



Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
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 _SPECIAL EDITION_

 WITH THE WORLD'S
 GREAT TRAVELLERS

 EDITED BY CHARLES MORRIS
 AND OLIVER H. G. LEIGH

 Vol. I

 CHICAGO
 UNION BOOK COMPANY
 1901




 COPYRIGHT 1896 AND 1897
 BY
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

 COPYRIGHT 1901
 E. R. DUMONT




 [Illustration: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
 PAINTING BY SPADA]




CONTENTS.


 SUBJECT.                                AUTHOR.                    PAGE

 New Dependencies of the United States   OLIVER H. G. LEIGH            9
 Winter and Summer in New England        HARRIET MARTINEAU            22
 Niagara Falls and the Thousand Islands  CHARLES MORRIS               31
 From New York to Washington in 1866     HENRY LATHAM                 39
 The Natural Bridge and Tunnel of        EDWARD A. POLLARD            49
     Virginia
 Plantation Life in War Times            WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL       62
 Among Florida Alligators                S. C. CLARKE                 74
 In the Mammoth Cave                     THERESE YELVERTON            83
 Down the Ohio and Mississippi           THOMAS L. NICHOLS            94
 From New Orleans to Red River           FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED       104
 Winter on the Prairies                  G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH      114
 A Hunter's Christmas Dinner             J. S. CAMPION               124
 A Colorado "Round-Up"                   ALFRED TERRY BACON          133
 Among the Cow-boys                      LOUIS C. BRADFORD           141
 Hunting the Buffalo                     WASHINGTON IRVING           147
 In the Country of the Sioux             MERIWETHER LEWIS            157
 The Great Falls of the Missouri         WILLIAM CLARKE              168
 Hunting Scenes in Canadian Woods        B. A. WATSON                178
 The Grand Falls of Labrador             HENRY G. BRYANT             189
 Life Among the Esquimaux                WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY        200
 Fugitives from the Arctic Seas          ELISHA KENT KANE            210
 Rescued from Death                      W. S. SCHLEY                220
 The Muir Glacier                        SEPTIMA M. COLLIS           230
 A Summer Trip to Alaska                 JAMES A. HARRISON           239
 The Fort William Henry Massacre         JONATHAN CARVER             249
 The Gaucho and His Horse                THOMAS J. HUTCHINSON        257
 Valparaiso and Its Vicinity             CHARLES DARWIN              265
 An Escape from Captivity                BENJAMIN F. BOURNE          274




List of Illustrations

VOLUME I


 THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN                                    _Frontispiece_
 MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA                                                 14
 WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE                                            28
 NEW YORK AND THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE                                     42
 ON THE COAST OF FLORIDA                                              78
 SUNRISE FROM THE SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK                              134
 A KANSAS CYCLONE                                                    144
 THE CATSKILLS--SUNRISE FROM SOUTH MOUNTAIN                          180
 PARLIAMENT HOUSES, OTTAWA                                           198
 WINTER IN THE FAR NORTH                                             214
 MUIR GLACIER, ALASKA                                                236




PREFACE.


Next to actual travel, the reading of first-class travel stories by men
and women of genius is the finest aid to the broadening of views and
enlargement of useful knowledge of men and the world's ways. It is the
highest form of intellectual recreation, with the advantage over
fiction-reading of satisfying the wholesome desire for facts. With all
our modern enthusiasm for long journeys and foreign travel, now so easy
of accomplishment, we see but very little of the great world. The fact
that ocean voyages are now called mere "trips" has not made us
over-familiar with even our own kinsfolk in our new dependencies.
Foreign peoples and lands are still strange to us. Tropic and Arctic
lands are as far apart in condition as ever; Europe differs from Asia,
America from Africa, as markedly as ever. Man still presents every grade
of development, from the lowest savagery to the highest civilization,
and our interest in the marvels of nature and art, the variety of plant
and animal life, and the widely varied habits and conditions, modes of
thought and action, of mankind, is in no danger of losing its zest.

These considerations have guided us in our endeavor to tell the story of
the world, alike of its familiar and unfamiliar localities, as displayed
in the narratives of those who have seen its every part. Special
interest attaches to the stories of those travellers who first gazed
upon the wonders and observed the inhabitants of previously unknown
lands, and whose descriptions are therefore those of discoverers.

One indisputable advantage belongs to this work over the average record
of travel: the reader is not tied down to the perusal of a one-man book.
He has the privilege of calling at pleasure upon any one of these
eminent travellers to recount his or her exploit, with the certainty of
finding they are all in their happiest vein and tell their best stories.

The adventures and discoveries here described are gathered from the four
quarters of the globe, and include the famous stories of men no longer
living, as well as those of present activity. Many of the articles were
formerly published in the exhaustive work entitled, "The World's Library
of Literature, History and Travel" [The J. B. Lippincott Co.,
Philadelphia].

