Our next step brought us to monster London, where we attended the
interesting meeting of the British Iron and Steel Institute, and
being called upon as the only representative of American iron and
steel manufacturers present, I had to venture a few remarks.
Whatever England may be justly chargeable with in the past for her
neglect of scientific methods and the improvements of the day, it
is evident she now occupies the van in this respect.
No one could be present at these meetings without being impressed
with the amount and thoroughness of the scientific knowledge now
engaged in the iron and steel manufacture of Great Britain. Not
less remarkable seemed to me the willingness upon the part of all
to report and explain every advance made in the various processes
to their fellows. The old idea of trade secrets seems thoroughly
exploded, and a free interchange of practice and theory is now
seen to be the best for all. I cannot but believe that had the
manufacturers of America adopted this policy years ago, many
millions squandered in the erection of works at unsuitable
locations would have been saved. It struck me as strange that no
less a personage than Earl Granville, who has had charge of her
Majesty's foreign affairs and been leader in the House of Lords,
should have been in attendance and participated in these meetings.
The company also had the attendance of two dukes; but these were
Lord Granville's compeers only in title. All of the three,
however, rightfully claim to rank with us as iron-masters. The
Bessemer medal was presented this year to Peter Cooper, of New
York, much to the honor of the donors, I think.
For one shilling, any one curious to know something of the sights
of this London, can do so by purchasing a good-sized
volume--Dickens's London. A look at it will soon satisfy one how
true it is that compared to London all other cities are but
villages. It will very soon count four millions of people under
its sway. Every year one hundred thousand are added to the mass,
and not even depressed times seem to limit this increase. The
reason for this is patent; there is everything here that there is
elsewhere, and much that can be found nowhere else; in every
department of life, for earnest work in any special line, or for
amusement--for sight-seeing, study, or fashion--it is here that
the very best of everything is concentrated; the very cream of all
the world is here, because no other place is large enough or rich
enough to support it. To know the best that has been said and done
in the world of the past is no doubt much, as Matthew Arnold says,
but there is also much in seeing and living where the best of
to-day is said and done, and if possible in the company of those
who have said or done any of the best things in any line. Life
with godlike men on earth must be the best preparative for
companionship hereafter. This is possible in Britain only in
London, for the celebrities and their works are centred here. An
unusually large proportion of the population is of the wealthy
classes, for the height of the average Briton's ambition is, in
addition to the essential estate in the country, to be in
possession of a mansion in London. After these are acquired, and
his wife and daughters have been presented at court, any after-
successes may be regarded as details which ornament the solid
edifice of position attained; and truly, as far as I have seen
human life in any part of the world, I know of no state which in
itself seems capable of affording so much pleasure--were happiness
dependent upon external circumstances--as that which rewards
successful Britons when with their usual good sense they retire
from business.
If the owner of a large estate in Britain with its hundreds of
people, who are as it were, under his care, its pretty quaint
villages and honeysuckled cottages, its running brooks, its hedge-
rows and green fields, all giving him scope for change and
improvement--if such a man is not happy and does not enjoy life,
let him seek for some more favorable conditions in some other
planet than this, say I. I must not attempt to follow our steps
through England and Scotland, nor to tell you of the cordial
welcomes and thousand kind attentions bestowed upon us. We spent a
very, very happy month among dear kind friends, and never enjoyed
Merrie England more. My mother and Miss F. joined us in London,
and took care of us until we sailed for New York, which we did by
the new Cunard steamer Gallia, June 14th, reaching New York on the
24th, exactly eight months from the day we sailed out of the
Golden Gate. And now, June 25th, I write these lines at Cresson,
on the crest of the Alleghanies, having reached our starting point
and earned our right to fellowship with the favored fraternity of
globe-trotters.
The voyage round the world should be made sailing westward from
London or New York, as this gives the traveller the prevailing
winds in his favor; at least after he reaches New York, for the
Atlantic is never quite blessed with steady winds from the west.
