Transcriber’s Notes.
Hyphenation has been standardised.
Other changes made are noted at the end of the book.
[Illustration: ARMED AND EQUIPPED, AS ADVISED BY FRIENDS.]
_A JOURNEY
OF A JAYHAWKER_
_BY
W. Y. MORGAN_
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALBERT T. REID_
MONOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
CRANE & COMPANY, PRINTERS
TOPEKA
1905
Copyright 1905,
BY W. Y. MORGAN.
PREFACE.
These letters were written to the Hutchinson Daily News, and are
printed in book form without revision. With this understanding the
reader will kindly overlook inconsistencies and inaccuracies, which
easily creep into what is only an impression and not a study. Any other
mistakes are to be charged to the printer and proof-reader, who are
likewise to be credited for the correct grammar and English which may
be found in some places.
There is no excuse for the publication of these letters. No one is
guilty except the writer, and he is responsible only to his conscience,
which is not sensitive.
W. Y. MORGAN.
HUTCHINSON, KANSAS, December 1, 1905.
_To the
PEOPLE OF HUTCHINSON,
Who have stood for much from the same
source, and for whom there is no
relief in sight, this book is
respectfully dedicated._
CONTENTS.
_Page._
GOING TO EUROPE 11
LEAVING THE LAND 17
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC 24
FIRST DAY IN IRELAND 31
BY KILLARNEY’S LAKES 37
IRELAND AND THE IRISH 44
THE CITY OF PLEASURE 53
PARIS AND PARISIANS 60
RURAL FRANCE 69
GETTING INTO ITALY 79
ROME AND ROMANS 86
VENICE, THE BEAUTIFUL 93
SOME THINGS ON ART 100
AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH 106
ACROSS THE ALPS 117
GENEVA AND CHILLON 123
SOMETHING OF SWITZERLAND 130
SWISS AND SWITZERLAND 136
IN THE BLACK FOREST 145
STORIES OF STRASSBURG 152
IN OLD HEIDELBERG 159
WORMS AND OTHER THINGS 167
RICH OLD FRANKFORT 174
DOWN THE RHINE 180
COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS 188
IN DUTCH LAND 197
THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS 204
THE KINGDOM OF BELGIUM 212
EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB 219
IN OLD, OLD ENGLAND 231
THE GREATEST OF CITIES 238
AT KING EDWARD’S HOUSE 246
THE TOWER AND OTHER THINGS 253
IN RURAL ENGLAND 259
RAILROADS IN EUROPE 266
THE TIME TO QUIT 275
A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER.
GOING TO EUROPE.
BOSTON, May 25, 1905.
When one decides to make a European trip he immediately becomes
impressed with the importance of his intention, and thinks that
everyone else is likewise affected. Of course this is a mistake, but
you have to stop and think before you realize it. You go down the
street imagining everyone is saying, “There is a man who is going to
Europe.” In fact, the other fellow is probably merely wondering whether
or not you will pay the two dollars you owe him or stand him off for
another thirty days. You are in an exhilarated state. You think over
the cherished desires of a lifetime to see London, Paris, Rome, and
the places made famous by history. You can’t pick up a paper but you
read some reference to a place or thing which you are going to see
across the Atlantic, and which ordinarily you would skip as you do
a patent-medicine advertisement. You go to reading the accounts of
Emperor William’s plans as if you would soon meet William and talk them
over with him. You read about the comings and goings of nobility and
wonder if the pope knows you are likely to call on him some day in
July, and whether the Swiss Guards will realize the honor of a visit
from an American citizen by the name of Morgan or Jones. You read of
European travel and sights, and, worst of all, you actually get to
believe the things. In fact, you work yourself up to a fine point of
enthusiasm and in your mind go cavorting around among ancient heroes
and crowned heads. As a first guess I would say that probably the most
successful part of a trip to the Old World is the one you take in
advance.
[Illustration]
As soon as I disclosed my European intentions, I began to get advice
from friends and old travelers. This is a trying experience. Everybody
has ideas as to what should be done, and no two will agree. One of the
first questions to be settled is that of clothing. The importance of
this is impressed upon the prospective tourist. In the first place I am
told to take no baggage except the very simplest that can be carried
in the hand. In the second place I am advised that when traveling in
Europe, even more than in this country, one should be prepared for all
kinds of climate and be ready with the proper clothes to meet every
emergency. Every bit of information is absolutely as true as common
law or the gospel, for the informant has either made the trip, or
his wife’s cousin has, or he knows a man who knows another man who
did,—and you are told what happened with all the harrowing details.
Clothes do not make the man or the woman, but they help out a lot. So
that our friends will realize the difficulties we may meet. I will
admit that we are going to the “simple” extreme, taking only light
baggage, very little more than a clean collar and a pleasant smile. If
royalty wants to call upon us, royalty will not find us prepared with
the clothes required by the books of etiquette, unless I can hire a
dress suit or borrow one from the head waiter.
