St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-04-23

gage, tickets and omnibus, nor pay
fees az; these things are somewhat an
noying at first, but they introduce one
to methods of business and national
traits which can be known only by actual
experience. Contact with the people is
just what the inexperienced traveller
wants, and he learns to enjoy and pro-
fit by every such adventure.
Then one meets such pleasant friends
abroad. Of course large party sup
plies good company, even if all of it is
not select; but starting from home
without single acquaintance, we found
ourselves thrown into series of de-
lightful associations, which hardly left
US two days by ourselves until we land
ed at home once more. Some of the
quaintest recollectiOns are of strange
travelling cOmpanionships. The German
family, with the little boy who looked
so much like the lad left behind me
that one of us was blue for a little
while, though a pleasant familiarity
came soon the jolly Italian people who
wrote their names on our fan, getting
ours in return; the Stratford farmer
with his stories of crops and country
life the English manufacturer on the
Rhine, with his long accounts of labor
troubles, politics and military affairs
the chance meetings, often repeated,
with German students with eye glasses
and sword cuts; the bandit-iOoking
Italian with his knife belt, and the Ty-
rOlese guides with their ropes and axes:
all the varieties, agreeable and disa-
greeable, of the worlds population
which we ran across, made up large
part of the delight, and would have
been impossible to large company.
But | think the chief objection to
tourists parties, is the restriction placed
on action and time. A man goes abroad
for recreation and culture. At home
he has been going his round OF duty
day after day, until he can sympathize
with horse turning cider mill always
one way, and wants, like one such quad
ruped l read OF, to spend a while in
untwisting himself. He wants to con-
suit his own pleasure, cultivate his own
tastes, choose his own times and ways,
in short be himself out and out for
once, with no one to order him and no
one to bore him. He wants to wander
the streets, lounge at cafes, linger in
gardens, or saturate himself with the
richness of libraries and splendor of
picture galleries, just when and as he
pleases. But the tourist with a party
has scarcely more independence of ac-
ton than the tail of a kite; he may
swing about a little, but has to trail
round after the main body. l believe
these large companies see too much and
too specifically. In that wonderful
collection of paintings in the Old Pima
kOthek at Munich, an artist friend was
showing US how cleverly Van Dyke
produced his effects with a single
stroke, when the attendants began to
laugh, the students to scowl. and in
poured a tribe of excursiOnists. Two
leaders went to two pictures and read
to their huddled groups guide book
account of the artist and the painting,
then on to the next room. Positively,
they all went through the whole vast
gallery while we were in two of its sa-
Ions, and the courier came after one
lingering unfortunate like dog after a
sheep. l would not give one morning
of leisure study for a week of such
glmpses. Any traveller will tell stories
of the ridiculous blunders made by
these guides, and the unenviable re-
gard which the companies have some
times encountered.
But enough. Go East, young man,
old man, woman go by twos, or threes,
or tours, or even alone, or as last re-
sort, rather than not at all, go with a
crowd. Y.