BY LEE MERIWETHER.
Author of “A Tramp Trip; or, Europe on Fifty Cents a Day.”
WHEN I wrote my book I did not imagine any one would care to take a Tramp Trip except on paper, hence the brevity of the chapter on “Hints to Tramp Tourists.” The publication of each new edition, however, brings forth letters from young men in all parts of the country requesting further hints and suggestions as to the manner in which one should set about taking a pedestrian tour, not on paper, but in propria persona among the people of Europe, as I did. These letters of inquiry have become altogether too numerous to permit individual replies. I shall, therefore, try to answer them here, and give, as briefly as I can, an outline of the way to plan and carry out a pedestrian trip through Europe.
The first thing, of course, is to decide on the countries to be visited. “If I cannot see all Europe, which portion shall I see?” Undoubtedly, Italy, by reason of its history, ruins, art, scenery, and picturesque people, stands first of all. My own preference would then take me to Switzerland, next to Germany, then to France, Austria, Hungary, and so on, to the far East. England I place last on the list, because, in comparison with the other countries mentioned, it is almost like America. When I landed at Folkestone after a year on the Continent and in Asia Minor, the English faces, English language, English cities, all seemed American—they were so much more American than any of the things I had been accustomed to. To the student always, and to the traveler, if fresh from America, England is novel and interesting. But it is not half so novel or interesting to the mere sightseer as Continental Europe, hence it stands last on the list.
Assuming that the candidate for pedestrianism agrees with me as to beginning his tour in Italy, the first step should be to familiarize himself with Roman and Italian history. He who has read Tacitus and Gibbon will look with far greater profit and pleasure on the palace of Nero, the Caprian villas of Tiberius, the rugged walls of Stamboul, than will a stranger to those authors. As to language, the better the tourist’s command of Italian, the greater his profit and pleasure; but he need not be discouraged if without such command, for Italian is not difficult. A few months’, or even a few weeks’, study of the grammar, capped by a three-weeks’ voyage to Naples or Palermo in an Italian steamer, surrounded by Italians, will enable the traveler to “get along” fairly the first day he lands; and as he proceeds on his tour, being careful to avoid American consulates and tourists’ hotels where English is spoken, he will find his command of the language equal to all ordinary occasions. The dialects in the Neapolitan states, in Tuscany, Venice, etc., differ one from the other, but not so much so as to embarrass the traveler who has followed the course indicated above. He will, unless deficient in acquiring languages, find after the course I have mentioned that he knows enough to make himself fairly understood in Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, or any other Italian city.
Many people have an idea that French is the most essential language for the traveler in Europe. It is for all except the tramp traveler. In Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey—in short, in any part of Europe, French is spoken in your five-dollar-a-day hotels, but in workingmen’s inns it is of little use outside France and French Switzerland. The most important languages for the tramp traveler are Italian and German. German, of course, is all that is needed in Germany, Austria and German Switzerland; in addition it will often be found serviceable in Belgium, Western Russia, Sweden, and in the southeastern European States, as Hungary, Servia, Bulgaria and Roumania. Italian is of use, not only in Italy, but all along the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar to the Bosporus, and even in the Black Sea ports of Russia, where Italian commerce has made the people familiar with Italian sailors for centuries past. My guide and interpreter in Constantinople was a young scamp of a Turk, who had picked up a colloquial knowledge of the language from Italian sailors.
It is far more difficult to acquire German, and unless the tramp has some previous acquaintance with that language, I fear he will fare badly in the Fatherland. I was fortunate in having some knowledge of German, acquired by long residence with a German family in America. But for this I do not think my tramp through Germany and Austria would have been half so enjoyable and profitable as it was.
As to outfit, little can be said more than is already said in the final chapter of my book. A knapsack can be bought for two dollars; into this pack a change of underclothing, a woolen shirt, a note-book, and a few etceteras, and you are ready for the trip. It is not advisable to carry fire-arms. The most serviceable weapon is a heavy club or walking-stick. The possession of a revolver may incur untold trouble in an Italian dogana, and is really of no use, since no one is in the least likely to attack so shabby a person as the tramp tourist becomes after a voyage in the steerage across the Atlantic.
The tramp tourist, not having and not requiring much money, need not be bothered with letters of credit or bills of exchange. Bank of England notes can be bought in New York for from $4.84 to $4.90 the pound, according to the rate of exchange. Buy about a hundred Italian lire ($20.00) for immediate use, and put the rest of your funds in English bank notes, which, for safe keeping, should be buttoned or sewed in some well-secured inner pocket. These notes can readily be exchanged anywhere in Europe for the money of the country in which you happen to be, and as several hundred dollars value can be carried without even making a lump in the pocket, they form a convenient and reasonably safe way of carrying one’s funds.