Excursionist

“ The lines of travel chosen are such as will give the tourist the most favorable opportunities for visiting the celebrated summer resorts en route, and secure the advantages of palace coaches, dining cars, quick transit, and sure connections,—considerations which combine to make a journey enjoyable, and by means of which a trip becomes a luxury as a means as well as an end. ”

“ Happily for the American business world, the infection of “summer travel” grows more and more contagious as its benefits become better understood. Year by year the tide increases in volume, and the facilities of travel are multiplied to meet the demand. If these pages shall serve to assist the tourist in the choice of his route, or, the choice being made, in rendering his journey more enjoyable, their purpose will be fully met. ”

“ She was collected by the official leader of this particular Dent's Excursion at Charing Cross the next morning and swept into a second-class carriage with nine other excursionists, and next door there were more—she counted eighteen of them at one time crowding round the leader asking him questions—and besides these there was a crowd of ordinary passengers bustling about with holiday expressions, and several runaway couples, and every single person seemed like herself eager to be off. ”

“ THE BEACH AT ROCKAWAY
I confess that I cannot hear people rejoice in their summer sojourn as beyond the reach of excursionists without a certain rebellion; and yet I have to confess also that after spending a Sunday afternoon of late July, four or five years ago, with the excursionists at one of the beaches near New York, I was rather glad that my own summer sojourn was not within reach of them. ”

“ The attractions of the natural scenery of the East are of themselves sufficient to call to them annually thousands of tourists, who, independently of the causes already mentioned, occupy their “summer vacations” with an Eastern tour simply for the enjoyment of the attractions presented in the way of pleasant routes of travel, and the scenery to be enjoyed on the way or at the objective point of the journey. ”

“ Nearly all experienced overland travelers seek this line, because it is known to be the best, shortest, most comfortable, and in every way the most desirable. To seek other more circuitous and inferior routes is accepted as an evidence of inexperience or want of information. ”

“ Miss Young was already on duty, superintending a batch of Aldwythites, who were to have the first half-hour in the water, and who must vacate the dressing-hut before the second contingent arrived.
"I wonder if there'll be any trippers to-day," said Lettice Talbot, winding her towel artistically round her hat, and letting the ends fall like a pugaree. "Sometimes excursionists from Dunscar walk along the beach, and insist upon stopping to look at us."
"Are they allowed?" asked Honor. ”

“ This form of locomotion, in the country of the amenities, is attended with a dozen discomforts; almost all the conditions of the business are detestable. They force the sentimental tourist again and again to ask himself whether, in consideration of such mortal annoyances, the game is worth the candle. Fortunately a railway journey is a good deal like a sea-voyage; its miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. That is why I completed, to my great satisfaction, my little tour in France. ”

“ Such an informal and unusual way of wandering puts you as a rule on a friendly, companionable footing with everybody you meet: people take an interest in your journey, they confide in you and you in them, there is a sort of freemasonry about the road that has its attractions, you seem to belong to the countryside, to be a part and parcel of your surroundings for the time being, in strong contrast with the stranger suddenly arriving by the railway from somewhere far away. He is brought, the driving tourist comes—a distinction with a difference! ”

“ The joy of pilgrimage—of going, not there and back, but on, and on, and yet on—is a joy by itself. The thought that each night brings sleep in a new and unforeseen spot, with a new journey on the morrow, gives special flavor to the journeying.
Not the least among the pleasures of the cruise were the night-camps. When the shore looked inviting, and harborage at an inn seemed doubtful, we pulled our boat above tide-water, turned her over and tilted her up on her side for a wind-break, and there we spent the night. The half-emptied dunnage bags were our pillows, the sand was our bed. ”

“ When a tourist is seated on the deck of a steamer, waiting to leave the country in which he has enjoyed an outing, his eyes do not seek the low-lying shore of the sea, for the memories he would retain hereafter. ”

