<\/p>\n
It was recently my privilege to read the travel diary of a Maine woman written 88 years ago in 1885, long before the time of air flights or even of wireless communication at sea. It was a time when there were far more sailing vessels than steamers to be seen on the world’s oceans, though steamship voyages to Europe had become fairly common for affluent Americans.<\/p>\n
I am not at liberty to reveal the name of the woman who kept this account of her trip to Europe. I can only say that she was a member of a Maine family of considerable means, fortunate enough to have servants and to afford to take one of them on the trip.<\/p>\n
The woman’s party was made up of her husband, two small children between five and ten years of age, and a nursemaid to care for the children. We will call the children Jack and Jill, because that was not their names. The party left New York on July 11, 1885, on the Steamer Pavonia, and sailed to the British Isles via the Great Circle route, the same route the ill-fated Titanic took 27 years later in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n
The first entry in the diary, dated July 12, says: “We have all eaten and slept well, and we are losing our dread of the sea. Jack runs and climbs the ropes all day. Papa has a ravenous appetite and enjoys the freedom from care provided by life on the ship. We have just passed a monstrous dead whale.”<\/p>\n
“July 15 – We are beyond the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and out of the track of icebergs. We have traveled several hundred miles out of our course to avoid them. ”<\/p>\n
“July 16 – Very hot even at sea. We set our watches ahead about 18 minutes each day as we move eastward. Our run yesterday was 310 miles, the best we have made. A school of porpoise played about the ship.”<\/p>\n
The Pavonia was not bound for Southhampton, England, as were many such voyages, but for Queenstown, Ireland, where the party landed on July 21, a voyage of ten days across the Atlantic. The diarist tells us: “We had planned to sail up the river Lee from Queenstown to Cork, but our eagerness to see Jill in a comfortable bed made us decide to take the train through beautiful meadows, fields of waving grain, and picturesque cottages.”<\/p>\n
“In Cork, the two children and I went to ride in a jaunting car, where the driver sits in front and two seats run vertically back of him. The city of Cork, 1000 years old, was taken by Cromwell. None except the rich merchants own any land, and they only the lots on which their shops and homes sit. All the rest of the land is owned by the city.”<\/p>\n
Naturally those visiting Americans went to Blarney Castle and kissed the famous stone. The diary tells us: “Blarney Castle is now falling in ruin. At the top of the parapet is the famous Blarney Stone. The traveler must lie on his stomach and be held by his heels to reach over the opening and kiss the stone.”<\/p>\n
The reason why this diary is especially interesting is explained by a paragraph written in it before the party left Cork. The woman wrote: “I shall make my account a simple journal of details. Books of travel are plenty, but the trifling incidents which show the contrast between living abroad and at home, are seldom in such books, and those incidents are the very things people want to know.”<\/p>\n
In Glengarriff at Bantry Bay the woman got her first shock at the poverty of Ireland. She wrote: “This is a miserable town, with people living in hovels below the sidewalk. Huddled together are pigs, ducks, hens, donkeys, and humans. You would not believe anyone could live in such filth. Lord Bantry owns all the land, and the poor are his tenants, almost his slaves. As we drove along, flocks of children followed, crying ‘Penny, penny, please!’ On their bodies were nothing you could really call clothes, just a mass of strings. The driver tells us rum and whiskey are the cause of most of this degeneratio, rather than an unfeeling landlord.<\/p>\n
In the midst of the beautiful Lakes of Kilarney the party got another glimpse of the prevalence of liquor in Ireland. The diary says: “The women kept close to our ponies, beseeching us to buy drinks of what they called ‘pure mountain dew’. That, we learned, is Irish whiskey that has never paid a cent of excise tax. They mix it with goat’s milk.”<\/p>\n
By the end of July the party was in the Irish capital of Dublin. Our Maine diarist wrote: “In many Dublin restaurants it is almost impossible to get nonalcoholic drinks. When we do get water, it is the last item served. Waiters tell us, ‘You Americans drink much water. We never drink it. It is good for our outsides, but not our insides.'” Then the diary continues in a more complimentary vein. “I was surprised to find Dublin a beautiful city. We went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. where are many relics of Irish saints and monuments to ancient Irish kings. The cathedral stands on the very spot where St. Patrick baptized his first Irish converts.”<\/p>\n
From Ireland the party went to Scotland. On Glasgow the woman put down in the diary: “We are now at St. Enoch’s Hotel in Glasgow and glad to be out of the poverty of Ireland into the comparative comfort of Scotland.”<\/p>\n