[Illustration]
I have also discovered that it is going to be difficult to please
everybody with our route. Nearly every person has something that just
must be seen, and not to do so would make a trip to Europe a flat
failure. Most of these important places are dug up by inspiration from
the memory of some novel or play. There is the scientific man who urges
German universities, the musically inclined who would make Wagnerian
objects the great points, the historical student who prescribes
battlefields, the sportive gent who urges Monte Carlo, the classical
enthusiast who can think of nothing less than a thousand years old,
the art-lover who has a list of seventy-seven different styles of
Madonnas, the novel-reader who would wander over the country of Scott,
the social oracle who would spend the time in London and “Paree,” the
enthusiast in civics who is interested in government railroads, the
initiative and referendum of Switzerland, and the man whose ideas of
a trip abroad are condensed in the parting injunction, “Take one for
me at Munich or Heidelberg.” It is shocking to see the disappointed
look of the friendly adviser if you do not agree with him that his
recommendation is the great thing in Europe. A friend of mine who is
an archæologist said: “Of course you are going to Greece?” Now I had
not thought of Greece, and ventured to say so. “What, not going to
Greece!” was the withering answer in a tone which plainly meant that
you were undoubtedly going to throw your opportunity away like an empty
sack when the peanuts are gone. Another type of adviser is the man who
says: “You must see the Coliseum,” when you know the man would not know
the Coliseum if he were to meet it in the road. He has simply heard
some one say something about the Coliseum, and takes that word in order
to show off his superior knowledge of the sights of Europe. During the
weeks of preparation we have made “itineraries” to suit the suggestions
of our friends. It is easy to make an itinerary, and no trouble at all
to change it the next day when a more profitable route is offered. On
a rough estimate I should say that in the last few weeks we have made
European itineraries enough to take about seventeen years’ time, and
we are intending to be away only about three months. The fact is that
while Europe is only a little continent, not near as big as the United
States, it has been fought over, scrapped over, built over, written
about and has been doing business for so many hundreds of years that
there is hardly a pin-point on the map which for some good reason you
do not want to visit. It is like taking a newspaper article about seven
columns long and condensing it to a small paragraph. You feel you are
cutting out all the really good places, and about the extent of your
trip is to the points to which you have ordered your mail sent and
where you have to go to change trains.
[Illustration]
And then there is the friend who can’t go to Europe and who could
hardly get to Newton if he had to pay for a round-trip ticket, who
comfortingly says: “I wouldn’t go to Europe until I had seen all of
my own country.” This remark has been made to me so often in the last
few weeks that I have learned to dodge when I see it coming. I have
traveled around some in the United States, and as a matter of fact
the people in one section are pretty much the same as the people in
another, and it is people that I like to see and not mountains or
museums. Of course some parts are more so than others. There is no
State like Kansas and no people like Kansans. The object of a trip to
Europe is to see something different, as different as possible. It
is to get the local “color” for the things you read about. It is to
learn if the men and women of the Old World are as they are pictured
in books, and to compare them with the people whom you associate
with every day at home. I am told that in Paris even little children
can talk French, and that in Germany the people stand it to have an
emperor and never organize any boss-buster movements or bolt the party
nominations. I have read about these things all my life, and they may
be true. I want to see them. I am not from Missouri, but I have lived
near enough to want to be shown.
We sailed from Hutchinson on the Santa Fe. After touching at a few
places we reached Boston safely, and unless the police intervene we
will embark this afternoon on the White Star steamship Arabic. It is
still two hours until we go aboard but I am already seasick, or am
imagining how it will feel, which is nearly as bad. I am not afraid
of water. I have lived too long on the Arkansas and Cow creek and my
boyhood was spent on the shores of the Cottonwood. But nevertheless and
notwithstanding, I feel as I think everybody must when he takes his
first long ocean voyage. I never noticed so many accounts of wrecks as
I have in the last month. If there was an item in a newspaper about
the wreck of some ocean steamer or the drowning of a passenger, and I
did not see the piece, some friend always did, and brought it to me
to comfort me. Statistics prove that it is as safe to travel across
the ocean in a steamship as across Kansas in a railroad train. This is
comforting, but statistics do not look big and substantial when you
contemplate a week’s existence with nothing but a few boards and bolts
between yourself and the place where McGinty went. One little man in a
little old boat seems mighty small in the middle of a big ocean.
LEAVING THE LAND.
STEAMSHIP ARABIC, May 29, 1905.
In spite of the fact that a trip across the Atlantic is not considered
dangerous or exceptional, there is always a lot of sentiment which
comes up into the throat of the traveler when he goes aboard the
ship that is to take him out of his own country and across the ocean
to a foreign land. Long before the Arabic was to sail it was filled
with passengers and friends who had come to say good-by and wave
farewell. The custom is whenever a friend is to start on such a trip
to accompany him or her to the dock, send flowers to be placed in the
stateroom, and to stand on the wharf and wave a handkerchief until the
responding figure on the deck of the ship is no longer recognizable
in the distance. Of course, we were so far from home that there was
nobody to do these honors for wandering Kansans, so we picked out
a few nice-looking people who seemed to be there for curiosity and
vigorously shouted and waved good-by to them, and they had the good
taste to respond. A Colorado man who had been on the trip before told
me afterward that the young fellow who had called so cheerily and waved
so vigorously at him as the steamer pulled away from land, was a hotel
porter whom he had hired for a half-dollar to come to the wharf and bid
him godspeed on his journey.
