crossed Glacier Park, going by compass, and passed the frontier between
the United States and Canada, is eager for a resumption of the trail.
Next time it shall be Mount McKinley in Alaska, or Crater Lake, in the
far northwest of the States. Perhaps some day I’ll go. Only recently
I received from him, by one post, six long letters and a packet of
coffee from Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. “Come at once,” said Vachel. But
I was in Finland at the time. Otherwise I’d have flung off for Alaska
or Crater Lake. The difficulty is to say “No” to such suggestions. It
would be a traveling more with Nature than with man--through enormous
wildernesses. Imagination could draw a wonderful picture of what such
places would be like, but there is one crude unmannerly truth that
the traveler always comes upon in the course of his experience of new
places, and that is, that imagination, though very charming, is nearly
always wrong. Knowledge of living detail shows the world to be full of
the unexpected, the unanticipated, the unimagined.
There is a type of tramping which belongs more to the future; a new
type, and an even more fascinating one, and that is the taking of cross
sections of the world, the cutting across all roads and tracks, the
predispositions of humdrum pedestrians, and making a sort of virginal
way across the world. This can be tried first of all as a haphazard
tramp--a setting out to walk without the name of any place you want
to get to. Hence the zigzag walk, of which I write later. Keep taking
the first turning on the left and the next on the right, and see where
it leads you. In towns this gives you a most alluring adventure. You
get into all manner of obscure courts and alleys you would never have
noticed in the ordinary way. But in the country, _beaucoup zigzag_,
as they say in France, does not work. You get tied up in a hopeless
tangle of lanes which go back upon themselves. As a result of a week’s
tramping you may find yourself only two steps from the place you
started from. You feel like a lost ant that, after infinite trouble,
has got back to the heap. It is dull to be an ant.
In the country a real cross section and haphazard adventurous tramp
is one which can be known as “Trespasser’s Walk.” You take with you a
little compass, decide to go west or east, as fancy favors, and then
keep resolutely to the guidance of the magnetic needle. It takes you
the most extraordinary way, and shows what an enormous amount of the
face of the earth is kept away from the feet of ordinary humanity by
the fact of “private property.” On the other side of the hedge that
skirts the public way is an entirely different atmosphere and company.
In ten minutes in our beautiful Sussex you can find yourself as remote
from ordinary familiar England as if you were in the midst of a great
reservation. And you may tramp a whole day upon occasion without
meeting a single human being.
I want to do it in Russia some time--tramp across her by the compass,
visit the hamlets which are five miles from the road, visit those which
are fifty from the road, a hundred and fifty from the road. In that
way I should find a Russia as yet unknown, unrevealed. It would be a
strange and fantastic quest of happiness.
“There’s no sense in it,” I can hear the stay-at-home repeat. And if
he came with me it would not be long before he parted company and went
back. “There’s no sense in going further.” And he is quite right if he
doesn’t hear the explorer’s whisper in his heart:
_One everlasting whisper, day and night, repeated--so:
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”_
The Japanese question to the Polar explorer: “What did you find when
you got to the Pole?” is a foolish one. You may bring nothing back in
your hands from an expedition, but you have garnered within. You have
garnered for yourself and also for others. It is always worth while to
quit for a time the rabbit hutches of civilization and do something
which stay-at-home folk call flying in the face of fortune. “Is it not
comfortable enough where you are?” they ask.
However, tramping, as I am writing of it, is not Polar exploration,
nor footing it along the rocky ways of the mountains to Lhasa. It is a
smaller, gentler, matter. It is merely accepting the call of Nature;
taking those two weeks which Wells described in his Modern Utopia--and
taking more. But it matters greatly where one chooses to go. Some
countries are better than others, some districts better than other
districts.
