would add, also, that Bædeker’s estimates of hotel charges can by no means be relied on as exact, although they may at one time have been so, or they may in some cases be those with which Germans are charged, Bædeker being a publication originating in Germany.
These books all require from time to time careful revision; and considering the importance to the traveller of having the latest information, and the large sale they command, they ought to be revised at short intervals.
There are certain very useful guide-books published in France, of two sorts—the Guides Diamant, which are little pocket volumes in small type; and the Guides Grand Format, which are of a larger size. Each class (published only in French) contains a series of volumes applicable to the different parts of France, as well as volumes devoted to other countries. The divisional volumes for France are exceedingly useful, as containing detailed information respecting the districts to which they apply.
I may also mention that Mr. Cook, the tourist, publishes a series of handbooks