The trade-winds waft the traveller on his way when he goes toward
the west; should he take the contrary direction and start via
England to the East, he must experience many rough days and nights
upon the sea. We saw the steamers from England battling against
the monsoon, which only served to push us steadily and smoothly
on. Let all my readers make due note of this--westward, not
eastward. Another even greater advantage, at least to those who,
like myself, are affected by heat, is obtained by taking the
westward course: the various countries can be visited in months
during which no extreme heat is possible. The best time to start
from San Francisco is early in September, so that Japan is reached
about the first of October, which is a delightful month in that
pretty toy-land, neither too hot nor too cold. A month will enable
the tourist to see all that is specially interesting--Yokohama,
Yeddo, Kiobe, Kioto, Osaka, Nagasaki, and some of the notable
inland sights. This brings him to China (Shanghai) the middle of
November. After a few days there, a trip up the Yangtse, on one of
the excellent American style of river boats, some six hundred
miles to Hang-Kow, should not be missed, as one gets by this the
best possible look at the Chinese at home. Hong Kong, the next
stage, is reached, say early in December. Here you do Canton,
Macao, and other interesting points, and reach Singapore, almost
at the equator, and eat your Christmas dinner directly below your
friends at home. If the reports from Java are favorable, a
tempting excursion to that interesting island can be made from
Singapore; but when we were at Singapore Europeans were being
brought there from Java, and hurried north to cool places as the
only cure for maladies contracted in that island. Therefore we
abandoned our intended trip thither.
The traveller can decide whether to take steamer from Singapore
via Bankok, Siam, and do that coast of Asia, and reach Calcutta
from the west, or to follow our course via Ceylon. If he has
plenty of time, the former may enable him to see more of India;
but our experience was that there is more to see by any route than
can be properly taken in upon one journey. If the wanderer follow
us to Ceylon, we advise him to cross from Colombo to Southern
India by steamer to Philipopolis, and go up through Southern India
by land to Madras, as this will give him an opportunity to see the
strange architecture and many customs peculiar to that region. We
did the principal sights of India, but we advise any of our
readers who make the journey, instead of returning from Delhi as
we did, to go further north to Amritsir, and as far toward Cabool
as the rail may extend. Simla upon the hills should also be
visited. We often regret that we had not a week or two more to
spend in India. We were rather late in the season, and Bombay was
getting hot--indeed, it is always rather hot anywhere at the
equator--but with the exception of a few hours at midday no great
inconvenience was found, and the nights and the mornings were
pleasant.
By the time the traveller has reached Egypt, and seen Alexandria
and Cairo, he will be disposed, if our condition be any guide, to
rest and be thankful, consigning any further extended travels to
some future time when he has fully digested what he has gathered
in his wanderings, and is fresh. When he touches pretty Catania,
on his way west, he will feel for the first time that he is once
more, as it were, at home among his own kith and kin, and has been
quite long enough among strangers. Going round the world yields
one exquisite pleasure which cannot be experienced upon any other
tour. Our way over the long seas has not to be retraced. The
farther we go, the nearer we come to home; every day's journey
away from those we love, is also one day's step nearer to them. I
think, also, that no amount of travel in detached portions of the
world enables one to contemplate the world and the human race as a
whole. One must traverse the ball round and round to arrive at a
broad, liberal, correct estimate of humanity--its work, its aims,
its destiny.
Go, therefore, my friends--all you who are so situated as to be
able to avail yourselves of this privilege--go and see for
yourselves how greatly we are bound by prejudices, how checkered
and uncertain are many of our own advances, how very nearly all is
balanced. No nation has all that is best, neither is any bereft of
some advantages, and no nation, or tribe, or people is so unhappy
that it would be willing to exchange its condition for that of any
other. See, also, that in every society there are many individuals
distinguished for traits of character which place them upon a par
with the best and highest we know at home, and that such are
everywhere regarded with esteem, and held up as models for lower
and baser natures to emulate.
The traveller will not see in all his wanderings so much abject,
repulsive misery among human beings in the most heathen lands, as
that which startles him in his civilized Christian home, for
nowhere are the extremes of wealth and poverty so painfully
presented. He will learn, too, if he be observant, that very
little is required after all to make mankind happy, and that the
prizes of life worth contending for are, generally speaking,
within the reach of the great mass.
Did you ever sum up these prizes and think how very little the
millionaire has beyond the peasant, and how very often his
additions tend not to happiness but to misery! What constitutes
the choice food of the world? Plain beef, common vegetables and
bread, and the best of all fruits--the apple; the only nectar
bubbles from the brook without money and without price. All that
our race eats or drinks beyond this range must be inferior, if not
positively injurious. Dress--what man, or rather what woman
wears--is less and less comfortable in proportion to its frills
and its cost, and no jewel is so refined as the simple flower in
the hair, which the village maid has for the plucking. All that
women overload themselves with beyond this range is a source of
unhappiness. To be the most simply attired is to be the most
elegantly dressed. So much for true health and happiness in all
that we eat, and drink, and wear.
If we extend the inquiry to the luxuries and adornments of life,
is there any music--which of course comes first--comparable in
grandeur to that of the wave, stirring the soul with its mighty
organ tones as it breaks upon the beach, or any so exquisitely
fine as that of the murmuring brook which sings its song forever
to every listener upon its banks, while above birds warble and the
zephyr plays its divine accompaniment among the trees! We spend
fortunes for picture-galleries, but what are the tiny painted
copies compared to the great originals, the mountains, the glens,
the streams and waterfalls, the fertile fields, the breezy downs,
the silver sea! These are the gems of the universal gallery, the
common heritage of man, the property of the humblest who has eyes
to see, and as free as the air we breathe. We have our
conservatories and spend our thousands upon orchids, but which of
nature's smiles ranks with the rose and the mignonette, the daisy
and the bluebell, and the sweet forget-me-not blooming for all
earth's children, and which grow upon the window-sill of the
artisan and which the laborer blesses at his cottage door!
If we go higher still in the scale, we find that the companionship
of the gods is not denied to the steady wage-receiving man, for
Shakespeare and our Burns and our Scott can be had for sixpence
per volume. In this blessed age in which we are privileged to live
even the immortals are cheap and visit the toiler. We see the rich
rolling over the land in their carriages, but blessed beyond these
is the man who strolls along the hedge-rows. The connoisseur in
his gallery misses the health-giving breeze which brings happiness
to the devotee who seeks the original afield. The lady in her
overheated conservatory knows nothing of the joyous rapture of her
more fortunate sister who gathers the spoils of the glen. Ah, my
friends, ponder well over this truth: the more one dwells with
her, the more one draws from her, the closer one creeps to her
bosom, the sweeter is nature's kiss. From man's neglect of her for
meaner substitutes come most of the disappointment and unhappiness
of life. The masses of mankind are happy all round the world
because their pleasures are drawn so largely from sources which
lie open to all. The rich are not to be envied, for truly "there
is no purchase in money" of any real happiness. When used for our
own gratification, it injures us; when used ostentatiously, it
brings care; when hoarded, it narrows the soul. Nature has not
provided a means by which any man can use riches for selfish
purposes without suffering therefrom. There is only one source of
true blessedness in wealth, and that comes from giving it away for
ends that tend to elevate our brothers and enable them to share it
with us. Nature is gloriously communistic after all, God bless
her! and sees that a pretty fair division is made, let man hoard
as he may. The secret of happiness is renunciation.