The Arabic turned away from the dock at 4.30 in the afternoon of
May 25, and steamed slowly and majestically down the harbor and out
toward the ocean with a half-dozen little pilot-boats and revenue
cutters whistling and dancing like a lot of little dogs frisking and
playing around a big dog as it walks down the street. The old ship
Constitution, heroine of America’s early naval warfare, was passed,
the forts and the navy yard with the modern warships and guns, the
last island and the last American flag faded into the distance, and a
solemn thought of leaving one’s native land and of possible seasickness
makes one choke with patriotism and foreboding. It is too late now to
back out. There is no chance to get off. For a week the ship will never
stop, and there will be no place upon which the eye can rest except
water and sky. A flood of sentiment rushes through one and leaks a
little at the eyes as the mind turns to those who have been so near and
dear and are now to be so far away. That is the feeling experienced
by all travelers, and I want to be recorded present and voting on the
question, although as a matter of fact while the Arabic was leaving the
dock and country I was quarreling with the purser over the stateroom
and trying to get the steward to help me handle baggage when he was so
full of American liquor that he could do nothing but say “yessir” (hic)
and smile.
[Illustration: NO TIME FOR SENTIMENT.]
No doubt everyone has noticed how the apparently little things of life
occupy us at most critical and important times. I remember when at
a certain stage I was accomplishing an object to which I had worked
industriously and whole-heartedly. I should have been filled with
happiness and pride as I faced a large crowd of people. As a matter of
fact I was miserable because my collar did not fit my shirt and kept
bobbing up and down in a refractory way. The first time I saw Niagara
Falls, whither I had gone to be overcome with the grandeur and beauty
of the scene, I put in all my time trying to find a place to get a
sandwich. It is said that when Gladstone was making his great fight for
Irish home rule he was sitting on his bench in parliament, apparently
wrapped in deep thought. His colleagues did not disturb him, for they
supposed he was pondering the question which was agitating every
mind. Finally he straightened himself up and said to himself, but so
those near could hear: “After all, I will plant that rosebush in the
front instead of at the side of the doorway.” The energetic man who
is traveling amid picturesque and historical places puts in more time
figuring out time-tables and wondering whether he will get dinner in a
dining-car or at a lunch station, than he does in soulful meditation
on the wonders of nature or the handiwork of man. And the general
run of women, I am firmly convinced by circumstantial evidence, will
approach the subject of a European trip or a church wedding, not with
the thoughts of the lands to be visited or the responsibility to be
assumed, but with minds full of the problem of whether four shirtwaists
and a skirt will do better than two dresses. This peculiarity of
humanity has often impressed me, so I was not surprised when I realized
as I returned more or less triumphant from my battles with purser and
steward that I missed most of the thrills and throbs that had been
promised me by all the guidebooks and books of travel that I had read.
An ocean voyage is being robbed of most of its terrors. The Arabic is
a big ship, one of the largest. It stretches out over so many waves
that it does very little rolling or plunging. We have been out for
three days and there have been really no cases of seasickness. I fully
expected to be seasick, and it is a great disappointment. However, I
am not going to ask the company to refund my fare on that account.
Everybody is afraid of seasickness, and down in his heart everybody
wishes that everybody else might be sick and he alone left to proudly
walk the deck and smile at the victims. The only person who suffers
from seasickness is the individual affected. You may run a sliver in
your finger and the family will gather around with words of sympathy.
You may get a cinder in your eye and your friends will hurry forward to
help get it out. But if you are suffering with seasickness, and death
would almost be welcome, your friends will only grin and their words of
condolence are false and mocking.
[Illustration]
A modern steamship is constructed for safety, comfort, and almost
luxury. When you get those three qualities there is very little left of
the poetry or novelty of ocean traveling. We still speak of the ship
“sailing,” although, of course, it doesn’t. The modern ship steams. We
have read all of our lives about the beautiful white-wings and the
jolly jack tars. The reality is a mammoth engine out of sight, a big
smoke-stack, and a lot of black, dust-covered, sweaty firemen. The
“sailors” no longer climb the rigging and the masts, but go down in
the hole and shovel coal. My ideas of the sea came from Oliver Optic.
I want to hear the boatswain pipe, the mate’s command, “All hands
belay ship,” and see the captain as he stands at his post and with
an occasional “Steady, my hearties,” direct the seamen as they sing
their songs and clamber up the masts. That is beauty and poetry. But
the reality is that the captain whistles down the tube to the engineer
and he gives the order, “More coal, you sons of guns; stop that noise
and fire up.” That is fact, and makes traveling comfortable but not
soul-inspiring.
[Illustration]
The White Star line, on which we are traveling, belongs to the big
steamship company merger, formed by Pierpont Morgan a few years ago.
It is really owned by American capital and controlled by American
financiers, but the ships carry the British flag and are manned by
British officers and men. England manages things so that it pays to
carry the English flag. I have a great deal of respect for England.