For the rich variety and quality of our material we are indebted to
many travellers of note, and to the courtesy of numerous publishers
and authors. Among these it is desired to acknowledge particularly
indebtedness to the following publishers and works: To Harper and
Brothers, for selections from Stanley's "Through the Dark Continent," Du
Chaillu's "Equatorial Africa," Prime's "Tent-Life in the Holy Land,"
Orton's "The Andes and the Amazon," and Browne's "An American Family in
Germany." To Charles Scribner's Sons: Stanley's "In Darkest Africa,"
Field's "The Greek Islands," and Schley's "The Rescue of Greely." To G.
P. Putnam's Sons: De Amicis's "Holland and its People," Taylor's "Lands
of the Saracens," and Brace's "The New West." To Houghton, Mifflin and
Co.: Melville's "In the Lena Delta," and Hawthorne's "Our Old Home." To
Roberts Brothers: Hunt's "Bits of Travel at Home." To H. C. Coates and
Co.: Leonowen's "Life and Travel in India." Equal tribute is offered to
the authors who have courteously permitted the use of their material,
and in these acknowledgments we include Charles Morris, editor of the
above work, and Oliver H. G. Leigh, whose pen has won honors in various
fields, for their special contributions to this edition.




 WITH THE WORLD'S
 GREAT TRAVELLERS.




NEW DEPENDENCIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

OLIVER H. G LEIGH.

     [The trend of events makes it certain that our geographical
     knowledge is going to be enlarged by personal investigation.
     The boom of Dewey's big guns sent us to our school-books with
     mixed feelings as to the practical value of much of our alleged
     learning. The world suddenly broadened as we gazed in surprise.
     Hawaii invited itself into the circle of new relations. The
     near West Indies and the remote Philippines craved peculiar
     attentions. Whether moved by commercial zeal, official duty
     or the profitable curiosity of pleasure or scientific
     investigation, he is in the highest sense a patriotic
     benefactor of his own country and the land he visits, who
     devotes his energies to making Americans more intimately
     acquainted with the communities now linked with the most
     powerful of nations.]


The scope of holiday travel, or tours of profitable investigation, has
been widely extended by the new relationship between the United States
and Hawaii, now included in its possessions, and the former Spanish
islands over which it exercises a kindly protectorate. Through the usual
channels public sentiment is being formed upon the resources and
responsibilities of the new dependencies. Many will be attracted to
Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and even to the remote Philippines, by
considerations of a practical kind. No truer patriotic motive can
inspire the American traveller than the desire to develop the natural
resources, and, by consequence, the social welfare of a dependent
community Whether bent on business, pleasure, or official duty in the
service of the United States the prospective voyager, and the friends he
leaves behind him, will profit by these gatherings from the impressions
and experiences of former travellers.

The approach to Havana at daybreak overwhelms the senses with the
gorgeous beauties of the sky and landscape. Foul as the harbor may be
with city drainage it seems a silvery lake encircled with the charms of
Paradise and over-arched with indescribable glories of celestial forms
and hues and ever-changing witcheries wrought by the frolicsome sun in
his ecstasy of morning release. Strange that where nature most lavishes
her wealth of charms and favors, the listlessness of perverse man
responds in ungrateful contrasts rather than in harmonies. Havana
has the interest of age, with the drawbacks incident to hereditary
indifference to progressive change. As in all important cities there are
sharp contrasts in its quarters. With long avenues of stately mansions,
marble-like and colonnaded, and exquisitely designed courtyards, there
are unpaved thoroughfares with an open sewer in the mid-roadway, flanked
by tenement houses with a family in each room. Most of Havana's two
hundred thousand citizens live in one-story buildings, lacking
conveniences which the poorest American considers necessities. The older
streets are mere alleys, about twenty feet wide, of which the sidewalks
take up seven. Light and ample ventilation are obtained by grated
window-openings without frames or glass. The dwellings and public
buildings throughout Cuba are planned to give free passage to every
zephyr that wafts relief from the oppressive heat. This is not because
the thermometer mounts much higher than it does in the United States,
for it never touches the records of our great cities, where a hundred in
the shade is not unknown. From 80 to 50 degrees is the year's average,
and it is this steady continuance of warmth that tries strength and
temper.

In the better districts of Havana the driveways are twenty-three feet
and the sidewalks about ten feet wide. Politeness keeps native and
foreign men hopping up and down the foot deep curb to allow ladies a
fair share of elbow-room on the pavements. Your guest-chamber in a
well-to-do family residence has probably a window twenty by eight feet,
sashless, but with several lace curtains and shutters to suit the
weather. The walls are tinted with the Spaniard's eye for rich color
display, the massive furniture is solid carved old mahogany, and the
graceful mosquito curtains suggest experiences better left untold.
House-rent is high, owing to the heavy taxation, which will doubtless be
modified after American administration has put the city in a sanitary
condition. Flour used to cost the poorer classes from two to three times
its price in the United States.

Before we leave the capital for the interior we must note two or three
of the time-mellowed edifices, which give the flavor of old-world
mediaevalism to the island. The gloomy Morro Castle is familiar in the
chronicles of the war. It stands guard at the water-gate of the city,
a grim-visaged dungeon that echoes with the despairing groans of more
victims of cruel oppression than can ever be counted. A more cheerful
landmark is the old Cathedral, looking as if it dates further back than
1724, cooped up in its crowded quarter. Here rest the ashes of Columbus,
say the faithful, and they are probably right. He died in Spain May 20,
1506. In 1856, his bones were brought to San Domingo and from there were
transferred in January, 1796, to this Cathedral, where they rest in the
wall behind the bust and tablet to his memory. The elaborate monument
under the dome is a splendid work of art. Four life-size sculptured
ecclesiastics bear a sarcophagus on their shoulders. There is also a
supposed portrait bust on a mural tablet.

