THE LUXURIES OF TRAVEL

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 71

THE LUXURIES OF TRAVEL

(By a, Banker.)

Since the earlier part of the Victorian ag« •Hie comfort and luxuries H<jf railway travelI ling have advanced by leaps and bounds. At/ | that time third class carriages were simply, cattle trucks, uncovered, and, judging from! contemporary prints, in some cases without! seats i a journey from London to Aberdeen' , in a snow-storm in one of those "carriages" could therefore "scarcely be characterised as at , voyage de luxe. But although England was the^ pioneer of railways, the Continent waa 1 the initiator of luxury in travel. While wet were content to rush out of the trein at A station when there was a 10 minutes' stop, and after struggling through a surging crowd] thronging the bar, obtaining a basin of soup, perhaps sojiot that it was impossible to tak* it before the bell tang, a rush back being then made to the train with perhaps but a. chunk of drybreeoMor luncheon, the foreigner was -lunching or dining in the train, with! an upright round basket before him in the roomy carriage, the top forming the table, while oeneath, in compartments one above I the other, was an excellent hot meal of seveI ral oourses, a- bottle of wine in a socket aff the side, together with all other necessary; requisites. Now. however, we have happily] recovered lost ground, »nd our restaurant cars are quite equal, or even superior to those at the Continent. And a meal in one of those cars j& a most luxurious break in a long journey. For th« interest of the panorama of the varied anel attractive beauties of the scenery past whiott the train is speeding gives an' added zest anoj pleasure, and creates a sense of buoyant gratis fication and enjoyment. -Now, for instance^ the line skirts a broad estuary of the sea, The tid» is half down, and on a line of sand* banks innumerable sea-birds are gambolling and disporting themselves. Here a flock oS the pretty sea-swallows wheeling *nd curved ting es by word of command; here a heron, solemn and stately, standing in the shallow, water on the lookout for an unwary fish; or here a- sedate conclave of puffins,' or cc» parrots, eaoh apparently admiring the manjj coloured: radiance of its neighbour's some beak. And then the open sea is reached; the line running along by the shore, a sue* cession of lovely, land-locked bays protected by jutting of deep xeS sand--stone; or bridging a romantic combe through; which ' a foaming rivulet dances down that steep acclivity until lost in the sand of ti« shore. In such a journey, then, an additional, sense is gratified; and,- perhaps, a rush of alleluias courses through the mind that the beneficdeht Creator has given us the faculty so richly to enjoy all -His gifts to us. Andi the greatest of all His gifts, the gift of IJis 1 Son, to undergo in our stead the penalties incurred by us^ has, to all who «vail them* selves of that propitiation, conferred an eter* nity of happiness and of supernal glory.

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