Memories of travel

Front matter

SAN FRANCISCQg@BLIC LIBRARY

City

Book No.

Preface

Tue sketches of travel gathered together in this volume represent only a small part of what the author intended to publish; but few and slight though they be, they may serve as an illustration of the scope and variety of his experiences in all parts of the world.

James Bryce was a great lover of nature—an inheritance from his father, with whom he rambled in boyhood over the Scottish and Irish mountains, and from whom, and also from an uncle (Dr. William Bryce of Edinburgh), he acquired the taste for geology and botany which was a neverfailing source of pleasure throughout his life. This love of natural scenery, combined with an intense interest in the countries and peoples of the world, led him to devote his vacations, whenever possible, to travelling, and a steady and systematic pursuit of this object enabled him in the course of years, in spite of a life well filled with other work, to accomplish much. Some of these travels have already been described at greater length in the volumes on Transcaucasia and Ararat (1876), South Africa (1895), and vil

Vill Memories of Travel

South America (1910). Travels in countries such as Egypt (1887), India (1888), Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand (1912), and Japan, Korea, and China (1913), were not recorded in book form, nor were they fit subjects for brief description. But wherever he voyaged it was his habit to note down at the time, and while they were still fresh in his memory, impressions of travel which could later on be developed and expanded into fuller sketches or short articles. Such, for instance, were notes referring to days spent in the Balearic Islands and the Canaries; to climbs in the Pyrenees and a visit to the little Republic of Andorra; or again, an account of the Hawaiian Islands and of the ascent of the interesting volcano Kilauea; of Mexico with its snow-clad volcanoes, its varied vegetation, and its memories of the Aztecs and the Conquistadores; and of a short tour in Cuba and Jamaica on the way back. There were notes, too, on Sicily and Corsica, Constantinople, the Greek Islands, with Ithaca and Troy, North Africa from Tunis to Tangier, and through the Pillars of Hercules to French Morocco and the old Moorish cities of Rabat, Fez, and Marrakeesh. Impressions of all these countries, with reflections inspired by their natural beauty and historical interest, were to have found a place in these Memories of Travel had leisure permitted; but the necessary completion of other work intervened, and they

Preface ix remained unwritten. The earlier years wére chiefly devoted to mountain-climbing; but in 1872 the journey to Iceland (in company with his Oxford friends Sir Courtenay Ilbert and Sheriff ZEneas Mackay of Edinburgh), which forms the first of the sketches here published, broke entirely new ground and left a deep impression on his mind. The sense of remoteness, the loneliness of the desert, the savage, almost sinister, aspect of the volcanic region with its harsh tones of colour, appealed strongly to his imagination, contrasting strangely as it did with the civilisation and education of the people; and an unexpected detention in the country enabled him to master sufficient Icelandic to read the literature of the Sagas—an unfailing source of pleasure to him throughout his life. The expeditions in the Polish and Hungarian Alps were made with Leslie Stephen in 1878 in places at that time little frequented by English travellers. His companion in the Alps in 1884 was Edward Bowen of Harrow, and their tour was undertaken with the purpose of following the famous march of the Russian General Suvaroff in the campaign against the French in 1799, when, with troops and artillery, he crossed the St. Gotthard from the Italian side and attempted to make his way through Canton Schwyz to join the Austrian Archduke Charles at Ziirich—an attempt which, though unsuccessful in its main object, led to x Memories of Travel one of the most extraordinary achievements in Alpine warfare. The years preceding and following 1884 include unrecorded expeditions in the Alps, the Dolomites, Dalmatia and Montenegro, the Balkans and Macedonia, as well as the more distant travels previously referred to. The visit to the Islands of the Southern Pacific was made in 1912 in passing from San Francisco to New Zealand and Australia; and the journey through Siberia, and two hundred miles up the Obi River and across the steppe to the Altai Mountains, in 1913, on the way home from the United States after retiring from his post at Washington. Palestine (including a visit to Petra), which had long been looked forward to, was achieved in the spring of 1914, three months before the outbreak of the Great War, and the weeks spent there, partly driving through the country and partly riding and camping, gave him his last sight of the Near East which he had first entered thirty-eight years before. In 1920 he revived his memories of Southern Spain and added a short expedition to French Morocco; and in 1921 he crossed the Atlantic for the eleventh and last time to pay a farewell visit to the United States.

The travels here referred to, which covered a period of some sixty years and comprised an extraordinary variety of climate, scenery, and vegetation, as well as of human races and institu-

Preface xi tions, constantly stimulated powers of observation which were exceptional and were used to their full extent. In these days the born traveller, with all his faculties alert, and all the facilities of modern travel at his command, has a world of unending interest and pleasure within his grasp, and the desire to share the interest and the beauty of these experiences with those who may not have had a like opportunity, suggested the records, of which only these few can now be given to his friends. :

I desire to acknowledge with grateful thanks the help received from Lord Bryce’s friends, Sir Courtenay Ibert, Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, who have kindly read through the proofs of these articles and made the alterations and corrections that were necessary.

E. M. BRYCE

Hinpieap, December 10, 1922.

Contents

Impressions OF ICELAND (1872) ree THe TATRA— 1. THE Mounrams oF PoLanp (1878) 2. THe Mountains oF Huncary (1878) SuvaRoFF’s ALPINE CAMPAIGN (1884) TwprESSIONS OF PALESTINE (1914) Tur IsLES OF THE SOUTHERN Pacrric (1912) Tur SCENERY or Nort AMERICA (1921) Tae Attar Mountatns (1913)