“ Within the past thirty-four years great changes have occurred, but the pleasure- seeking tourist of today will find no more enjoyable excursion than a trip up the Columbia and Snake rivers from Astoria to Lewiston, at the junction of the Clearwater. It should be made lei- surely by steamer and altogether in day- light. The beauty and variety of the scenery, the romance, novelty, and ex- citement, will afford pleasure during ev- ery hour of the time; and if you can make friends with the captain or pilot your pleasure will be doubled. ”

“ Are we going to sleep in the open, cook and eat in the open? If we are to “pack” all that we shall have along with us, is it to be a river trip or a lake trip in a canoe? Is it to be a walking expedition or with horses? The least expensive item will prove to be the one that involves taking the fewest number of guides, and which is carried out on shank’s mare. Every expedition which is continually on the move through an isolated and rough country should be equipped with one guide to each two people. If it is a stationary camp, one guide to three or four people will be the minimum. ”

“ After a few tours on the Continent your first hour in a railway or diligence may be new and enjoyable, but you soon begin to wish for the end of the road, and after a short stay in the town you have come to you begin to talk (or think) of when you are to leave. Now a feature of the boating tour is that quiet progress can be enjoyed all the time, because you have personal exertion or engagement for every moment, and your observation of the scenery around is now most minute and interesting, because every bend and slope of it tells at once what you have to do. ”

“ Occasionally, walking trips, with one or two companions, gave well-deserved vacations—trips from which the walkers returned tired and penniless, but inspired by the beauty of nature in the pleasant French countryside and thrilled with the stupendous grandeur of the Alpine scenery. ”

“ It utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip. It was my misfortune once to go for a water picnic with two ladies of this kind. ”

“ To the ordinary traveler of to-day, who requires all the comforts of a Pullman and a dining car, and who is not willing to forego them for the hardships of a camping-out trip, my advice is don’t, although the hardships are more so in name than in fact. If one likes old clothes, fresh air, the great outdoors, lots of sunshine, desert roads, and meals al fresco,—sleeping at night under the stars,—this is just the country for such things. ”

“ An excursion round the island, sailing in a westerly direction, is one of most delightful amusement to a lover of the picturesque; the circuit is nearly eighty miles, every where presenting new features of the most beautiful variety and romantic scenery, a voyage we made in the Rover in about eight hours. ”

“ Also by walking, you can escape the loud-mouthed, bull-voiced tourist who bawls out his own shallow knowledge of erosion to the whole carriageful just at the moment you want to float away in fancy amid opal lights and upper heights where the Olympic and Hindoo and Norse gods took refuge when unbelief drove them from their old resorts. ”

“ It is evident from this that excursions are as necessary in the country as in the town, where instead of the "fields and forests" perhaps only a park is possible, but there is no virtue in an excursion taken without preparation. ”

“ With spacious saloons, well-aired sleeping-apartments, roomy promenades protected from the weather, and a steady-going ship, a voyage even to distant lands is now little more than an excursion of pleasure. ”

“ HITTING THE TRAIL WALKING tours are popularly supposed to be feasible chiefly for those to whom this method of travel is incidental to their occupation—timber cruisers, landlookers, prospectors, game wardens and trappers of the North—men who daily match themselves against the forces of Nature. ”

“ It is a tour which embraces country widely differing in characteristics—one which takes in both the long, broad, ribbon-like roads of Central France, flanked by meadows, orchards, and farmsteads, and lofty mountains from the peaks of which other peaks capped with glistening snow may be gazed upon, sunlit valleys and sparkling lakes. It is a tour which no man could possibly make without a good machine, and yet it is a tour which, with a good machine, can be considered easy and comparatively inexpensive. ”

“ So up they toiled through pitch darkness, through rain and cloud, passed the night in a building said to be on the summit, and returned down the mountain in the morning, to catch their train, through as dense a fog as ever exasperated a hurried tourist. But they had been to the top! Are there anywhere else in the world people who travel two hundred miles for a single day’s recreation? ”

