After some time in Irkutsk, de Windt continues his trek of thousands of miles across the Tundra armed with revolvers and two rifles, as well as a fowling piece.
It is now time to assume, however, that our traveller, with much heart-yearning, wishes to turn his tracks towards Home. Before he can do so he will have read in his Baedeker that on leaving Russia he must ‘report his intentions to the Police Authorities, handing in his passport and a certificate from the police officials of the district in which he has been living to the effect that nothing stands in the way of his departure’. Having obtained this, he will go to the offices of the International Sleeping Car Company and buy a ticket to London for nine pounds in gold, which haven he will reach in sixty-five hours.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY
‘How happy and green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from milestone to milestone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks, rustic hamlets clustered around ancient grey churches — and through the charming friendly English landscape. Is there any in the world like it?’
So Thackeray summed up the feelings of English travellers coming home from Abroad, but what would be the reaction of foreigners to the country who were seeing it for the first time or, for that matter, the ex-convict returning from the Antipodes after he had made good and become rich — and possibly changed his name? The difficulty here is that guidebooks for foreigners in their own language were somewhat scarce. The guidebook in the nineteenth century was, initially, a British and a German invention, people from those countries being the first to have the money and the intellectual curiosity to travel, at least in any numbers.
Most guidebooks to England were put out in English for the use of the English, and many excellent series soon provided total coverage of Great Britain and Ireland. A. & C. Black’s of Edinburgh produced some forty-four volumes (the first one, to Scotland, appeared in 1826), and John Murray forty volumes of county and cathedral guides. Later in the century came Baddeley’s Thorough Guides of nineteen volumes, with excellent maps and plans by Bartholomew. A little later nearly ninety volumes of Ward Lock’s Red Shilling Guides went on the bookstalls, as well as fifty volumes of Methuen’s Little Guides and twenty-four volumes of the excellent Highways and Byways series. This made the British Isles an extremely well guidebooked country, with something over two hundred titles, so that anyone going on holiday to Derbyshire, for example, had at least seven good manuals to choose from.
The question is, how critical were they, or how purblind, to the conditions of the country they so meticulously described? The first Baedeker to England (though in German) did not appear until 1862, a French edition following in 1866, while the Guide Joanne: Londres Illustré came out in 1865. The foreign traveller, each of them tells us, had no need of a passport for a visit to England, though it was wise to carry one as proof of identity, and so as to have no trouble when returning to their own country.
The only thing to worry about regarding the English Customs were ‘liqueurs spiritueuses’ and cigars in excess of 250 grammes, though English books printed on the Continent could not be brought in. The Guide Joanne says that the crowds of people who besiege the traveller on his arrival at the London station offering to carry his baggage and take him to the best hotel should be ignored, since they are known in England by the name of sharks (requins) and are apt to prey on him.
The traveller should get himself into a cab as soon as possible. The foreigner who doesn’t know English will be confused on getting to London for the first time, so it would be best if he could write to a friend beforehand, and also consult a plan of London. In any case he should get quickly to a hotel that has been recommended to him as economical, and only stay the absolute minimum of time necessary in which to find lodgings in a private house.
Baedeker says that if the traveller wants information all he has to do is ask a policeman. There are seven thousand of them in London, each, according to Murray, paid eighteen shillings a week, ‘with clothing and 40lbs. of coal weekly to each married man all the year; 40lbs. weekly to each single man during six months, and 20lbs. weekly during the remainder of the year’.
The duty of the police is to control traffic and more or less guarantee the safety of people from — Baedeker tells us — the fifteen thousand pickpockets who infest the capital. ‘The number of persons taken into custody between 1844 and 1848 inclusive,’ Murray goes on, ‘amounted to 374,710. Robberies during the same period were 71,000, and the value of property stolen was £271,000 of which £55,000 was recovered.’
One is advised by Baedeker to address a passer-by only in case of absolute necessity, and not to reply to any question addressed to him on the street, especially in French or German, for it is usually the preliminary to some thievery or trick. ‘We recommend that in general the traveller should be on his guard, and above all to keep an eye constantly on his purse or watch, because London swarms with thieves, and even those who live in London do not escape their attentions.’
Murray tells us to beware of mock auctions at shops, and also not to drink the ‘unwholesome water furnished to the tanks of houses from the Thames’. Should you become ill, beware of falling into the hands of a charlatan. It is better to get the address of a good doctor from someone who lives in the same neighbourhood.
In the hotel you should lock your door on going out and, even in the best hotels, lock it also before going to sleep. Valuables are best kept secured in your trunk, because the wardrobe locks are not sufficiently solid. Anything really valuable should be left with the proprietor of the hotel — but get a receipt. In private lodgings the traveller should take particular care in this respect.
Most hotels forbid smoking in the bedrooms and dining room, though special rooms are set aside for smokers. Cigars are an item of luxury in London, the expense being somewhat reduced since one is not allowed to smoke in crowded places, as on the Continent. One can’t find cigars as cheap as in Germany or, if you can, they are usually bad, so it is better to buy them from the same place each day, where the shopkeeper will get to know you and give a good brand. Murray warns us never to listen to offers of ‘smuggled’ cigars on the streets.
As for restaurants, English cooking deserves neither the pompous praise often lavished on it, says Baedeker, nor the absolute condemnation of which it is sometimes the object. Murray’s Handbook to London, 1864 tells us that the population is 2,803,634. ‘The Metropolis is supposed to consume in one year 1,600,000 quarters of wheat, 240,000 bullocks, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, and 35,000 pigs. One market alone (Leadenhall) supplies about 4,025,000 head of game. This, together with 3,000,000 salmon, irrespective of other fish and flesh, is washed down by 43,200,000 gallons of porter and ale, 2,000,000 gallons of spirits, and 65,000 pipes of wine. To fill its milk and cream jugs, 13,000 cows are kept. The thirsty souls of London need have no fear of becoming thirstier as long as there are upwards of 4000 public-houses and 1000 wine merchants to minister to their deathless thirst.’
In the restaurants one could have oxtail soup for eightpence, a chop for sixpence, a chicken for a shilling, or a rump steak for tenpence; for vegetables there were potatoes for a penny, cabbage for twopence, or spinach for threepence; as for dessert there was plum pudding or rice pudding for fourpence, and cheese at twopence, accompanied perhaps by a pint of stout for fourpence. ‘The wine is generally expensive and bad in England. Claret is the name given to French red wine of an inferior quality. In many dining rooms it is the custom to serve every quarter of an hour a roast joint. At a given signal an enormous platter is wheeled in and you are free to cut the part which you desire. In these sorts of establishment the meat generally leaves little to be desired.’