In spite of our excellent resolutions, the serious novel was again put on the shelf, and the next work we undertook was a tour on behalf of the Lady’s Pictorial. This was provoked by a guide-book to Connemara, which was sent to Martin by an English friend. She wrote to me and said, “E. H. has sent me an intolerably vulgar guide to Connemara, and suggests that you and I should try and do something to take its place. It is written as it were in description of a tour made by an ingenuous family party. ‘Jack,’ very manly; the Young Ladies, very ladylike; a kind and humorous mother, etc. ‘Jack’ is much the most revolting. The informant of the party gives many interesting facts about the disappearance of the Martins from the face of the earth, and deplores the breaking up of the property ‘put together by Cromwell’s soldier’!”
I think it was this culminating offence that decided us to supplement the information supplied to the ingenuous family. Our examination into the conditions of Connemara, and our findings on its scenery, hotels, roads, etc., were not accomplished without considerable effort. In 1890 there was no railway to Clifden, hotels were few and indifferent, means of communication scant and expensive. We hired a jennet and a governess-cart, and strayed among the mountains like tinkers, stopping where we must, taking chances for bed and board. It was uncomfortable and enjoyable, and I imagine that our account of it, which was published as a book by Messrs. W. H. Allen, is still consulted by the tourist who does not require either mental improvement or reliable statistics.
In the autumn of ’91 we went, by arrangement with the Lady’s Pictorial, to Bordeaux, to investigate, and to give our valuable views upon the vintage in that district. This developed into a very interesting expedition; we had introductions that opened to us the gloomy and historic portals of the principal “Caves”; we saw claret in all its stages (some of them horrible); we assisted at a “Danse de Vendange,” a sort of Harvest Home, at which we trod strange measures with the vintagers, feeling, as we swung and sprang to the squeals of pipes and fiddles, as though we were in comic opera; we gained a pleasing insight into the charm of French hospitality, and we acquired—and this was the tour’s only drawback—a taste for the very best claret that we have since found unfortunately superfluous.
These articles, also, were republished with the title “In the Vine Country,” Martin’s suggestion of “From Cork to Claret” being rejected as too subtle for the public. Such, at least, was the publishers’ opinion, which is often pessimistic as to the intelligence of the public.
Since I am on the subject of our tours, I may as well deal with them all. It was in June, 1893, that we rode through Wales, at the behest of Black and White. The articles, with my drawings, were subsequently published by Messrs. Blackwood, and were entitled “Beggars on Horseback.” We were a little more than a week on the road, and were mounted on hireling ponies and hireling saddles (facts that may enlist the sympathies of those who have a knowledge of such matters). I may here admit that, in spite of certain obvious advantages of a literary kind, these amateur-gipsy tours are not altogether as enjoyable as our accounts of them might lead the artless reader to imagine. They demand iron endurance, the temper of Mark Tapley, and the Will to Survive of Robinson Crusoe. I do not say that we possessed these attributes, but we realised their necessity.
Only once more, and in this same year, 1893, did we adventure on a tour. This time again on behalf of the Lady’s Pictorial, and, at our own suggestion, to Denmark. We had offered the Editor four alternatives, Lapland or Denmark, Killarney or Kiel. He chose Denmark, and I have, ever since 1914, deeply regretted that we did not insist on Kiel.
The artistic and social difficulties in dealing with this class of work have not, in my experience, been sufficiently set forth. We were provided with introductions, obtained variously, mainly through our own friends. We were given, editorially, to understand that the events, be they what they may, were ever to be treated from the humorous point of view. “Pleasant” is the word employed, which means pleasant for the pampered reader, but not necessarily for anyone else.
Well, “pleasant” things, resulting from some of these kind, private introductions, undoubtedly occurred, but it is a poor return for full-handed hospitality to swing its bones, as on a gibbet, in a newspaper. Many have been the priceless occurrences that we have had to bury in our own bosoms, or, in writing them down, write ourselves down also as dastards. It is some consolation to be able to say this here and now. For all I know, there may still be those who consider that Martin Ross and E. Œ. Somerville treated them, either by omission or commission, with ingratitude. If so, let me now assure them that they little know how they were spared.