With all our American enterprise, energy and ability, we look like
a tallow candle beside an electric light when it comes to ships and
international commerce. The government of England always looks after
its shipping interests and encourages capital to send English vessels
and English crews carrying English merchandise to the furthermost
parts. Prizes, bounties, subsidies and favors of all kinds have been
used to make the merchant marine of Great Britain greater than that of
the rest of the world. The English are a great people, and they are
conscious of it. And they see to it that everybody else understands the
fact. There isn’t anything in this American-owned ship that comes from
the United States except what the passengers have in their baggage.
The crew from captain to cook are English. The supplies are all bought
in England. The ships are built and repaired at Belfast. Coal for the
voyage both ways comes from Wales. English meats and even ice-cream are
purchased in Liverpool for the round trip. You can’t buy an American
postage stamp, and United States money is not taken except at exchange
below par. The American who has been going through life under the
impression that America is the whole thing has his feelings stepped on
nearly every time he turns around.
[Illustration]
The daily life on a steamship is a good deal like I am told it is on
a limited Santa Fe Pullman train, only there is a little more room.
There are all kinds of people on the Arabic, mostly from England, the
United States or Boston. Soon after we left port I met a fellow who
looked like somebody from home. I asked him where he was from, and he
said Nevada. I said I was from Kansas, and he enthusiastically grasped
my hand and said, “Then we are neighbors.” You do get a good deal of
that feeling. Afterward we met some folks from Colorado, and to see
us warm up to each other would have made you think we were a long
separated but happily reunited family. When anyone asks me where I hail
from and I say “Kansas,” the answer is nearly always “Oh.” And then I
shut my eyes and wait for the next remark. It never fails to come: “Do
you know Carrie Nation?” If I get a fair show I generally manage in
the course of conversation to incidentally ring in a few things about
Kansas that they never heard before (and once in a long while something
I never heard before myself). I don’t have to confine myself to things
I can prove. Colorado and Nevada will stand by me, and if the returning
English tourists are not regretting they did not see the wonderful
State of Kansas they are simply figuring me out a liar. The poet said:
“How sweet it is for one’s country to die.” Let us add: “How sweet it
is for one’s country to lie.”
That reminds me of a good joke on myself. An Englishman was complaining
of the voyage and wishing he was in old. England. I did a little
rapture talk about the ocean, and said I loved to go on the deck,
watching the never-ending blue of water and sky and just lie and lie
and lie there. He said: “I believe you told me you were a newspaper
man.”
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.
STEAMSHIP ARABIC, June 1, 1905.
I have come to a realization of the work of Christopher Columbus. It
took nerve to keep on sailing day in and day out, week in and week out,
with no sight of anything that looked like land,—nothing but a great
stretch of water, not even a stick in it. If I had been on board the
Santa Maria I would surely have joined the crowd of sailors who wanted
to quit and go home. We have come now nearly 3,000 miles through the
Atlantic, and if someone had not been over the route before and we did
not believe that land would appear at a certain time it would certainly
look as if the ocean would never end. If Columbus were to make the trip
now on the Arabic he would probably be as surprised as were the Indians
when the Spaniards landed on San Salvador something over 400 years ago.
The monotony of the ocean is only broken by an occasional passing ship,
and a high-strung imagination. We have met or passed five ships in
seven days. Each one has provided us with excitement for half a day. We
took sides as to whether the strange vessel was a Cunarder, an American
liner, a North German Lloyd or what not. Every line that crosses the
ocean would have partisans and each corner of the argument would be
vigorously sustained by expert evidence. I decided on a system. I
always maintained that the ship was an American liner. By sticking
to the text and not changing I hit it once, which was better than the
average. Then we have long and sometimes bitter discussions as to the
number of miles the Arabic will make in the next twenty-four hours.
Tips are anxiously obtained from officers, sailors, stewards and cooks.
Every man who ever bet in his life and some who never do at home, back
their opinions with their money. And when we are not arguing or betting
we are eating. Passengers on this line are full-fed. The day begins
with 8 o’clock breakfast, at 10:30 a lunch is served, on deck, at 1
o’clock an elaborate lunch, at 4 o’clock tea, cakes and sandwiches are
distributed, and at 7 o’clock a course dinner. People do all of these
and eat sandwiches and stuff between times and then wonder why their
stomachs are “disturbed.”
[Illustration]
It takes all kinds of people to make up the world, and there are
samples of most of the varieties on an ocean steamer. Some of our
passengers are very swell and some are very bum. But they meet on
the level—provided you can call the deck of a ship level when it is
usually tilted one way or the other at an angle of 20 to 30 degrees.
In the spirit of investigation I listened to the talk of a couple of
ladies who are society leaders and members of the 400 at home. The
subjects they discussed were babies, servants and clothes, and they
talked just about like the women-folks of Kansas. There is a touch of
human nature through all of us.
When I left home I decided not to change my watch until I got to
Europe. At Boston I was only one hour behind and could easily remember
and count on that. But every day on the ocean the clock has been
shoved up thirty-five minutes for the 400 miles traveled eastward the
preceding twenty-four hours. When it got so we were eating noonday
lunch at 8 A. M. by my watch I gave it up and turned the hands around.