Another advantage to be derived from a journey round the world is,
I think, that the sense of the brotherhood of man, the unity of
the race, is very greatly strengthened thereby, for one sees that
the virtues are the same in all lands, and produce their good
fruits, and render their possessors blessed in Benares and Kioto
as in London or New York; that the vices, too, are akin, and also
that the motives which govern men and their actions and aims are
very much the same the world over. In their trials and sufferings,
as in their triumphs and rejoicings, men do not differ, and so the
heart swells and the sympathies extend, and we embrace all men in
our thoughts, leaving not one outside the range of our solicitude
and wishing every one well. The Japanese, Chinese, Cingalese,
Indians, Egyptians, all have been made our friends through
individuals of each race of whom we have heard much that was good
and noble, pure lives, high aims, good deeds, and how can we,
therefore, any longer dwell apart, believing our own land or our
own people in any respect the chosen of God! No, no; we know now
in a sense much more vivid than before that all the children of
the earth dwell under the reign of the same divine law, and that
for each and every one that law evolves through all the ages, the
higher from the lower, the good from evil, slowly but surely
separating the dross from the pure gold, disintegrating what is
pernicious, consolidating what is beneficial to the race, so that
the feeling that formerly told us that we alone had special care
bestowed upon us gives place to the knowledge that every one in
his day and generation, wherever found, receives the truth best
fitted for his elevation from that state to the next higher, and
so
"Ilka blade of grass keps its ain drap o' dew,"
and grows its own fruit after its kind. For these and many other
reasons, let all thoughtful souls follow my example and visit
their brethren from one land to another till the circle is
complete.
The unprecedented advance made by western nations in the past and
present generations, upon which we continually plume ourselves, is
shared by the world in general. Wherever we have been, one story met
us. Everywhere there is progress, not only material but intellectual
as well, and rapid progress too. The oldest inhabitant has always
his comparison to offer between the days of his youth and the
advantages possessed by the youth of to-day. Matters are not as they
were. We saw no race which had retrograded, if we except Egypt,
which is now in a transitional state, and will ultimately prove no
exception to the rule. The whole world moves, and moves in the right
direction--upward and onward--the things that are better than those
that have been and those to come to be better than those of to-day.
The law of evolution--the higher from the lower--is not discredited
by a voyage round the world and the knowledge of what is transpiring
from New York round to New York again gives us joy this morning as
we sum it all up.
The trip has been without a single unpleasant incident. We have not
missed one connection, nor ever been beyond the reach of all the
comforts of life, nor have we had one unhappy or even lonely hour.
Every day has brought something new or interesting. And sitting here
in our quiet mountain home this morning, I feel that there is
scarcely a prize that could be offered for which I would exchange
the knowledge obtained and the memories of things seen during my
trip. One of the great pleasures of travel in the East is the
unbounded hospitality--excessive kindness--everywhere met with. Will
the numerous kind friends to whom we are so deeply indebted--a host
far too great to name--please accept this general acknowledgment as
at least a slight evidence that their goodness to us is not
unappreciated? At every stage of our travels I have been struck with
the cheering thought, that notwithstanding the indisputable fact
that a vast amount of misery seems inseparable from human life,
still the general condition of mankind is a happy one. Even the
Hindoo in India, or the Malay in the Archipelago--and these seem to
exist under the worst conditions--each of these constantly sees
cause to bless his good fortune and render thanks--sincere,
heartfelt thanks--to a kind Providence for casting his life in
pleasant places, and not in damp, foggy England, or amid American
frosts and snows. We have their sincere sympathy, I assure you. Nor
is patriotism a peculiarly western virtue. No matter who or what he
is, the man of the East in his heart exalts his own country and his
own race, and esteems them specially favored of the gods. And indeed
it is with nations as with individuals: as none are entirely good,
so none are entirely bad. The unseen power is at work in all lands,
evolving the higher from the lower and steadily improving all, so
the traveller finds much to commend in every country, and seeing
this he grows tolerant and liberal, and able more heartily to sing
with Burns--
"Then let us pray that come it may--
As come it will, for a' that--
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet, for a'that,
That man to man, the warld o'er
Shall brothers be, for a' that."
In which hope, nay, in the confident and inspiring belief in the
sure coming of the day of the Brotherhood of Man, I lay down my
pen and bring to a close this record of my tour round the world.