San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-12-04
REMEMBERS THE BEDS.

The One Thing o Traveller Never For
gets In the Places He Visits
From the London Globe.
The old traveller 10 whom lions
and rights have caused to be novel
ties, who is not easily stirred TO en-
thusiasm or emotion over the charms
and wonders of travel, who has left
of regarding Journeys as contributing
to the pleasure OF a holiday, gets
often into the habits of distlnguishin
the places he had visited by their
beds. Speak to him of Rome, his
face will not light up with enthusiasm
at the remembrance of gray ruins, OF
historical palaces, of galleries of price
less art treasures, Of associations with
the history of that world for $500
years, but he simply murmurs "Pulex
irritaus." Allude to the South Of
France, and he dwells almost ecstat-
icaily upon the comfort of the Riviera
bed, with its spotless drspery and its
quaint, tent-like canopy, and speaks
of the nightly dash beneath the
gauZy curtain in order TO bar Ell trance
TO, 1t may be, but one mosquito,
whose hum, alternately loud and
| faint, would be potent bauisher of
sleep. AllusiOn to mosquitoes opens
the flood gates OF the old travellers
memory. He will tell us how the
| noise made by the Hong Kong vsrie-
| ty is like the rushing Of Wind through
trees lie will cite the mosquito Of
the West Indies in general, and of
st. Kits in particular, as the most
| irrepressib!e and yoraci0Us Of is spe
| cies; active and aggressive in broad
daylight, as in the Silly night, and
impartial in its attentions to climate
hardened resident or juicy newc Imer.
From mosquitoes he ranges by asso
| citation Of ideas TO other creatures
with an affection for the human bed
room, and talks of the lizards which
run up and down the walls in Sim
gapore, Of the snakes who love the
S3hib's boots and blanket In India,
| of the csntipedes and scorpions which
render a barefooted journey across
a Venezuelan or Brazilian bed room
a rash proceeding. AS for the beds
1 themselves, our friend, If he Is not
practicing upon the creduity Of us
| untraveled fOlK, says that he has
| slept upon every sort Of bed which
| the necessity, the ingenuity, the be-
nevolence and the mahgnity " man
| have been able to invent. So we hear
of the Japanese tea-house bed, made
up IN few seconds on the mats with
quilt. "iutong," and that terrible
wooden pillow with its roll Of paper
on the top, which, it may be supposed,
has disappeared with the old national
method of dressing tho hair. We
hear Of the hammock siung in the
stufty tween deck of the South SEA
wha'er, of the bunk under the loss
house on the Chinese jiuk. of the lux
| urious state rooms and cabins of the
| great ocean liners, of beds in trans-
con tinental emigrant care, until we
ieel it SINE TO assert ourselves aud
| show that one need not 60 ont OF
Britain in order to find strange ceds.
| Have not all OF us who have been
blessed with health and strength to
enjoy al average number OF holidays
bad varied experiences of strange
beds? During our peregrinstions have
we not made such queer acquainta tan
ces among beds that LOOK at the
/ outside OF an inn is sufficient for us 10
be able to say what sort of bed we
may expect?
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