The Spanish element in the city is popularly said to be an exaggeration
of the old country quality. The Tacon theatre holds three thousand
people. Cafes and restaurants abound, and never lack customers. Some day
Havana may be transformed into a nearer Paris, with a larger American
colony than haunts the dearer city across the sea. Cuba has nearly
the same area as England. The Province of Havana has a population of
452,000, of whom 107,500 are black. Large tracts of the island have not
yet been explored. The long years of intermittent battling between
the Cubans and Spaniards have grievously hindered progress in all
directions. Nature is bountiful beyond belief, yet her overtures have
been scorned, partly because of native inertia, but mainly through dread
of loss. Both sides have been guilty of laying waste vast areas of
cultivated land, ruining its husbandmen, capitalists and laborers alike.
The millennium bids fair to come before long. Peace is restoring
confidence. The reign of justice will bring capital and labor back to
the soil and tempt American migration to the cities and towns, where
life can be lived so enjoyably by those who bring modern methods and
ideas to bear in the task of converting a man-made wilderness into an
alluring paradise. Not long ago an American bought seventy acres of
ground in Trinidad valley, which he cleared and planted at a cost of
$3,070 for the first year. The second year's cultivation cost $1,120. He
made it a banana orchard. At the end of the second year he had realized
$30,680 net profit by the sale of his crop of 54,000 bunches.

Havana has the cosmopolitan air. Clubs, cafes, and entertainments abound
and flourish. Its suburbs and nearby towns afford all the allurements
the modern city-man seeks in country life. The rural charms of Marianao
are unsurpassed in any land. Ornately simple architecture marks the
columned houses of its best street. Around it are the cosy cottages in
their luxuriant gardens, and beyond these the open country, a veritable
Eden of foliage, flowers and fruit. In one spot a famous old banyan tree
has thrown out its limbs, thrusting them deep into the soil till they
have sprouted and spread over a five-acre field.

As we traverse the garden landscape in any settled part of the island,
and in Porto Rico, we note the habits of the rustic native in his
interesting simplicity. Poor enough in all conscience, but wonderfully
contented with his crust of bread, his cigarette, the family pig,
bananas for the pickaninnies' staple fare, and the frequent sips of rum
which are to the West Indian laborer what beefsteak is to the American
toiler. He is by no means a drunkard, and if he lacks book-learning
he excels in some civic virtues of the homelier kind, and is not
extravagant in his tailor-bills. The children's costume is usually that
of Eve before the fall, and the apparel of a goodly family might be
bought for the price of a dude's red vest.

Cock-fighting is the favorite native sport. It is encountered at any
hour, anywhere. There are other sports, such as boar hunts, spearing
fish, not to mention that of killing tarantulas, sand-flies, land-crabs,
and the gentle crocodile. The thousand miles of steam railway in Cuba
are unevenly distributed. From Havana the trip through Pinar del Rio
gives an astounding revelation of the wealth of forest and soil and
mines. Devastated as so much of this country was during the long years
of dragging war, its charms of scenery and possibilities of development
will work its speedy salvation. A single acre of choice land has
produced $3,000 worth of tobacco.

Two crops of corn and two of strawberries grow each year, vegetables and
many fruits are superabundant, yet wheat and flour are imported, and
cotton, besides other important staples, can be successfully cultivated.

Journeying to the charming Isle of Pines, and then south and east
through Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Puerto Principe to Santiago, there is
the same invitation of Nature to come and enjoy all that makes earth
lovely. The island is dotted with towns large and small having much the
same characteristics as Havana. Her virgin forests have some of the
richest woods known to commerce. Her hills hold stores of iron, copper,
coal and other minerals. Her soil is ready to yield many-fold to
the courageous cultivator. When the swords have been turned into
plough-shares and the spears to pruning-hooks, there will come a new day
for the native Cuban. He will feel himself liberated from the hindering
rancors and jealousies, inevitable in the light of recent history, which
alone now stand between his beautiful island and the prosperity that
hovers, waiting his encouragement to alight. Then the traveller will
return with reports of Havana rejuvenated, her harbor dredged and
purified, her highways paved, homes made healthy and the whole island
lifted to the higher and happier plane that will give the Pearl of the
Antilles its rightful setting among the other gems of God's earth.

[Illustration: MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA]

Porto Rico, the "rich port," so named by Columbus, came gladly under the
American flag. Its population of about 900,000 has had a sorry time for
three hundred years. They have been steeped in spiritless poverty from
first to last, so used to the oppressor's yoke that ambition seems to
have been crushed. Yet their island is an earthly paradise, save for
its rain-storms and occasional droughts. It is rich in undeveloped
mineral deposits and splendid forests. Nature has helped to discourage
native effort by providing the means of sust