When we reach London we will be about six hours ahead of Hutchinson
time, and anyone can see the ridiculous side of getting up at 2 o’clock
in the morning and going to bed at 4 in the afternoon. By a strange
coincidence the sun has changed its time for rising and setting to
agree with the ship’s clock.
[Illustration]
There is great system on a big ship. Everything is done just so and
no other way. I have had a hard time locating the “stewards.” I never
realized what a steward was before. We have a bedroom steward, who
looks after the stateroom, a bath steward who runs the bathroom, a deck
steward in charge of the deck, an assistant deck steward, a library
steward, a smoking-room steward, a table steward, and a few more whose
titles I can’t remember. One steward never gets on another’s line of
duty. If you want a deck chair you must see the deck steward, if you
want a blanket you must see the saloon steward, and so on. If I fall
overboard I hope the proper steward will be around, for the system is
so fine that I fear the other stewards would refuse to act until the
proper steward could be called. Each steward will be expecting a tip
when the voyage is ended, and if he weren’t a “steward,” he probably
could not get it so easily.
[Illustration]
Sunday we had religious service in the saloon. (Not the kind of a
saloon that Mrs. Nation holds service in.) It was the Church of England
service, but out of respect to the American passengers the reader ran
in President Roosevelt’s name in the prayer for the royal family. It
was a quiet, beautiful day and the amount of the collection was small.
I was told by an officer that when Sunday is a stormy day and the boat
acts as if it might tip over most any time, the passengers contribute
much more liberally to the offering than they do when the day is fair.
Some people go to church on board ship who never see the inside of a
church on land. I suppose they learn from the sailors the advantage of
casting an anchor out to the windward.
[Illustration]
We will see land in a few hours, the southwest coast of Ireland. A few
hours later we will land at Queenstown. It will be mighty good to get
one’s feet on ground that doesn’t move just when you don’t expect it
to. We will find out what has happened in the world, for we haven’t
had any news for a week. They are betting on whether or not the Jap
and Russian fleets have met during our absence from the earth. Like a
great many good things, the best part of an ocean voyage is the end. I
have enjoyed the trip very much, but if I get a chance to walk back to
America I will be mighty glad to take it.
IRELAND.
FIRST DAY IN IRELAND.
CORK, IRELAND, June 3.
The first vivid impression made upon me in Ireland was the morning
after we landed. We had come ashore late at night at Queenstown, and
except for the Irish names and Irish brogue there was nothing to
indicate but that we were going through an American custom-house into
an American hotel. But when we went to breakfast up came the waiter
attired in full dress and extra long-tailed coat with a red vest. I
had always supposed the pictures of an English or Irish waiter in such
livery at breakfast was a joke. It is not a joke. It is a most serious
and proper attire, and I suppose an Irish waiter in a first-class hotel
would as soon appear to serve breakfast without any pants as without
the long swallowtail coat. And when I saw that, I knew I was far away
from home.
[Illustration]
A European breakfast is “rolls and coffee.” In anticipation I had
thought of hot rolls and delicious coffee. Put this down: There are no
hot rolls in Ireland, and I am guessing there will be none in Europe.
“Rolls” means plain, very plain, cold bread, hard and a trifle stale.
The coffee is bum and the cream is skim-milk. An English hotel, for
that is what Irish first-class hotels are, ought to put more into the
eating and less into the waiter’s uniform. Along with other Americans
at that first breakfast, we joined in a howl and managed to get some
eggs.
[Illustration]
Queenstown is one of the largest and best of the British harbors. It
has an important navy yard and several English warships are anchored
among the numerous merchant vessels. The town is on the side of a high
hill which comes down to the water’s edge, and the narrow streets go up
and down the slope at every angle except a right angle to the street
along the waterfront. The chief resources of Queenstown are sailors
and tourists, and the main occupations of the leading inhabitants
are lodging-houses and saloons. Over nearly every store is the sign,
“Licensed to sell ale, porter and spirits seven days in the week.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE IRISH JAUNTING (JOLTING) CAR.]
There is nothing much to Queenstown except the quaintness that comes
from age and dirt, and I have seen enough American towns with the same
characteristics to make this an old story. But we walked and climbed
to the top of the hill, and there I saw a panorama spread out before
me which will stick to my memory a good long while. The large harbor,
locked on three sides and part of the fourth with land, made a blue
setting for the white of the numerous ships. Little sailboats drifted
over the quiet water and tugs and launches darted in and out among the
big vessels. Eight-oared boats from the warships, manned with uniformed
sailors from the royal navy, skimmed back and forth, the eight oars
rising and falling as one. Flags were flying from mastheads, and the
decks were lively with the work of the day. Up from the shore on every
side except where the ocean’s blue appeared, rose the greenest green
hills you ever saw, and they reached to the bluest blue sky you ever
saw, a frame for the picture which no artist could ever hope to portray.
[Illustration]
An Irish woman whose son had gone to America and sent back for the
mother and little sister, had never been far from home before. Leading
the little girl by the hand she was walking to Queenstown and came in
sight of the harbor from the top of the hill. The beauty of the scene
impressed her, but she added a lesson for the benefit of the daughter:
“Look at the beautiful sight and see how wonderful is the work of
Nature. See the big ships side by side, and all around them their
little ones.”
