How to Travel. Thomas Wallace Knox
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with street railways, or tramways, and with cheap omnibuses that ply along the principal streets. To make use of these to advantage, a knowledge of the city is necessary; but strangers will have little difficulty in securing the proper directions by applying to a policeman. Professional guides are unknown in American cities, but the services of a bootblack or other small and somewhat ragged boy can generally be secured to put the traveler on the right track.
On all the lines of railway there are eating-stations, where passengers may save themselves from starvation, and generally do a good deal more. The time allowed varies greatly, but the usual limit is twenty minutes; on some lines it is half an hour, while on others a quarter of an hour is deemed sufficient. The price of a "square meal" varies from fifty cents to a dollar, and there are a few places where it is a dollar and a quarter. The square meal is not, as might be supposed, a dinner, supper, or breakfast in the form of a cube; it includes the right of eating as much as one pleases from any or all the dishes on the bill of fare, and if the traveler chooses to repeat, again and again, any favorite article of food, the proprietor offers no objection. The service is generally good, and the supply of food palatable and bountiful. The majority of travelers, are apt to eat with considerable velocity at these stopping-places, and there are few spots in the world where one can witness greater dexterity with knife and fork than where a railway train halts "fifteen minutes for refreshments." The performances of the East Indian juggler are thrown in the shade, and the famous swordsman of Runjeet Singh, who could wield his weapon with such rapidity that it was altogether invisible while removing the head of an antagonist, might learn something if he would make a visit to the eating-house of an American railway.
Those who do not wish a full meal will generally find a counter at the eating-stations where coffee, tea, sandwiches, and cold meats may be bought cheaply, and on some roads there are stations where the trains stop for five or ten minutes only, to enable passengers to take a slight lunch, of a solid or liquid character. On many of the roads the sale of intoxicating liquors is forbidden; but these are not held to include beer, cider, and light wines.
It is a good rule for a traveler never to miss the opportunity of taking a meal. Sometimes the hours are a trifle inconvenient, and he may not feel hungry when an eating-station is reached; but if he allows it to pass he will find himself faint with hunger before he comes to the next. On long journeys it is well to carry a lunch-basket of such things as may strike the owner's fancy and palate, but care should be taken to avoid articles that give out disagreeable odors. Limburger cheese is not to be recommended—nor, in fact, cheese of any sort; cold tongue is another objectionable article, as it will not keep many hours, and has a way of smelling badly, or even worse. Crackers, English biscuit, and fruit, with a bottle of claret or some similar drink, are the best things for a railway lunch-basket, and sometimes they tend greatly to preserve the temper unruffled, by filling an aching void when the train is delayed and the square meal unattainable.
On several of the great lines running westward, dining and hotel cars have been established. The latter are both eating and sleeping-coaches in one, but they are not generally in favor, as it is found in actual practice that the smell of cookery is disagreeable to the slumberer, while that of the sleeping-room is not acceptable to the nostrils when one sits down to breakfast or dinner. The dining-car is kitchen and dining-room, and nothing more. It is attached to the train at a convenient time for a meal, and runs with it for a couple of hours or so, when it is turned to a side track and waits to serve the next banquet for a train going the other way. The dining-car is a most admirable institution, as it enables the traveler to take his meals leisurely while proceeding on his way. It is generally well-managed and liberally supplied, and one may be fed as bountifully, and on as well-cooked food, as in the majority of hotels. On some of these cars meals are served a la carte; but the most of them have the fixed-price system, at the same rates as the stations along the lines where they run.
In the parlor cars, your seat is designated on a ticket specially marked and numbered, and no one has any right to occupy it during your absence. On the ordinary cars, the seats are common property, and cannot be retained; though it is almost universally recognized that the deposit of an overcoat, shawl, bag, or some other article of the travelers equipment in a seat is prima facie evidence that it has been taken. Impudent persons will sometimes remove the property of one who is temporarily absent, and appropriate the seat to themselves; but they generally vacate it on being reasoned with. If they are obstinate, the conductor may be called, and sometimes the muscular persuasion of a strong brakeman or two is necessary to convince the intruder of his mistake.
CHAPTER III.
AMERICAN STEAMBOAT TRAVEL.
The railway system of the United States had its beginning about fifty years ago, and is consequently a third of a century behind the adoption of the steamboat. According to the best authorities, the first American steamboat that carried passengers and made regular trips was built by John Fitch, at Philadelphia, and was the successor of two experimental boats by the same inventor. She ran on the Delaware river during the summer of 1790, and made altogether more than two thousand miles, at a maximum speed of seven and a half miles an hour. Fulton built the Clermont in 1806, and her regular trips began in 1807, seventeen years later than the achievement of Fitch. From this beginning, river-navigation by steam was spread through the United States till it reached every stream where boats could ply, and some where they were of no use. Of late years the steamboat interest has declined in some parts of the country, owing to the extension of the railway system; but it is still of great magnitude, and will doubtless so continue for many years to come.
American steamboats are undisputedly the finest in the world, and every foreigner who visits the United States looks with wonder at our floating palaces. Whether on eastern or western waters, the result is the same. The most ordinary boat surpasses the finest that English or European rivers or lakes can show.
The largest and most elaborate of the eastern boats are on the Hudson river and Long Island sound; the finest of the western boats are on the Mississippi. Some of those that connect New York and Albany and New York and Boston are capable of carrying six hundred first cabin passengers with comfort, and they have been known to transport as many as a thousand. On the night-boats there is a general sleeping-room below deck, and a bed in this locality is included in the ticket. Separate rooms on the upper deck must be paid for extra; but they are worth their cost in the privacy, better ventilation, and superior accommodations that they afford, besides being easier to escape from in case of accidents. The saloons are large, and elaborately furnished; and, if the boat is crowded to repletion, the sofas are used as sleeping-places by those who were not lucky enough to obtain rooms or beds below. Sometimes extra beds are put up in the saloon and lower cabin, so that the place looks not unlike a hospital, or the dormitory of a charity school.
A crowded steamboat at night is the paradise of the pickpocket, who frequently manages to reap a rich harvest from the unprotected slumberers. Even the private rooms are not safe from thieves, as their occupants are frequently robbed. On one occasion, some thirty or more rooms on a sound steamer were entered in a single night. The scoundrels had obtained access to the rooms in the day-time, and arranged the locks on the doors so that they could not be properly fastened. The night traveler on the steamboats plying in eastern waters should be very particular to fasten his door securely, and if he finds the lock has been tampered with he should report the circumstance to an officer or to one of the stewards. The windows should be looked after as well as the doors, and the rules that apply on railways to social games of cards with polite strangers should be remembered on steamboats.
Where steamboats are in competition with railways their fares are generally much cheaper, owing to the longer time consumed on the route. Where time is not an object the steamboat is the preferable conveyance, as the traveler is not inconvenienced by dust, the ventilation is better, means of circulation are far superior, and on river routes there is a better opportunity to study the scenery. Tickets may be bought and rooms secured at the offices at the terminal points in advance, and they may also be had on board the boats at the time of departure. It is needless to add that the earlier they are