At that time the usual dining in British and Continental hotels was at a sumptuous meal called Table D’Hote, and this Maine woman had much to say about it. Her first comment was made in Glasgow, when she wrote: “At the hotel Table D’Hote is a large and painful process, and the cooking is indigestible. So we have decided to shun the table d’hote and eat simply at roadside stands or small restaurants.”<\/p>\n
It did not take long for our traveler to observe and comment on the Scotch attitude toward money. She wrote: “Here the people extort every cent possible. Everyone expects a tip, and no matter how much you give, they are never satisfied. I saw one Scotch lady, when the porter said he would charge 18 pence to take her trunk to the next pier, quietly hand him ten pence, saying imperiously, “Take the trunk.” He took it with a murmur. Papa took the hint and offered a porter six pence to take our baggage to the steamer. The porter refused, saying he must have a shilling, claiming that was the legal rate. That was just what Papa was trying to find out, and gladly paid the shilling, not the 18 pence that had been demanded from the Scotch lady. Many Americans would have been cheated out of the extra six pence and would have said nothing.”<\/p>\n
At Aberdeen, on August 6, the diarist again commented on the difference between Scotland and Ireland. “Whereas in Ireland we found life degenerate and moral standards low, here in Scotland there are no beggars, no reluctance toward strangers, no unwillingness to give information. Although there are poor people in Scotland, they are not in rags.”<\/p>\n
Of course in Scotland, the party was often reminded of Robert Burns. The diary says: “We have made a pilgrimage to the home of Burns. We strolled along the bonny Doon, of whose banks and braes Burns so lovingly wrote. We heard a delightful story about Burns’s widow, the bonny Jean of his poems. She long outlived Burns, who died at the age of 37. One day, when she was an old lady, a poor man selling pins and needles came to the door. He asked to see Mistress Burns. When he saw the stooped old lady, he said, ‘Don’t tell me that is Mistress Burns. It is Bonny Jean I came to see.’ He couldn’t believe bonny Jean would ever lose her youth.”<\/p>\n
Our Maine lady was enchanted by the isle of Iona, where they put up at a small tavern with clean beds and good food. She wrote: “As we landed from the boat on Iona, we found the pier lined with boys and girls selling shells and colored pebbles. The island industry is fishing, and more than 250 fishing boats filled the harbor. People here have strange ideas about Americans. A young lady asked me, ‘How do you get along with the Indians all around you?’ She also asked, ‘You live in huts not in good houses, don’t you?’ When I explained that Americans are really civilized, the girl said, ‘Yes, by the money you Americans spend, I can see that you do have quantity, but you have no quality. “‘<\/p>\n
Naturally the party’s Scotch journey included the Trossachs, made famous by Scot’s Lady of the Lake. That trip included travel by lake steamers, mountain coaches, and on the backs of ponies. Our diarist commented: “The natives grab the best seats on the coaches unless foreign travelers are too quick for them.”<\/p>\n
In Edinburgh the party stopped at what was then the most fashionable hotel, the Windsor. The diary here makes it apparent that one or more members of this American family had become interested in Swedenborg’s new religion called the Church of the New Jerusalem, though in 1885 there were few churches of that denomination in Maine. The diary tells us: “On Sunday morning we took a cab to the New Jerusalem Church, a very modest place where there were half a dozen people. A feeble old man invited us in and said the pastor was absent. This at once quenched Papa’s Church ardor. We left and went to a Presbyterian church close by.”<\/p>\n
By August 16 the party was in London seeing the usual sights of the Tower, the Houses of Parliament, and the changing of guard at Buckingham Palace. The diary comments: “Jack is reckoning English money. Jill is reading. Nanny will soon take the children to Regents Park, while Papa and I take the train to Oxford to visit some of our British cousins. They are taking care of the house of a friend who has gone to the German baths.”<\/p>\n
Before going to France the party visited the Isle of Wight. The lady wrote: “In London the fog was so constant and our lodgings so dark and dingy, we decided to go to the Isle of Wight. The air here is fresh and has given us all new courage. There is a smooth, broad beach dotted with bathing houses on wheels, that are drawn to the water’s edge by horses while the bathers undress, then comes the plunge. We all enjoyed it. Here the thatched cottages, winding, narrow streets, and queer old ruins make a quaint English picture.”<\/p>\n
Next week we shall continue the account of this Maine party’s journey as they crossed the channel to France.<\/p>\n
Year: 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #990, Broadcast on December 2, 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35313,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}