[Illustration]
Queenstown is the harbor for Cork, which is twelve miles up the
river Lee. It is the commercial metropolis of southern Ireland and
has furnished more policemen to America than any town of twice its
size in the United States. Of course the first thing we did was to
ride in a jaunting-car and go to Blarney Castle. The castle looks
just about as it did last summer on the Pike at St. Louis. But the
surrounding grounds are as pretty as they can be. I hesitate when it
comes to describing the park with its stately trees, its beautiful
grassy slopes crowned with wild flowers, its moss and ivy which cling
to wall and tree, covering defects, revealing charms, enhancing
beauties. The castle itself was built by McCarthy, king of Munster,
in 1446, and while of course uninhabited and in partial ruin, is in
good preservation, to make an Irish bull of it. We climbed to the top,
we reveled in the rich scene around us, kissed the blarney stone and
cheerfully gave the care-taker twice the usual fee because she said
Americans were the best people on earth. Then we had the nicest lunch
that has come our way since we left Kansas—an Irish lunch of bread
and butter, cold ham and milk. We had traveled all morning and climbed
among ruins from 12 to 2 o’clock. If you want the best lunch on earth,
no matter what it is made of, climb towers for a couple of hours.
[Illustration]
There are some things that are peculiarly Irish. The jaunting-car is
one of them. It is the favorite vehicle for driving. It looks like a
two-wheel cart, driver’s seat in the front end and passengers’ seats
back to back, facing outward. My fellow-traveler, Mr. McGregor, says
the Irish brogue has perverted into jaunting-car the real name, which
is jolting-car. The driver is always a good fellow and he keeps the
horse on the gallop much of the time. You have to learn to keep your
seat on a jaunting-car as you do on a bicycle. You also have to learn
to weigh the statements of your driver as to distances and legends as
you do the promises of a candidate for office. We suggested to one
that a jaunting-car driver had to lie. “We never lie, sir,” said the
Irishman. “But we stretch it a little.”
After a week on shipboard, during which time I had patiently shaved
myself, I yearned for the comforting work of a good barber. At the
best hotel in Cork, a city of 80,000 people, I went to the best barber
shop in town. The chair was just like a common wooden kitchen chair,
only not quite so comfortable. There was a head-rest made out of a
two-by-four scantling, and when the barber pulled my head back onto
that I knew my dream of a comfortable shave was to be a nightmare. He
made the lather in a wash-basin and I think he honed the razor on a
grindstone. It cut all right when it didn’t pull out by the roots. When
the operation was finished he combed my hair with my head still back,
washed my face with cold water and rubbed it with a coarse towel. The
barber charged me twopence (equivalent to four cents). And that was my
first experience with a European tonsorial artist. Perhaps sometime in
my life I have felt cross at a barber at home because the razor pulled
or because he squirted bay rum into my eye. But in the future I will
never murmur, except to recall my experience in Cork and thank God for
American barbers.
[Illustration]
The day we came to Cork there was an election for poor-law guardians,
only a local affair, but I attended. The voting is by Australian
ballot just as in America. The suffrage is restricted to householders,
including those who pay a certain rent, and women vote the same as men.
The politicians at the polling-place treated me well and explained all
the methods. One of the workers told the judge that they should let me
vote, as when he had visited his brother in America they had let him
vote twice while there. I proposed that if they would let me vote for
poor-law guardians in the county of Cork I would let any of them vote
for councilman in the Fourth ward of Hutchinson. We had a good friendly
visit, and it was easy to see that Irishmen are politicians in the Old
World as well as the New. After a man or woman voted he or she was
always given a drink at the nearest place where “spirits” are sold. But
when the polls closed instead of going ahead and counting the votes,
the judges adjourned until noon the next day—the invariable custom. It
was not until the afternoon following the election when it was learned
who “stood at the top of the poll.” We couldn’t stand the pressure that
long in America.
There were placards up all around telling the voters to “vote the
straight ticket,” “vote for the interest of labor,” and “vote for your
own interests.” The newspapers the next day told of the vicious conduct
of the opposition and the immoral practices resorted to. But as a rule
the Irish people are like Americans, accepting the result with good
feeling and promises of what will be done to the other fellows the next
time.
BY KILLARNEY’S LAKES.
KILLARNEY, June 8, 1905.
We have spent four days in the Irish mountains and have ridden a
hundred miles in a jaunting-car and coach. I have had mountain scenery,
lake scenery and plain scenery for every meal in the day. I enjoy
scenery, but I fear I am getting it in too large quantities and am
having it shaken too well while taking. Sunday was spent in Glengariff,
a picturesque place where the mountains rise abruptly from the salt
water of Bantry bay. Monday we coached from Glengariff to Killarney and
Tuesday we did the lakes with a jaunting-car, slightly assisted by a
row-boat. The Irish mountains are not as high as the Rocky Mountains,
but they are a very good imitation. The Rockies are grand and
beautiful. The mountains of Cork and Kerry are pretty and beautiful.