“ The attendance at baths, the rise of summer resorts and air-cures, and furloughs for all classes of officers, have become regular institutions, while they were formerly indulged only in cases of sickness; and the excursions of school vacations, the pleasure-trains and the extra trains on holidays, long wedding tours, excursion parties to foreign lands, or around the world, are evidences of the taste for traveling that modern men feel, and of the ease with which it is gratified. ”

“ When the traveller visits the interior parts of these mountains, the ruggedness of the roads, the steepness of the descents, the height of the precipices, strike him at first with terror, but the sagacity of his mule soon relieves him, and he examines at his ease those picturesque scenes which succeed each other to entertain him. There, as in the Alps, he travels whole days to reach a place that was in sight at his departure: he winds, he descends, he skirts the hills, he climbs ”

“ Thither the camping tourist in his automobile may take his way and linger for days and weeks at a time. The mountains, streams, and woodlands are laid open to many thousands of persons in this way, and no one counting their crowding procession can doubt their appreciation of the opportunity. ”

“ You would remain gazing drowsily for ever at the lake like the lover on the Greek urn that Keats described. But all around are the mountains which distil an air keen and exhilarating, so that before you know {201} it you are set walking, or riding or climbing—in some way adventuring forth. Some people adventure forth in a carriage, but that is rather too like going out to battle in evening clothes. ”

“ A man paddling a canoe, or carrying a pack all day, will eat a great deal more than would the same man sitting a horse. A trip in the clear, bracing air of the mountains arouses keener appetites than a desert journey near the borders of Mexico, and a list of supplies ample for the one would be woefully insufficient for the other. ”

“ A voyage on it is one of the most romantic entertainments offered to the traveller. The scenery is peaceful, and exceedingly pretty. There are few conspicuous plantations with mansions and sugar-stacks of any pretensions, but the panorama from the deck of the steamer is always pleasing. There is an air of leisure and “afternoon” about the expedition, which is heightened by the idle case of the inhabitants lounging at the rude wharves and landing-places, and the patience of the colored fishers, boys in scant raiment and women in sun-bonnets, seated on the banks. ”

“ It is one of the privileges of this water tour that you can survey calmly all the whereabouts; and being out of reach of the touters and porters who harass the wretched traveller delivered to their grasp from an omnibus or a steamboat, you can philosophize on the whole morale of a town, and if so inclined can pass it, and simply go on. ”

“ Thousands of foot-passengers, crowds of pilgrims, long rows of coolies, oxen and horses bearing heavy burdens meet the traveller, who during frequent rests at the foot of the steep slopes has an opportunity of studying the variegated life of the people. ”

“ The arriving steamers are as usual beset by a throng of boatmen, and wary must be the tourist who is not exorbitantly fleeced, unless he has a friend on board to guide, or one from the city to greet him. ”

“ When a tourist who, having mapped out his itinerary in accordance with the time at his disposal for a European trip, arrives at a city for seeing which he has allowed two or three days at the utmost, the first question he puts to a fellow traveller, the hotel clerk, or his Baedeker is, "What must I see?" ”

“ Then they are indispensable, for mists may suddenly come during the very finest day, and the tourist without a guide would run a chance of spending a night on a bleak mountain or being drowned in a lake or bog-hole. ”

“ One should plan short daily runs on such a tour and there are many side trips well worth while if there is plenty of time to do them. There are, moreover, many delightful inns and resorts to be found in the region we covered—some of them closed when we reached them—which might well tempt the wayfarer to tarry awhile to rest and enjoy at his leisure the surroundings of forest, lake or mountain stream, as the case may be. ”

“ Travel, like politics, makes strange bedfellows, and especially that kind of travel in which all companions must, from necessity, mingle on a common level, eat their simple rations by the same camp fire, and sleep side by side beneath the same open sky. This observation is suggested by a night spent in camp near Bear River. Our ox train had just forded that rocky stream, to avoid the excessive toll which was demanded for the privilege of crossing upon the new bridge. ”