He goes on to say that the character of hotels, good and bad, inserted in the handbook, ‘are given either from personal knowledge or upon unexceptionable authority of travellers whose names and residences are known to the Editor. Where the objections stated in this book no longer exist, and where a positive improvement has taken place, the Editor is always ready to listen to respectable and well-authenticated testimony, and to remove in future editions the condemnatory epithets or passages. Thus he hopes to stimulate to exertion and amendment, to protect travellers from neglect and imposition, and to do justice to deserving innkeepers.’
With such assurances our traveller will set out, the indispensable Murray buttoned into his pocket, though when he reaches Ostend he is not likely to linger after reading the following: ‘… a few hours there exhaust a traveller’s patience; while the visit to the douane, and the extortions of innkeepers and commissionaires, are not likely to improve his temper.’ Apart from which, travellers should be on their guard against drinking water, ‘which is filtered rain-water. Seltzer water is drunk in preference.’ Even so, ‘Ostend is a favourite watering-place, and is much resorted to in summer; even the King and Queen of the Belgians repair hither, and occupy 2 or 3 ordinary-looking houses in the Rue Longue. There are 80 Bathing Machines on the beach, and the sands are very extensive and smooth, and crowded with bathers of both sexes, decorously clad in bath dresses, by order of the police.’
The handbook also deals with Holland where ‘the roads run on the tops of the dykes; and, as there are no parapets or railings, there is at least the appearance of danger, and accidents sometimes happen’. Dutch hotels were said to be nearly as expensive as those of England, and inferior to those of most other countries. They were, however, generally clean, but ‘owing to the humidity of the climate the beds are often damp, and should be warmed with the warming-pan, a much employed article in Dutch households’.
The subject of cleanliness clearly fascinated the writer of the handbook, though he considered the matter to be ‘carried to excess in Holland; but the passion for purifying really runs to such a height among Dutch housewives that the assertion is by no means groundless: everything has an air of freshness, and the stranger in vain looks for a particle of dust. It is on the last day of the week that an extraordinary cleaning takes place. Every house door presents a scene of most energetic activity — the brushing and mopping, the scrubbing and scraping, are not confined to steps and doorways — the pavement, wall, windows, however guiltless they may be of impurity, are all equally subjected to the same course of ablution. Those spots which are out of the reach of the hand or broom do not escape a well-aimed stream from the pipe of a small engine-pump, which is always reserved for such service. The unsuspecting stranger who walks the streets is subjected to the danger of perpetual wettings. He looks up to ascertain whence the shower descends, and he perceives a diligent servant girl, stretched out of a window two-thirds of her length, and, with eyes intently turned upwards, discharging bowls full of water upon some refractory stain, imperceptible to all but herself.’
The traveller is reminded that life was formerly most fraught in Holland — and possibly still is. The town of Dort, for example, stands on an island formed by an inundation in 1421, ‘when the tide in the estuary of the Rhine, excited by a violent tempest, burst through a dyke, overwhelming a populous and productive district, which it at once converted into a waste of waters called the Biesbosch … 72 villages and 100,000 human beings were swallowed up by the waves. 35 of the villages were irretrievably lost, so that no vestige, even of the ruins, could afterwards be discovered.’
A more immediate danger awaited those who thought to wander freely around the houses of gentlemen: ‘Many of the grounds of the country seats are open; but some have notices — only in Dutch — of man-traps and spring-guns.’
On reaching Germany the Customs examination was said to be ‘strict without being vexatious. The Prussian douanier (often an old soldier invalided) is above taking a bribe, or rather, government regulates matters so as to prevent his taking one. The person offering a bribe is even liable to punishment by law. Strangers are treated with invariable civility, provided they conduct themselves becomingly.’
The money problems was again infinitely difficult, this time due to the proliferation of different states and principalities, leading Murray to warn us that the values marked on German coins ‘are sometimes not the value at which the coin passes’. He then goes on to juggle Friedrichs d’or, dollars, silver groschen, thalers, kreutzers and gulden with pounds, shillings and pence, which must have left our traveller’s head spinning, so that it would come as something of a relief to learn that: ‘Travellers in Prussia are protected by a regulation of the police from the impositions of innkeepers, who are compelled to hang up in every apartment, or at least in the public room, a tariff, or list of charges for lodging, food, fuel, servants, valets-de-place, etc. This is inspected periodically by a proper officer, who regulates the price of each article, and ascertains that none of the charges are exorbitant.’
All the same, our traveller must have read the following with something like exasperation: ‘All innkeepers are compelled to submit to the inspection of the police the daily arrivals and departures of their guests; and not merely the name, surname, and country, but frequently the age, condition, whether married or single, profession, religion, motives for travelling, and other particulars, are required. A book called Strangers’ Book, ruled into columns, and methodically classed, is presented to the traveller for him to fill up.’
Another point made is that German hotelkeepers were of a ‘higher class’ than their equivalents in England, and that they usually sat at the common table, ‘entering familiarly into conversation with their guests’. Travellers must have responded in various ways to this blatant intrusion into their privacy, from one of welcome at gaining some picture of local conditions, to that of wishing the hotelkeeper would eat in his own kitchen where he belonged. No doubt the silent Englishman’s protection against having to answer probing questions was helped by his lack of knowing what the upstart was talking about.
Let us assume that our gentleman-traveller is not too much discouraged by this and makes for Cologne where, consulting his Murray, he would put up at the Hollandischer Hof. Delacroix stayed there in 1850, and ‘felt depressed by the strange jargon and the sight of foreign uniforms. The Rhine wine at dinner made me feel more reconciled to my situation, but unhappily I had the worst bed in the world, even though this is supposed to be one of the best hotels.’
From Cologne it would take our traveller fourteen and a half hours to reach Berlin by railway, ‘allowing time for refreshment at Minden’. We are told that the 455,000 inhabitants of the Prussian capital included 15,000 Roman Catholics, 15,000 Jews, 5300 descendants of the French Protestants driven out of France by the religious intolerance of Louis XIV, and 15,000 soldiers of the garrison. Murray says: ‘The city is situated in the midst of a dreary plain of sand, destitute of either beauty or fertility. The great number of soldiers gives to Berlin almost the air of a camp.’ He evinces surprise that it had grown into the capital of a great empire. ‘Owing to the want of stone in the neighbourhood, the larger part even of the public buildings are of brick and plaster. The flatness of the ground and the sandy soil produce inconveniences which the stranger will not be long in detecting. There is so little declivity in the surface, that the water in the drains, instead of running off, stops and stagnates in the streets. In the Friedrichsstrasse, which is two miles long, there is not a foot of descent from one end to the other. In the summer season the heat of the sun reflected by the sand becomes intolerable, and the noxious odours in the streets are very unwholesome as well as unpleasant.’ A complaint was also made about the pavements, which were so narrow that ‘two persons can scarcely walk abreast, and many are infamously paved with sharp stones, upon which it is excruciating pain to tread’.