The Irish mountains are covered with green. It is as if the Rocky
Mountains were smaller, covered with ivy and moss, dotted here and
there with whitewashed cottages and flocks of sheep, and topped with a
blue sky which is bluer than any indigo and clearer than any crystal.
[Illustration]
There are several ruined castles about Killarney. I am already getting
to shy at ruined castles. The proposal to visit one makes my feet
ache as an approaching thunder-storm affects some people’s corns. We
first went to Muckross Abbey, a well-preserved ruin about 400 years
old. The Muckross family, which owned the estate, has played out,
and the property has been bought by Guinness, the Dublin brewer, who
was made a lord by Queen Victoria. Whatever the earl of Kenmare does
not own around Killarney belongs to Guinness. You can imagine how
Muckross Abbey looked 300 years ago when the old monks lived there and
occupied the cells and cloister now unroofed. The banquet hall has a
big fireplace and there are dark spiral stairways running up and down
such as you read about in Ivanhoe. On the tombstones are inscriptions
telling of the virtues and sanctity of knights and lords who would be
considered tough bats if they lived nowadays and swaggered around as
they did in the good old times. I like to look at old tombstones and
wonder what the men who lie beneath them would say if they could read
the catalogue of virtues accredited to them. I always think of the
little girl who had evidently been visiting Muckross Abbey, or some
such place, and anxiously inquired if the people in those days did not
bury bad folks, as all who were interred there were supremely good. And
then the thought comes up that all of these men were great and strong
in their time, making history and imagining that they were cutting a
gash in the world. Now they are forgotten and their deeds unknown, and
they are the subjects of sportive remarks by tourists from a country
they never heard of.
The lakes of Killarney have been praised in prose and verse, and they
are up to the advance advertising. They are not large, but they nestle
among the mountains and reflect on their clear surface the heights that
surround them. There is a legend everywhere and the Irish driver knows
them all. Here is a reasonable one: One of the O’Donohues, which family
was once the royal power in Kerry, was hunting in the mountains. He
met the devil, and the two had an altercation in which O’Donohue got
decidedly the best of the argument. The devil became so angry that he
bit a big chunk out of a mountain. O’Donohue took his shillelah and hit
the devil so hard a crack that he dropped the mouthful of mountain into
the lake. This tale must be true, for as the driver said: “There’s the
place the devil bit and it is called so to this day, and out in the
lake is the little island of rock, just as the devil dropped it into
the water.”
[Illustration]
Everybody who has read Tom Moore—and if anyone has not he should do
so—will remember the lines:
“There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.”
The meeting of the three Killarney lakes was referred to, and Moore was
telling truth as well as poetry. The upper lake and the middle lake
narrow to small streams and flow together as they merge into the little
rosebud of a mouth which the lower lake puts up to greet them. There is
a rapid which the boat shoots for a sixpence, but it was not thrilling.
In the triangular park made by lakes and mountains are said to be
specimens of every kind of tree known. The driver told this proudly,
but when I called for a cottonwood he couldn’t produce. Then I told him
all about the wonderful cottonwood, and he promised to see the keeper
and find out why they couldn’t have one in Killarney.
[Illustration]
That reminds me of my experience with music. The first morning I
awoke in Ireland at Queenstown I heard the voices of a number of
sailors of the royal navy, and as the melodious sounds rolled into the
window I was surprised to realize that they were singing “Under the
Anheuser-Busch.” At the hotel in Cork the orchestra played the same. At
the theatre that night it was greeted with an encore. The driver on the
jaunting-car whistled the tune. And last night when I had made friends
with a cottager and was sitting with him by the side of a peat fire and
he was telling me of Ireland’s woes, his little girl came in and he
proceeded to show her off. First he had her sing an old Gaelic song.
Then he said, “Now give us an American song,” and she responded with
“Under the Anheuser-Busch.”
[Illustration]
I have hardly met an Irishman but has told me he had brothers and
sisters in America. At Glengariff the hotel proprietor said at least
2,000 young men and women had gone to America from that parish in
the last few years—the brightest and best of the young people, he
said—nearly all of them to Boston. From Killarney nearly all go
to New York. I told them how Boston and New York were ruled by the
Irish, and put the question as to why the Irish couldn’t run Ireland.
I am trying to answer that conundrum to my own satisfaction, and am
gathering ideas on the subject from everyone I meet.
[Illustration]
The ordinary Irish village like Killarney is a quaint picture. The
streets are narrow, mostly eight to twelve feet wide. The main street
is about thirty feet wide. Nearly all the houses are a story or a story
and a half, thatched roof, whitewashed walls, dirt floors except in
one room, low ceilings, doors and windows, full of chickens, cats and
children. I have not yet seen a pig in the parlor. The pig is kept in
a little room at one side. But the chickens have as much liberty of
the house as anybody and the goat is monarch of the outside. There is
very seldom any yard, the houses being built right up to the street.
The house is heated by a fireplace and the cooking is done in the same.