England cannot be said to be excellent tramping country; very good for
a walking tour where one seeks an inn each night, but not good for
a tramp in which one hopes to sleep _à la belle étoile_. Even when
the weather is fine the dews are heavy. In the occasional dry, hot
summers which occur it is however, delightful to adventure forth in
the West Country or in Cumberland, or even in the Highlands. One or
two jaunts are very attractive, for instance, to tramp the old Roman
Wall from Carlisle to Wallsend at Newcastle, or to tramp the Scottish
border from Berwick to the Solway. One passes over remarkably wild and
desolate country. I think especially of the track from Jedburgh to
Newcastleton, and a forlorn district called, if I remember rightly,
Knot of the Hill, which, however, is very much of the hill. One meets
upon occasion uncouth, friendly mountain shepherds with plenty of
philosophy in them. There are some wild tramps in Wales, especially in
the marches. The Shropshire border is most interesting. If, however,
one dives westward for places such as Dinas Mawddy or Dolgelly, one
should take provisions for a couple of days. It is easy to lose
yourself, and when you come upon people they speak only Welsh, and one
has some trouble in making oneself understood. Dartmoor and western
Ireland and the mountains and coastways of Donegal afford remarkable
scope for adventurers with pack on back.
One ought to be very careful in Great Britain about wayside fires.
Even when one is careful to put them out thoroughly with water before
leaving one is apt to get into trouble with the farmers, the police,
etc. One should also remember that if found sleeping behind haystacks,
or in barns, one is liable to be haled before the justice and charged
with vagrancy. Not that the tramp need be ashamed, when motorists
appear there in strings charged with obstruction and speeding and the
like. As a practical detail, however, it may be mentioned that sleepers
are very rarely discovered.
America is, of course, the tramp’s paradise, a country made by tramps.
I do not mean the hoboes which infest the railroads to-day, but the
Johnny Appleseeds of time past, who went exploring beyond the horizon
and the sunset. The first thing to be said about the New World is
its enormous stretch and variety. Many people have walked the three
thousand miles from New York to San Francisco. I even came across a
woman who had done it in high-heeled boots. It is no novelty. A more
difficult transcontinental jaunt would be the four thousand miles of
the Unguarded Line--the frontier of Canada and the United States. This
is a good literary expedition, and any one who did it and described it
well would make his name. My friend Wilfrid Ewart had it in mind to
do, and he went prospectively over the details of such a vagabondage.
But he was unfortunately killed in Mexico. Such a tramp would not
be confined to frontier posts, but should be crisscross, now in the
Republic, now in the Empire.
Another tramp which has seldom been done, except by laborers, is to
follow the wheat harvest north from Texas. The harvesting starts in
June in the South, and great gangs of harvesters work northward with
the summer. This implies a readiness to work in the fields. It is
arduous, but a great experience. You garner wheat: you garner gold.
If you take lifts when offered you may get all the way to Oregon by
September and find the corn still standing there.
In America, however, the roads are killing. You can only tramp in the
early hours of the morning and the cool of the evening--at least, in
summer. The noontide is too hot, the many cars throw up too much dust.
Cross-country tramping is much happier and provides more adventures.
But the man in the car is much more hospitable in America than in
any other part of the world. When tired of some waterless, treeless
countryside, you can come on to the highway, hail a passing car, and be
taken a long step further forward. The leisured and educated Americans
do not tramp for pleasure and find some difficulty in understanding it.
There is a well-known motto: _Why walk if you can ride?_ And Americans
without automobiles make their more fortunate brothers carry them. A
hand wave from a pedestrian brings a car to a halt and you jump in.
Journeys have been made from New York to Los Angeles, Boston to New
Orleans, “stepping cars,” all the way. It is not to be recommended,
however, as it is an abuse of a delightful hospitality.
Still, unless you are studying American civilization, it is hardly
worth while to tramp from town to town. The wildernesses are so much
more interesting. It is worth while for any one thinking out a novel
walk to apply to the Department of Forests and National Parks at
Washington. A National Park, conventional as it sounds, may easily
prove to be a reserve of territory as extensive as an English county.
They are commonly referred to by propagandists as “vast natural
playgrounds”--but as yet they are but little used. Yellowstone Park
is the only one which is visited by great numbers of people. The
others are in nowise overrun. Indeed, the railway journeys to them are
generally so long that the masses of the eastern cities cannot profit
by them. There are two specially marvelous ones, Sequoia and Yosemite,
notable for their trees; the highest and the oldest trees in the world
are to be found in these primeval wildernesses.
