TRAVELLING ON THE CONTINENT TO-DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2686, 6 September 1905, Page 86

TRAVELLING ON THE CONTINENT TO-DAY.

By E. S. Grossmaxn, M.A.

On the whole, there is no moro danger nowadays in travelling amongst foreigners than amongst oi;r fellow-countrymen. Even the nations that do not like us are so accu&tcmed to receiving us as their guests that they have acquired at least a surface courtesy. Most of them understand, too, tha*t vre ;-re their customers as well as their guests, and that our craze for visiting other countries is helping to fill their pockets. lam told that the English and American visitors and residents in Italy are worth millions of revenue a year to that country, and to-day uo one who exercises ordinary caution need bo victimised in the Dodd fashion. The student tourists have been swallowed up now in the immense mass of travellers who fill the trains and steamers', the hotels and pensions of the Continent. People of all ranks travel as soon as they can get money to do so, and .people of all ages, from children, to quite elderly men and women. Travel has become a recognised form of amusement ard recreation as well as of education. English and Americans seem most numerous, and they are to be met with everywhere, though their favourite hunting grounds are France, Switzerland, and Italy. Next in number come the Germans. I met very few of them, in France, but many in Switzerland and Italy. Travelling from Lucerne to Milan everyone in the railway carriage with me ■was German, and most of them were total strangers to each other. In the pension at Florence where I stayed there were some Germans, and the Italian hostess told mo that a week or so ago she had) had all Germans in the house. Ome meets Scandinavians often, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, and very pleasant, unaffected fellow-travellers tbey are, with the simplicity and kindliness and intelligence that always appeal to the bom colonial. But if there are not the old international difficulties, there is a certain amount of hardship stili to be endured. Americans complain bitterly of Continental trains ; and, indeed, comparing them with their own luxurious railways, they have some cause. By far the best system is the German, and in Germany there is very little to complain of. The carriages in all classes are so good that many travel third without discomfort. Tlie> second-class corridor trains are, to a colonial, luxurious, and they are connected with the "speasewagen," or dining car, where good meals are served. The journey can be broken without difficulty, and there is no necessity for night travelling. The Italian trains are simply barbarous. There are no oorridor cars for the second class; there is no means on board of washing one's hanid or face, or •of getting anything to eat;, there is no dining car, and the journey is so arranged that there is no station at whic*. there is time to get a single meal or even to 'get a cup of coffee comfortably. A few unpleasant cakes, fruit, and bottles of wine^are sold at preposterous price's at some of the stations, but unless one is very much on the alert there is no* chance of grasping even these doubtful treasures. Thio journeys last for a very long time — • eight, ten, twelve hours, or more, — and for those who are compelled to go direct, say, from Florence to Paris, they are absolutely exhausting. The passengers sit boxed up in a small, stuffy compartment, with mo chance of rising. They have to travel all might, sitting upright all the time, with insufficient food, and! little chance of sleep. As an American! lady observed, the seats are made without tiie slightest regard to anatomy, tor they bend in behind at just about the height of one's neck, and then violently protrude, apparently with the deliberate object of preventing anyone from leaning back. Now, from Florence or Eome to Paris implies two nights of this delectable experience. The only way of avoiding it is to pay for the very costly first -class sleep ing car. Tlie passenger who takes one lias to pay not only for the- use of the car — which might be' reasonable, — but the difference of the whole fare first and second class — that is, he or she has to pay for a first-class ticket. French trains, though, much, inferior to tihe German or to the best English expresses, are not so bad as the Ita-liaai, and as they have more carriages for the night express there is a fair chance of getting a compartment to oneself.

In Italy men force their way even into compartments marked "Per Signore Sole," and so add stall more to the disagreeables of the voyage for women travelling alone. From Florence to Genoa I had' in the compartment, besides an American lady and gentleman and a veiled Italian lady, two young girls, who were travelling direct'to Paris. One was an invalid ; tiio doctor accompanied her to the train, and Cook's agent put her more or less in my charge* She wa.s like a good many English girls — simply nice, nothing mora, and quite uninteresting. The other was a moit charming girl — French and Irish by descent and American by birth and education, except for the last year, which she had spemt at a pemsion in Switzerland. She was as irresistible as only a girl who came of those three races of the most chiunning women in the world could possibly be, with that look of purity and "lovingness" that belongs to the good Irish type, the naivete and grace of a young French girl, and the intelligence and brightness of an American. She had suddenly heard of the death of her mother, poor child, and was travelling in haste from Florence to PkiladelpiMa, crying when &lxe thought no one saw her, but most pathetically bright most of the time. Her countrywoman, though quite a stranger, "mothered" her in a way that mad© one feel warm towards American •womankinclj and the American gentleman

contrived to pay her little attentions. It was ULe leaving friends when I got out of that railway carriage. I pressed in my i airway time-table the clove carnations my fair unknown gave me in the tunnel near Spezzia, and cam still see her pale, round face, with the pretty smile and the dimples in her cheek. She is certainly one of my "amours de voyage," for if men only would believp it we women often fall in love with our sisters.

Tlie Americans are certainly much more amiable companions than the English,, and I flatter myself we colonials resemble them. Tlie English reserve and suspicion of everyone they do not know seems quite unnatural. I have been- for some days at the table d'hote of a hotel in Paris where everyone spoke (or could sp&ak) English; but not a word would anyone say except to her pcrsou.ll acquaintances, and those who were alone sat absolutely dumb. They would meet the rarae peopfe day after day, go excursions (Cook's parties) with them for a whole d->y, and. yet refuse to open their lips without a personal introduction. It strikes a colonial as in the degree absurd -At last I observed one lady conversing in a most intelligent manner (Lhough chiefly -to tihe men), and the waiter providentially placed roe next her. We foinied a pleasant acquaintance, and she gave ime a good deal of informtion about Paris, where she. had lived as a child under the Second Empire. She was, as I might have known, an Amierican, but the absence of a conspicuous twang led me astray. _ All tfcie English ladies scandalised at a womnn, eves at the safe ago of 40 or 50, conversing on abstract topics with strange men.