It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of
friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has
observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in
Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were
necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to
grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire
of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently
believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends
prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to
follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the
man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the
purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition.
There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes
in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away,
but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of
expectation—declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money.
'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he
is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my
little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.'
There are no circumstances, however, under which friendship comes so
often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It
is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea;
after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the
box, the weight of the superincumbent water bursts it up. It is merely
a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains
our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's
end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what
the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes
when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him.
Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circumstances—such as
being on board ship, for example—when we thus part without parting
company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friendship
can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as
much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether
friendship has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes
asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from
Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same ship'—'Only
that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an
unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had
better not be pursued.
A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the
world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the
expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the
proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very
dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is
becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes
a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him!
Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another
when we have got to Japan, for instance? And then we have to come back
together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same
story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of
his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is
why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any
long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the
other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is
certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea,
have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at
home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this
respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not
sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably
certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They
are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they
endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely
because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for
example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard
for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he
can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but
simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the
like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him
for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room—not to
say a mere china closet—with a man of whom he knows nothing except that
he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling
companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where
there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing
travel under such circumstances to be compatible with pleasure at all,
which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but
where it can be avoided why is it undergone?
There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as
those advertisements we see in the summer months with respect to
travelling companions, from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a
travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The
highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger
upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the
adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor.
References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper,
patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No
one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably
certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true
some people are married to strangers by advertisement; but their
companionship, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for
months, or anything like it.
Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter
(and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the
first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard
the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a
white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they
are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a
wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his
temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks
one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less
profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad.
But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known
one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers,
there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the
club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they
are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college
friendship—which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think
about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland
together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What
evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate
indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months—a man
with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the
club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was
it—exactly—T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, but
recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a charming
fellow, only he has this peculiarity—that if there is only one armchair
in a room, B. is sure to get it.'
B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good
sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it—exactly—T. had said of
A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night
before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow;
he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his
hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he
has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with
demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they
meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his
all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from
the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment,
nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives
that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially
designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which
can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them
twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities
decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal
machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions.
Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; but he
does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every
observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then
says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no
ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a
friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling
Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless
to say that under these circumstances the glass of Friendship falls
from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth
quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,'
and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French
count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain
and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B.
meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without
recognition.
Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is
almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with
them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to
what is to be done—which, however, is to the last degree improbable—the
majority of votes shall carry it'—an arrangement which only delays the
inevitable event—
'Three little nigger boys went the world to view,
The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.'
They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the
Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that
moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern
version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D.
push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D.
has purveyed poisoned wine.
The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try
him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from
home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then,
if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days
in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still
keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him
anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success.
In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest
friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much
respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been
intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is
to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with
nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us
walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And
he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest,
but insists upon walking _there_—perhaps along a dusty road, or over
turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation—say a mile out and a
mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a
speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion
is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant.
My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out
marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the
community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his
pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with
us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had
heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly.
One day we took a long drive—four miles or more—to a well-known bay.
The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot,
leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the
man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone.
How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the
last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next
day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the
cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circumstances, he
had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home.
Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened,
but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that
trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election
cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for
the heinous crime of bribery!
Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to
Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer
home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so
dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him—not
even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters
is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was
not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually
put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was
not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed
H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient
with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last
Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a
travelling companion who makes the waiters cry.
The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own
scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of
the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you.
You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus,
pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached
St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have
been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for
the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it
starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at
Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you come to travel with him
you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the
easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only
to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the
wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks—if he _has_ a thought except
for his nervous centres—to the tender mercies of a foreign doctor, to
hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery.