Walks and talks of an American farmer in England (Part 2 of 2)

INFORMATION AND ADVICE FOR THOSE WISHING TO MAKE A PEDESTRIAN TOUR IN ENGLAND, AT THE LEAST PRACTICABLE EXPENSE.

A young man with small means, and who is willing to “rough it,” wishes to know with how low a sum of money it would be practicable for him to undertake a trip to England. I have no doubt there are many such who would visit the Old World if they were aware how cheaply and pleasantly they could do so. I have heretofore expressed my own obligation to Bayard Taylor, and it is probable that what I shall have to say will be, to some extent, a repetition of the instructions given in a chapter upon the subject in the later editions of the “Views Afoot.” It will, however, have more especial reference to travelling on foot in England.

The Passage.—There are no regular arrangements made in the packet-ships for those who wish to go to England decently and in tolerable comfort at a moderate price. It will be with more or less difficulty, according as freights are active or dull, that you may obtain a proper “second cabin passage and found.” You stand the best chance to do so in the London lines. A special arrangement with the Captain is necessary. A party of three or four may at almost any time, by application to the Captain shortly before a ship sails, engage a state-room, provide themselves with stores,⁠[17] and hire their cooking done, &c.; so that the passage shall cost them but from twenty to thirty dollars. With good messmates, good catering, a liberal gratuity to the cook, steward, or ship’s servant that waits upon you, and in a clean ship, you may make the passage so, more agreeably than in any other way; more so than in the first cabin at four times the expense. The price of the regular first-cabin passage out is $90. In the steerage, you pay $10 to $12 for a mere sleeping-place, provide yourself with stores, cook for yourself, or hire some fellow-passenger, who does not suffer equally from sea-sickness, to cook for you. You must provide yourself with bedding, cooking utensils, &c. It will cost you about $20. Secure, if possible, an upper berth, near the hatchway; be provided with an abundance of old clothes; look out for pilferers; spend an hour each morning in sweeping and keeping clean the steerage; nurse the sick; take care of the women and children; and keep the deck all the time that you otherwise can. You will probably have a very miserable time, but it will be over after a while, and you will have seen a peculiar and memorable exhibition of human nature, and will go ashore with a pleasure not to be imagined. You can go to Liverpool or Glasgow by the screw-steamers, (second cabin and found,) decently and quickly, for from $50 to $75. The same by the mail-steamers, not so comfortably, but more quickly. Most disagreeably, but soon over with, in the steerage of some of the steamers for $40.

Returning.—You have the same (and rather increased second-cabin accommodations by the London packets), at about 10 per cent. higher prices. You can live comfortably for two months, and see “the lions” in Paris or London, for the difference between the first and second-cabin fare out and home.

Our Expenses for board and bed, while in the country in England, averaged seventy-five cents a-day. Expenses of short conveyance by rail, coach, and boat; fees to showmen and guides; washing, postage, and incidentals, (properly included as travelling expenses,) added to this, made our average expenses about one dollar a-day each. How we fared, and with what degree of comfort or luxury we were content, the reader should have already been informed. I have, however, dwelt more upon the agreeable than the disagreeable side of such travelling. We often, on entering a town, looked from one inn to another, in doubt which to select, desiring to avoid unnecessary expense, while we secured quiet and cleanliness. Sometimes we would enter a house and ask to see the rooms and know the charges. No offence was ever taken at this, though once or twice, where we were going to spend a Sunday, and the rooms were not agreeable, or convenient to write in, we proceeded further. We soon, however, were able to guess very well the character of a house by its outside appearance, and could regulate our disbursements with great exactness.

Inns.—The great difference between the large “first-class” inns and the second and third class is, that in the latter the lodgers are so few that one or two servants can take the place of three or four at the former. Frequently the landlord may be porter and Boots, (and will act as commissionaire or cicerone;) the mistress, cook; and their daughter, waiter and chambermaid, &c. In such cases, generally, no servants’ fees at all are expected, and at most a third or half of what is honestly due the servants of the stylish inn will be satisfactory. The small inns are really often more comfortable to the pedestrian than the large ones; because he can be more at his ease; need not care how he appears; can wheel the sofa up to the fire or open all the windows; dine in his slippers, and smoke, if he likes, in the parlour: take command of the house, in short; see for himself that his shoes are greased and his linen washed and drying, his knapsack-straps repaired, lost buttons replaced, and all his rig a-taunto for an early start without delays in the morning.

If you call for any thing for your table that the house is not provided with, it will be at once procured from the shops; the cooking is generally good, and the bread always fine. We usually contented ourselves with one hot meal in a day. Two of us were without the habit of drinking tea or coffee, and would often make our breakfast of bread and milk; lunch on bread and cheese and beer, and take a substantial meal at the end of our day’s walk. We thought we walked better with this arrangement than any other.

For less than seventy cents a-day it is possible to travel in England without hardship or injury to health. For how much less I cannot say. I once stopped alone at a house where I dined with the family on boiled bacon and potatoes and a bag-pudding, for which I was charged sixpence; breakfasted on scalded milk and bread for twopence; and was asked sixpence in advance for lodging. I had a good, clean bed and washing conveniences in my room. Add to this twopence for tea, and the day’s living is 33 cents. This was in the north of England, and was extraordinary. The usual charge for lodging is a shilling, sometimes ninepence, and sometimes only sixpence. At the first-class inns they will make you pay well in one way or another. Where we did not dine we have been charged threepence each for the use of the public room, that is to say, for sitting in it instead of out-of-doors or in our rooms, while waiting for tea to be prepared. With regard to servants, the best way is to ask the landlord to pay them and charge it in the bill. It relieves you of a great annoyance, and in such cases we never found the charge added extravagant.

Equipment.—Shoes can be obtained much cheaper in England than America, and, indeed, first-rate shoes are hardly to be had in America; but English shoes, that you would have to buy at the shops, always have a seam across the instep that is very hard upon a foot unaccustomed to it; and for this reason, and to ensure a shape to suit you, you had best get them made at home. The leather should be well-tanned and dressed thick kip or cowhide, the best that can be procured; the soles of “English bend,” three-eighths of an inch in thickness; double this in the heel, which should come so far forward that the break will be perpendicular with the point of the ankle. Give your order, if possible, six months beforehand, (I never have known a shoemaker who would get his work done when he promised to for any consideration,) and go to the workman yourself to make sure that he understands what you want, otherwise you will probably receive, just as you are going on board ship, a parcel by express containing a pair of butterfly pumps with soles of hummingbird hide. Have a distinct agreement that they shall be returned if they do not come in time, and if they do not answer to your order. They should be high enough (6½ inches, including heel, commonly) to well cover the ankle, and lace up with but two crossings over the instep. The laces must be made of the best leather, and you should carry half-a-dozen spare ones.

If, finally, the shoes are not large enough to go easily over two woollen socks on your foot, reject them. Get Shaker woollen socks of an exact fit to your foot, or as large as they may be without danger of folding or rubbing into welts under your shoes. Wear them with the “wrong side” outward. You do not want to wear them double, but your feet will swell so in a long hot day’s walk, that you will want that there should have been room enough in your shoes for them to be double before you started. Break your shoes in on the passage.

Gaiters are worn to protect the feet from dust and gravel coming over the top of the shoe. They increase the heat of the feet to that degree that they are best dispensed with. Bathe your feet at every convenient opportunity on the road, and always as soon as you stop for the night, and change your socks and put on slippers.

I could give good reasons for all that I have recommended with regard to shoes; and you had better neglect nothing. I took all these precautions and yet suffered a thousand times more, and was delayed more, from foot-soreness than from fatigue. English pedestrians and sportsmen often wear much heavier and clumsier shoes than I have advised.

Knapsack.—We had the India-rubber army knapsack, made at Naugatuck, Connecticut. If you can get them well “seasoned,” so that they will not stick or smell, and with a good harness, they will probably be the best you can procure. Ours were so, and we found them convenient and to wear well.

Clothing you can get in England better than at home, if you wish to buy any. You must dispense with every thing not absolutely essential to your comfort; for every ounce is felt in a hot day. We carried in our knapsacks each about as follows:

Four shirts, 1 pair cloth pantaloons, 2 pair socks, slippers, handkerchiefs, mending materials, toilet articles, coarse towel, napkin, leather drinking-cup, cap, oil-silk cape, portfolio with writing and sketching materials, knife and fork, candle of tallow (that it may be used to grease shoes with upon occasion), matches, a book, map, pocket-compass, adhesive plaster, cord, shoe-lacings.

Every thing selected with great care for lightness and compactness, and the whole weighing ten pounds and a-half, including knapsack and straps. We wore upon the road light cloth coats and waistcoats, and linen dusters or blouses, and light cassimere pantaloons. We each carried a strong, hooked hickory-stick, and it will be found best to do so. We usually wore broad-brimmed, pliable felt hats of the best quality; they were excellent both in sun and rain. We also had light linen caps.