The Grand Canyon can afford at least a week’s walking. It is a mistake
to go down it on horse or mule, and when down in the depths there is
a marvelous journey for the pedestrian along the rocky flank of the
fast-running Colorado River. If at Grand Canyon in August it is well
to visit the Hopi Indians and see the Snake Dance. However, it is
really better to visit the Canyon later in the year. At Christmas it is
delightful. At midsummer it is really too oppressive down below. When I
went down there was snow above and soft vernal airs three thousand feet
under, spring flowers in bloom, and one could sit happily by one’s
wood fire in the afternoon sunshine.
Tramping in the South of the United States is very pleasant in autumn
and spring, especially in Florida and Alabama. In the summer it is too
hot and the mosquitoes unusually thick. A very interesting November
tramp is from Atlanta, the largest city in Georgia, to Savannah on the
coast. In this way you can follow, as I did, the track of Sherman’s
army in its famous march to the sea.
But there are places less far afield than these. There is hardly any
wilder country anywhere than in upper New York State. A tramp through
New England is likely to be congenial to most Englishmen: the people
are so much nearer to the English. Canada also presents enormous fields
for pleasure tramping, or for tramping which is almost exploration. The
far Northwest especially is wild and little traversed.
Europe, however, has equally strong claims on those who tramp, being
even more diversified than is America. The language difficulty is the
chief drawback. There are a hundred or so tongues. Customs and laws are
also bewildering. Still, the best way to see the Pyrenees or the Alps
is pack on back. The charming works of Hilaire Belloc on the “Path to
Rome” and the Pyrenees are memorials of excellent tramping in Europe.
A pilgrimage from inn to inn in France, especially going south through
the wine country, is utterly pleasant. One dispenses with a coffeepot
in these parts, a liter bottle is better. Fill it with the _vin du
pays_ wherever you go; a bottle of Chablis in the village of Chablis,
a bottle of Nuits St. Georges in the village of Nuits St. Georges, a
bottle of Pommard at Pommard, identifying the country by the wine of
wayside inns. It is well to taste and try what any countryside, town,
or hostelry is famous for, be it Creole gumbo or stuffed peppers, be it
even snails, even frogs’ legs. I remember in younger days the disgust
of the waiter in a little hotel opposite Chartres Cathedral when I
rejected a plateful of snails which, with a clatter, he had put before
me--a flagon of red wine, a chunk of bread, and a plateful of Roman
snails. I said “No! Take them away!”
The waiter shrugged his shoulders. _Que diable!_ If I didn’t want
snails why did I come to that hotel? Snails were their specialty.
However, I confess now I have eaten snails. The first time was at Pont
de Vaux, near Mâcon of Burgundy fame. The snails came on as a third
course at the Hôtellerie de la Renaissance, cleverly disguised, and
before I knew it I was saying, “I like these; I wonder what they are!”
They were purveyed upon a silver tray, or nickel, I suppose; they had
been taken out of their shells and put into tiny pots, one snail one
pot. There were a dozen or so tiny pots on the tray, each no more than
half an inch across the top, and in each a snail floated in a little
bath of melted butter and spice. There was a slender two-pronged fork
which looked like a toothpick, and you ate the snail with that.
Very tasty! Very novel! Perhaps that was how the Romans ate them.
Perhaps in ancient Egypt they ate them in that way, and these are the
original fleshpots. Be that as it may, I felt much amused and intrigued
and turned with a friendly gesture to my bottle of local Mâcon. I was
more pro-French after that, having got over a prejudice, I could no
longer say, “Disgusting people; they eat snails!”
France is a delightful country for a spring escapade. Go South and stay
in the country inns, and disenchant the Northern seriousness! It’s a
great idea. Go out from Paris to Fontainebleau, where the birds are
singing in choirs in the silvery lichened trees. You can sprawl at
your length in the sun in May. It is cold sleeping out, but there are
inns. You will walk amid wild daffodils and budding hyacinths. Summer
is coming north to meet you at Joigny or Dijon. You enter the Côte
d’Or country and spectacular stone villages among green hills. From
Dijon by red-earth vineyards whence the well cut vines are sprouting
an elemental eye-placating green. Your eyes need placating after the
dreary North with its cities and industries. The vineyards have low
stone walls which incidentally make excellent seats for the wanderer
on which to munch his bread and Camembert and stand his bottle of
Burgundy. You come to Beaune, a name on a bottle, on a wine list, now a
place well established in your mind and heart. So also Pommard, Volnay,
Mersault, Nuits, Mâcon, to mention but a few.