Peat is the fuel, and it is cleaner and not sooty like coal. The dirt
floor and the chickens in the house sound as though the Irish cottage
would be dirty, but the whitewash and the scrubbing-brush fight on
the other side, and you don’t get that impression. The women-folks
are always neat-looking and everybody is pleasant and cheerful. Every
window has a window-box of geraniums. There are usually so many
children that the house does not hold them, and the street is always
filled with them. Remember when you are driving through a town the
street is filled with children, and if you are an American and not
used to it your heart will be jumping into your throat for fear some of
them will be run over—but I am told they never are.
After the chickens and the children the most novel sight is the donkeys
with their two-wheel carts, the only ordinary carriages for passengers
or freight of the people. The donkey is the size of our mountain burro,
and has the same degree of intelligent expression. All of the hauling
is done by this patient animal, and he is looked upon as a valued
member of the family.
In riding or walking the rule of the country is the same as in
England—turn to the left. I have not yet gotten over the yearning to
grab the lines from the driver when he turns to the left to avoid a
passing carriage. Fortunately the other driver is always fool enough to
also turn to the left. I confided my trouble to an Irish driver, and he
said it was ridiculous to turn to the right.
[Illustration]
One of my traveling companions is a man who chews tobacco, and he had
neglected to lay in a supply before leaving America. No one else used
the weed that way and there was no help for him. The Irish chew and
smoke the same plug tobacco, very dry and not tasting like American
tobacco. For a week my friend had been looking through shops trying
to find something that would touch the spot. Last night soon after
reaching Killarney he came to me greatly excited and said, “Hurry! the
finest scenery since we left home.” Away we went down the narrow street
and up to a window in which was a familiar shape and a sign, “Battle
Ax.” I don’t chew myself, but I have some bad habits, and I could
appreciate the tear of joy that glistened in my fellow-traveler’s eye
as he gazed on that sign and felt that he had met an old friend just
from home.
IRELAND AND THE IRISH.
DUBLIN, June 9, 1905.
In my short stay in the Emerald Isle I have endeavored to find out what
is the matter with Ireland. Why is it that a country of great beauty
and resources, with a healthful and productive climate, an intelligent
and attractive people, is a country where poverty is widespread,
although disguised by picturesque surroundings, and is accepted in
such a matter-of-fact and almost nonchalant manner? Why is it that the
population of Ireland is decreasing while the number of successful
and prosperous Irishmen is rapidly increasing in America, Canada, and
Australia? A very intelligent Irishman at Glengariff told me why it
was, and this in brief is his story:
A thousand years ago Ireland was ahead of all neighbors in education,
religion, and refinement. Then came the civil wars between the
chieftains. Then came England, and by utilizing the demoralization of
the civil wars and playing one chieftain against another, acquired
sovereignty. But this was only nominal, for the Irish chieftains
did not submit permanently. In Glengariff country the O’Sullivans
maintained practical independence. Finally the English rulers adopted
the policy of confiscating the land of the rebellious chieftains and
giving it to English soldiers and queen’s favorites. In many places
this meant the massacre of the people. The O’Sullivans and their
fighting men who escaped went to France and continued to strike at
their Saxon foes. But the land passed into the ownership of strangers,
who kept it only for the profit they could get out of it. The new
Irish nobles lived in London and their agents ran the estates. When
the nobles needed more money their agents advanced the rents. If the
people who tilled the soil and whose tenancy had been unquestioned for
generations, could not pay, they were evicted. Families were ejected
from the places they had cultivated and made valuable and were set out
on the road. This was done not without fighting for their rights by the
Irish people, but by the superior force of English soldiers. No Irish
farmer owns his place—he is only a tenant at the mercy of his absentee
landlord, who does not know him. In other countries the feudal tenure
has not worked so harshly, because the landlords lived among the people
and were bound to them by ties of race, common history, and natural
affection. But the fact that there was no way for an Irishman to get
his own home, or have a reasonable chance to advance in fortune or
freedom, sent the brightest to America, and left the others to struggle
hopelessly along, knowing that the best they could do was to “pay the
rent,” which was fixed like some railroad charges in the United States,
on the basis of “all the traffic would stand.”
From the parish of Glengariff more than half the young men and at
least half the young women have gone to the land of promise across the
sea, and are sending back money to help the parents and brothers and
sisters at home, either to “pay the rent” or to pay their passage to
America.
What is true at Glengariff applies to the rest of Ireland. The ancient
chieftains, the O’Sullivans, the O’Donohues, the McCartys and the
rest, were succeeded by absentee landlords, and the law of supply and
demand backed up by the English army simply worked out. At Killarney
whatever land does not belong to the earl of Kenmare is the property
of Guinness. The lakes and rivers are full of fish, but no Irishman
can catch a fish; the mountains are full of game, but no one can hunt
it except the owner of the estate. The farms are well tilled, but no
one can buy the land upon which he works. It makes an American mad,
and he says, “How do you stand it?” But it is the law, and along every
country road there is a policeman and behind the policeman is the power
of England. Far up on the mountain-side, several miles from town or
settlement, I saw a fine stone building which on inquiry I found was a
police station. The police, or the constabulary, as they are called,
were not there to protect the lives of the citizens, but to prevent
hunting and fishing in the brooks and mountains. So, after all, it is
no wonder the Irishman leaves his beautiful island and emigrates to
America.
[Illustration]