For rainy weather a cape of the best black oiled silk, 22 inches long before, and 16 inches behind, with a low collar, and buttoning in front, weighing half-a-pound, and folding so small that it could be carried in a coat pocket—a most capital and serviceable article. With a loop and a tape it may be gathered tight at the waist under the knapsack, so as not to be lifted by the wind.

A flask for drink is hardly worth its carriage in England. A man every way in health should be able to walk a dozen miles or more without wanting to drink. Where good water is constantly to be had, it is refreshing to taste it very frequently, and there are no ill effects to be apprehended from doing so. You will perspire more freely, and I think stand the heat better; but cold water will not quench thirst, except momentarily; on the contrary, I believe it increases it. Malt liquors and spirituous liquors have different effects upon different individuals. Both are disagreeable to me. Most English pedestrians drink very freely of malt liquors, and find them very wholesome. On the Continent I would carry a flask for light wine, such as every peasant has to his dinner. Its cost is trifling, and there is nothing in the world which will quench thirst like it, except, perhaps, tea. It is not very palatable at first, but exceedingly refreshing, and I believe every way healthful. It has no intoxicating, and very slight stimulating, qualities. I think it would be a great moral blessing, and have an excellent effect on the public health, if it could be produced cheaply, and used as freely as tea and coffee now are in the United States.

Here I will give you “a secret,” which may, some time, be of use to you. When you feel very much jaded with a long walk, and hardly able to go any further, if you can swallow a cup of tea and a bit of toast or biscuit, and pour a wine-glass of whiskey into your shoes, keeping yourself warm during the halt, you will find yourself good for another hour or two of hard tramping.

Routes and Distances.—Unless you are considerably familiar with the language and history of a Continental nation, I would advise you to spend most of your time in England. It is better to study thoroughly the character of one people, and remain so long, if possible, in their country, that you may feel as if you had lived in it, and made yourself a part of it, than to run superficially over a dozen. It is, however, much cheaper, and in many respects more agreeable, to walk in Germany than in England; and a true American, mingling with the peasant people, can hardly fail to do them good, and have his own heart enlightened and expanded by their spirit longing for liberty and universal affection for his country. It is of walking in England, however, that I wish now especially to speak.

Your route should be determined by your tastes and objects. If they are as general as ours, and you design to employ the same time in England that we did, I could advise but very slight variation from our route.

With a week’s more time, you should see more of North Wales, (though, in general, mountain and lake country is not England, and you can get what tourists go to those districts for better nearer home;) extend your walk into Devonshire, and keep along the south coast to Portsmouth. After visiting the Isle of Wight, the old road to London, running, I believe, through Guildford, is said to be much pleasanter than the more direct way we came. After spending some weeks in and about London, follow up the Thames by Henley, and as near the south bank as you can, to Oxford—then by Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, and Kenilworth, to Birmingham; thence, according to your interest, through the manufacturing districts, and by Chatsworth and the Derbyshire moors to York; thence by Fountain’s Abbey, through the curious hill-country of West Yorkshire and Lancashire, into Westmoreland; thence either north to Scotland, or by Liverpool to Ireland, crossing afterwards to Scotland from Belfast. Guide-books can be obtained, I believe, of Mr. Putnam, in New York, by the aid of which and a good map, you may, before you leave home, judge how much time you will want to spend in examining various objects of interest, and ascertain distances, &c. You can thus plot off your route and calculate the time at which you will arrive at any particular point. Guide-books are very expensive and heavy, and this is their principal use; further, you are liable to pass through a town and neglect to see something for which it is peculiarly distinguished, without you have something to remind you of it.

We travelled at first at the rate of one hundred miles in six days, at last at the rate of about two hundred; sometimes going forty miles, and ordinarily thirty, in a day. We usually did thirty miles in eleven hours, one of which might be spent in nooning under a hedge or in a wayside inn, and about one mile an hour lost in loitering; looking at things on the wayside or talking to people that we met, our actual pace was just about four miles an hour.

You can start with twelve miles in a day, and calculate to average twenty-five after the first fortnight.

If you can make any thing like a harmonious noise upon any instrument, for that purpose I would advise you to strap it on. You will understand its value by reading the life of Goldsmith. It will make you welcome in many a peasant circle, where you might otherwise have been only a damper upon all naturalness and geniality.