It is a longish distance, but another journey or a continuation might
be from Lyons along the banks of the Rhône or eastward to Lake Geneva
and Switzerland. It is very hot on the Rhône, but there is an added
interest in the old Roman cities you pass through. Avignon might be
your center, and from Avignon there are delightful pilgrimages to the
fountain of Vaucluse, where Petrarch and Laura met, to Tarascon, the
byword for obscurity in France, to famous Arles and its amphitheater.
But certainly the most wild and delightful tramp would be over the
mountains by compass to Cannes, through untraversed and solitary
Provence. This can be done in later summer. For although it is
extremely hot on the Riviera, the whole way there is at a height, and
one drops down to the coast by a precipitous road from the perfume
factories of Grasse.
Tramping expeditions of even more beauty can be made on the French
side of the Pyrenees, in the country of the Basques. Pious Catholics
may be inclined to make for Lourdes and will encounter the sick in
body going for health, and perhaps coming in the opposite direction,
rejoicing cripples who have been made whole. Whether credulous or
incredulous, the tramp will find Lourdes a religious curiosity well
worth approaching in the spirit of a true pilgrim on foot. A tramp
from Biarritz to Carcassonne, across the ankle of the Franco-Iberian
peninsula holds many picturesque sights of strange people and of feudal
towns. But mountainous Nature will rule the hearts of all those who
come under the influence of the sublime. This is delightful country for
sleeping out, provided mosquito netting be carried. Inns, however, are
not so numerous, and one should be prepared to make one’s own coffee on
one’s own brushwood fire.
Spain, despite some pleasant volumes recording walking tours, is
really untouched. It is a remarkable country, and the people, the most
conservative and delightful in Europe, look somewhat askance upon
Bohemians. There are tens of thousands of beggars who are accepted as
philosophically as flies in summer, but the man in tweeds with knapsack
on his back is regarded as some sort of strange wild animal. One is
almost bound to be called upon to explain oneself to the police, and to
find oneself described officially as a vagrant. Jan and Cora Gordon,
two delightful vagabonds, got over the difficulty by carrying guitars,
and they were understood as itinerant musicians. In the end, because
they played so well, they won over the affections of many somber
Spaniards. Among other tramping friends of mine, I ought to mention Mr.
Forse, the tramping vicar of Southborne, who has made several tours on
foot in Spain and issues his impressions as supplements to his parish
magazine. I often envied him his experiences.
It was my impression in Spain that it is not wise to wear tweeds.
Black is the accepted color for all people. All respectable beggars
wear black. On the other hand, state visits are also made in black.
With regard to the climate of Spain, it is easy to be deceived. It is
much colder than most people think. Northern Spain is mostly elevated
plateau and is exposed to bitter winds in the spring. Andalusia,
however, and the South generally, is serene and warm, hot even, but
subject to unpleasant dust storms. Incidentally, it may be mentioned
that the easiest way to get to Spain is via Southampton and Gibraltar.
The railway journey from France is apt to be very uncomfortable.
After these two countries, northern Italy, Switzerland, and Germany
come naturally to mind. Of these, by far the cheapest is northern
Italy, and there is more untrodden ground. It is well to take passports
for Austria as well, so as to be free of the Austrian Tyrol if you
wish to enter. Austria, however, as a result of the War, lost a great
deal of magnificent territory to Italy, and there is plenty of room
in the latter country. Southern Germany is, of course, very fine,
and not inhospitable, though the cost of provisions has gone up
prodigiously. Perhaps that will be remedied--as one remembers Germany
in the old days as one of the cheapest countries for travel in the
world. Bavaria is, however, still Bavaria, and if beer attract, the
brown brau is as good as ever. The Bavarians were the only Germans who
did not _Gott-strafe_ England, America, and the rest, and they are
quite pleasant neighbors. The Germans themselves are good walkers,
love rucksacks, and the tramp will attract no unpleasant curiosity as
in Spain. Switzerland may best be enjoyed afoot. It is common ground
for the walkers of all nationalities--a League of Nations center for
those who love God’s handiwork in Nature. It is, however, a rendezvous
for the lazier type of tourist, and the “lounge lizard” is apt to
set the pace for all. It is dangerous to spend more than one night
consecutively in one of the large hotels or tourist round-ups. It is a
desecration of one’s opportunities to use them for dancing and gentle
promenades. The program of the visitor to Switzerland is apt to be a
little unambitious. People go with heaps of luggage and find themselves
tied to it, returning inevitably to it even from delightful daily
expeditions, like cows from pasture. The end of a happy day should be
the stepping-stone to one still happier. A fortnight or three weeks
spent going continuously with sunset and dawn joined by your resting
place in the hills has a larger content that the equivalent days spent
going out to a certain point and then returning to a hotel.
