TRAVELLING ON THE CHEAP.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6313, 13 September 1907, Page 3

TRAVELLING ON THE CHEAP.

(From. Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 26. Gentlemen who are walking round the World for wagers—the amount is usually large and the name of the generous layer of thousands to nothing. always most discreetly withheld—are becoming almost sufficiently numerous to threaten to be a nuisance. The latest globe-trotter is a young Russian student, Alexandre Kauffman. Alexandre alleges that if he walks round the world iu eignt years someone will give him .&XOOO. Ho seems to be adopting a very zig-zag route to start with. Ho left Cologne' on New Year's Day and travelled to London by way of Paris, Plymouth and Bristol. Now he proposes to make for Italy, '■ then to traverse Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, Siberia, and across the Behring Strait© to the American Continent. Thereafter his plans are uncertain, and he does not* venture to give a date when he will reach Australia and New Zealand, which countries are included in his itinerary. Alexandre is a picturesque customer. With his long/ luxuriant, black locks he is like a picture out of Dumas. He wears just the sort of hat that d'Artnagan sported when he set out for Paris on his yellow horse, save that Kauffman's hat has no feather. And in place of the sword of his sire Alexandre carried a useful-looking walking stick. For the rest he is brown as a berry, and has evidently not suffered many privations on his travels. His only visible means of'raising the wind seems to be packets of picture post-cards, but he has no objection' apparently to anyone getting up a concert for his benefit. His ample leisure he occupies in visiting museums, art galleries, and schools, for he is an enthusiastic artist. He is also a great student of human nature, and he believes that his standing introduction, "Behold M'sieu. student Russian, who walk the world around in eight years for four thousand ijound," will carry him safely through his long ramble.