"A Tour in the Toy Country."
This was the first book that Caldecott illustrated;[3] the title suggested was "A Tour in the Toy Country," and before leaving London he made the drawing on the preceding page. Caldecott, being then twenty-six, started on this journey with great readiness. The idea was altogether delightful to him; and here, as in every country he visited in after years, his playful fancy and facility for seizing the grotesque side of things stood him in good stead.
A Mountain "Beer Garden."
In a strange land, amidst unfamiliar scenes and faces, he roamed "fancy free"; in a country so compact in size that the whole could be traversed in a month's walking tour.
With Baedeker's Guide (English edition) in his pocket, and a dialogue book of sentences in German and English, he used to delight to interrogate the wondering natives; the necessary questions difficult to find, and "the elaborate and quite unnecessary" (as he expressed it), always turning up. Such little incidents gave opportunity to the observant artist to study the faces of the listeners; the interviews conducted slowly and gravely, and ending in a peal of laughter from the natives.