Czechoslovakia is also a country of athleticism, and one encounters
good will there at every point. There is a good deal of delightful
ground, especially in the Carpathians. It is rougher going than in
France, but the people you meet are simpler. More rations need to be
carried as villages are further apart and are apt to have less in them
than one might imagine. Here are few canned goods. But there is plenty
of good fruit. An expedition well worth making is to Ushorod, in the
long narrow strip of territory inhabited by the Carpathian Russians.
As regards the rest of Southern Europe, conditions are frequently
difficult. The Balkans are bare and sun-beaten, and largely
uncivilized. There is plenty of scope for adventure, especially in
Albania, where an armed guard is usually required. Dalmatia is
extremely interesting, especially the primitive Croats living in
the interior. But the country is mostly treeless and subject to the
southern sun and the Sirocco. Early morning is the best time for
walking. It is often very cool then--but there is little shelter from
the noontide ardor. Spalato and Ragusa are excellent starting points,
especially the former. Montenegro has very interesting people and the
country is obscure enough to please the stoutest adventurer.
I have written considerably in my books concerning tramping in Russia
and Siberia. I have been over many thousands of miles of Russia afoot.
The happiest times were in the Caucasus, by the Gorge of Dariel road,
over the Cross Pass, or by the Rion valley over Mamison, or on the
Caucasian shore of the Black Sea. When it is too hot to live in a
house in a town, it is heaven on the mountains. Since the War, and the
Revolution, the Caucasus has, unfortunately, become much more dangerous
for travelers of all kinds. The tribes are warlike, and have been badly
treated by Bolsheviks and Europeans in general. Robbers are merciless.
Pacification should, however, succeed within the next ten years, and
the Caucasus become open again. Weapons are not of much use to a tramp
in these parts. If he carry a revolver he should be secretive about
it--for a revolver is a great lure. You are almost certain to be robbed
if it is known you have a revolver--for the revolver’s sake. It is best
to go unarmed and match intelligence against force when necessary. The
native horsemen will be found to be of a brow-beating kind, carrying
perchance several mortal weapons. It is best to meet them face to
face--but smiling--never let them get you scared. They may want to turn
you back or force you to work in their fields. But a smiling answer
turneth away wrath, and it is well to keep them talking and watch
for your chance to escape. It should be remarked that the scope for
tramping is not great before the middle of May, or after the middle
of October. The passes, the lowest of which is over nine thousand
feet, fill up with snow; you get into whirling blizzards and lose the
only trail. On Mamison, especially, it is easy to go wrong, as it is
extremely desolate. I crossed once before the snows had melted, an
experience never to be forgotten or to be repeated.
It is better in the Caucasus to provide for sleeping out. There are
inns, _dukhans_, bedless, dirty, and you can obtain hospitality in the
villages. But the guest is scared only as long as he is under the roof.
Next morning, after an hour’s grace wherein to hide his tracks, he may
become the quarry of mine host.
Villages, the native _auli_, may be entered by day, but it is safer to
keep out of them. They do not possess much which cannot be found in the
wayside inn. Provisions are very scarce; such things as tea, sugar,
bread, ham, generally unobtainable. Eggs, and a species of bread baked
from millet seed, are the commonest fare. The latter needs a good deal
of red wine to wash even a small quantity down. It is called _churek_,
and it is good for chickens.