paper, so that the benefit of exchange is got. Cook and Gaze issue tickets for the same circular tours, and probably at the same price, although I suppose they are generally in connection with tickets from London; but they have, I understand, to be paid for in English money. They possess the advantage, I believe, by no means to be undervalued, of having all directions printed in English as well as Italian. The railway companies issue their tickets at every important town on the line of route to be travelled.
In France, likewise, there are for some parts circular tours, such as from Paris to Bordeaux, Biarritz, the Pyrenees and back. Information on the subject may be got in the Indicateur, or in the Guides Diamant among the advertisements.
I would just add in connection with this subject, that it is said by Bradshaw that return tickets are ‘almost universal abroad, and issued upon terms far more liberal than any granted by our English lines.’ Although I have on various occasions taken day return tickets for short trips, I have never yet found them to be any cheaper than the double fare.
In the course of a journey, what are called supplementary billets can be procured through the guard, so as to enable a neighbouring place to be visited by a side line. Thus, in going from Lyons to Marseilles, we obtained supplementary tickets from Tarascon to Nismes by asking for them when stopping at Valence, about the second station before reaching Tarascon. This, especially looking to the peculiarities of foreign lines, is a great convenience.
The Italian Indicatore states that travellers may exchange at any place to a higher class by paying difference of fare between the place at which the transfer is effected and the terminus.
After crossing the Channel, the first thing which is new to one who has not previously ventured out of the British Islands, is the examination of luggage by the douaniers or custom-house officers. It is now arranged that by registration of luggage to Paris, the examination may take place there. This saves detention at the port of debarkation. In general, an Englishman, if apparently a bona fide pleasure traveller, is very easily dealt with by these officers. If he have but a single portmanteau, it is sometimes not so much as opened, or if opened, there is but a nominal examination. He is asked if he have anything to declare—‘Any cigars?’ It is curious that in almost every country, the sole special question usually asked is, ‘Have you any cigars?’ and the word of an Englishman that he has none is ordinarily taken. If there be several boxes, the officer points to one of them, and desires it to be opened, sometimes merely to be closed again. At other times the man will provokingly put his hand down to the very depths, and perhaps bring up something hard or a parcel, and fancy he has made a discovery. But he is easily satisfied, and things are restored in the best way possible for a tight fit. No examination of luggage seems to be made on entering Switzerland from any frontier country, indicating that the Swiss have no custom-house duties; but on leaving Switzerland and entering France, there is a more minute examination than occurs when coming from England; and although English people get off comparatively easily, a question being sometimes asked as to where they are going, those of other countries are most unmercifully dealt with, every separate package, down even to handbags, being overhauled. Once, many years ago, travelling by diligence from Geneva to Lyons, I saw every article in a French lady’s boxes turned out and minutely examined at three different places on the way. I presume they are suspicious of such travellers secreting Geneva watches or jewellery. On that occasion my own luggage was only examined once, but they made a sort of examination of the person by passing their hands over my dress. The lady, no doubt, was subjected to a more strict examination of her person.
On landing in France, it is found that there is a difference of time between Paris and London of ten minutes. All the French railways go by Paris time; all Swiss railways, by Berne time, which is twenty minutes in advance of Paris time; and all Italian railways, by Roman time, which is forty-seven minutes in advance of Paris time. This is all very right and proper, and makes it easy to know the times for travelling by railway. But although the railways adopt the time of their respective capitals, every different town has, according to its longitude, its own, or what is held to be the correct time at the place according to the sun. This proves most embarrassing, more especially as the hotels regulate their hours by the clock of their own town when that exists. If not, there is the utmost perplexity in finding out what the correct time is. At Mentone no two clocks were alike. By common consent they all differed. On going south to Avignon, the time is nearly a quarter of an hour in advance of Paris time; at Mentone it is twenty minutes. If, on the other hand, the journey be westward of Paris, at Biarritz, the time will be found as much the other way; so that one of the first inquiries to be made on reaching a hotel is, ‘What is the time of the town?’ and to note the difference between that and railway time.
The complex and extraordinary mode of measuring time formerly in use in Italy, by counting twenty-four hours for the varying time of vespers, seems to be now wholly abandoned.
All who have travelled on the Continent are familiar with the railway arrangements; but as they differ in some particulars from those to which we are accustomed, and as this introductory chapter is mainly intended for the benefit of those who have not previously crossed the Channel, it may be useful to mention some of them.
Although in all leading respects foreigners have copied our railway system, yet their diverging peculiarities are not always calculated to reconcile an Englishman to Continental travel. He arrives at the station, which he finds he must do in France a full half-hour before the hour of starting; in Italy, in large towns, a full hour. And in France he must always, in the first instance, procure his ticket at a little wire-latticed window, falling into a queue of people to take his turn. Stooping to a small hole not six inches high on the table level, he has to shout through in French to the distributor of billets within, telling him what he wants, and from whom he receives in return mention of the amount to be paid. It is always well to know beforehand how much this is, which can be at least approximately calculated from the time-tables; but the exact price of tickets may usually be obtained from a board or table of fares near the ticket window, often most inconveniently placed and arranged, and so dirty and soiled as occasionally to be illegible. Without a previous knowledge of the probable cost, it is exceedingly difficult for a stranger to make out what the man says, owing to the narrowness of the aperture and the indistinctness of French pronunciation. In many places, particularly in Italy, an official is stationed (a most commendable practice) outside the window, to prevent inconvenient crowding, to tell the fares, to see that the correct billets are supplied, and to be a check on the ticket distributor giving the right change. I have been told of cases where, in Italy—but it was some years ago—there had been supposed attempts to cheat on the part of the distributor; but, except on one occasion, I never got wrong change. It happened at Bologna, where I received at the ticket office 1 lira too little, and at the luggage office some pence less than the correct change. In both cases it was at once rectified on my pointing out the mistakes, and I set them down to slips. At other times, on accidentally neglecting to take up small change at the window, such as a sou, I have been called back to get it. But there is an admirable check upon any attempt to cheat, or on mistakes, in the circumstance that commonly Continental tickets have marked upon them their cost—a system which might with great advantage be introduced into Great Britain.
And now the Englishman obtains a new experience of how they manage things abroad. His luggage was, on arrival at the station, deposited on a long table under the care of the conductor of the omnibus which brought him. This luggage, with the exception of such little things as he means to take with him into the carriage, has, when his turn arrives, to be carefully weighed. In France each traveller is allowed 30 kilogrammes, or about 65 lbs. weight. For every pound beyond this he is required to pay according to distance. The men engaged in weighing ask for the railway billets to show the destination, and then he goes to the luggage-ticket window, where he duly receives back his billets stamped as having been used, and gets a little scrap or morsel of thin paper, which is the receipt for his luggage, and for which he has in any case to pay 10 centimes (1d.) in addition to any charge for extra weight. This receipt bears the number of colis or packages and of persons, the united weight of the party’s luggage, the sum payable, the place of despatch and the place of destination, and a printed number; which number is also affixed to each article so registered, and is the means by which, on arriving at the journey’s end, it is identified. What