An ideal form of travel for the elderly—A claim to roam at will in print—An invitation to a big-game shoot—Details of journey to Cooch Behar—The commercial magnate and the station-master—An outbreak of cholera—Arrival at Cooch Behar Palace-Our Australian Jehu—The shooting camp—Its gigantic scale—The daily routine—"Chota Begum," my confidential elephant—Her well-meant attentions—My first tiger—Another lucky shot—The leopard and the orchestra—The Maharanee of Cooch Behar—An evening in the jungle—The buns and the bear—Jungle pictures—A charging rhinoceros—Another rhinoceros incident—The amateur Mahouts—Circumstances preventing a second visit to Cooch Behar

CHAPTER II

Mighty Kinchinjanga—The inconceivable splendours of a Himalayan sunrise—The last Indian telegraph office—The irrepressible British Tommy—An improvised garden—An improvised Durbar hall—A splendid ceremony—A native dinner—The disguised Europeans—Our shocking table-manners—Incidents—Two impersonations; one successful, the other the reverse—I come off badly—Indian jugglers—The rope-trick—The juggler, the rope, and the boy—An inexplicable incident—A performing cobra scores a success—Ceylon "Devil Dancers"—Their performance—The Temple of the Tooth—The uncovering of the Tooth—Details concerning—An abominable libel—Tea and coffee—Peradeniya Gardens—The upas tree of Java—Colombo an Eastern Clapham Junction—The French lady and the savages—The small Bermudian and the inhabitants of England

CHAPTER III

Frenchmen pleasant travelling companions—Their limitations—Vicomte de Vogue—The innkeeper and the ikon—An early oil-burning steamer—A modern Bluebeard—His "Blue Chamber"—Dupleix—His ambitious scheme —A disastrous period for France—A personal appreciation of the Emperor Nicholas II—A learned but versatile Orientalist—Pidgin English—Hong-Kong—An ancient Portuguese city in China—Duck junks—A comical Marathon race—Canton—Its fascination and its appalling smells—The malevolent Chinese devils—Precautions adopted against—"Foreign devils"—The fortunate limitations of Chinese devils—The City of the Dead—A business interview

CHAPTER IV

The glamour of the West Indies—Captain Marryat and Michael Scott—Deadly climate of the islands in the eighteenth century—The West Indian planters—Difference between East and West Indies—"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"—Training-school for British Navy—A fruitless voyage—Quarantine—Distant view of Barbados—Father Labat—The last of the Emperors of Byzantium—Delightful little Lady Nugent and her diary of 1802—Her impressions of Jamaica—Wealthy planters—Their hideous gormandising—A simple morning meal—An aldermanic dinner—How the little Nugents were gorged—Haiti—Attempts of General Le Clerc to secure British intervention in Haiti—Presents to Lady Nugent—Her Paris dresses described—Our arrival in Jamaica—Its marvellous beauty—The bewildered Guardsman—Little trace of Spain left in Jamaica—The Spaniards as builders—British and Spanish Colonial methods contrasted

CHAPTER V

An election meeting in Jamaica—Two family experiences at contested elections—Novel South African methods—Unattractive Kingston—A driving tour through the island—The Guardsman as orchid-hunter—Derelict country houses—An attempt to reconstruct the past—The Fourth-Form room at Harrow—Elizabethan Harrovians—I meet many friends of my youth—The "Sunday" books of the 'sixties—"Black and White"—Arrival of the French fleet—Its inner meaning—International courtesies—A delicate attention—Absent alligators—The mangrove swamp—A preposterous suggestion—The swamps do their work—Fever—A very gallant apprentice—What he did

CHAPTER VI

The Spanish Main—Its real meaning—A detestable region—Tarpon and sharks—The isthmus—The story of the great pearl "La elegrina"—The Irishman and the Peruvian—The vagaries of the Southern Cross—The great Kingston earthquake—Point of view of small boys—Some earthquake incidents—"Flesh-coloured" stockings—Negro hysteria—A family incident, and the unfortunate Archbishop—Port Royal—A sugar estate—A scene from a boy's book in real life—Cocoa-nuts— Reef-fishing—Two young men of great promise

CHAPTER VII

Appalling ignorance of geography amongst English people—Novel pedagogic methods—"Happy Families"—An instructive game—Bermuda—A waterless island—A most inviting archipelago—Bermuda the most northern coral-atoll—The reefs and their polychrome fish—A "water-glass"—Sea-gardens—An ideal sailing-place—How the Guardsman won his race—A miniature Parliament—Unfounded aspersions on the Bermudians—Red and blue birds—Two pardonable mistakes—Soldier gardeners—Officers' wives—The little roaming home-makers—A pleasant island—The inquisitive German naval officers—"The Song of the Bermudians"

CHAPTER VIII

The demerits of the West Indies classified—The utter ruin of St. Pierre—The Empress Josephine—A transplanted brogue—Vampires—Lost in a virgin forest—Dictator-Presidents, Castro and Rosas—The mentality of a South American—"The Liberator"—The Basques and their national game—Love of English people for foreign words—Yellow fever—Life on an Argentina estancia—How cattle are worked—The lasso and the "bolas"—Ostriches—Venomous toads—The youthful rough-rider—His methods—Fuel difficulties—The vast plains—The wonderful bird-life

CHAPTER IX

Difficulties of an Argentine railway engineer—Why Argentina has the Irish gauge—A sudden contrast—A more violent contrast—Names and their obligations—Cape Town—The thoroughness of the Dutch pioneers—A dry and thirsty land—The beautiful Dutch Colonial houses —The Huguenot refugees—The Rhodes fruit-farms—Surf-riding—Groote Schuur—General Botha—The Rhodes Memorial—The episode of the sick boy—A visit from Father Neptune—What pluck will do

CHAPTER X

In France at the outbreak of the war—The tocsin—The "voice of the bell" at Harrow—Canon Simpson's theory about bells—His "five-tone" principle—Myself as a London policeman—Experiences with a celebrated Church choir—The "Grill-room Club"—Famous members —Arthur Cecil—Some neat answers—Sir Leslie Ward—Beerbohm Tree and the vain old member—Amateur supers—Juvenile disillusionment—The Knight—The Baron—Age of romance passed

CHAPTER XI

Dislike of the elderly to change—Some legitimate grounds of complaint—Modern pronunciation of Latin—How a European crisis was averted by the old-fashioned method—Lord Dufferin's Latin speech—Schoolboy costume of a hundred years ago—Discomforts of travel in my youth—A crack liner of the 'eighties—Old travelling carriages—An election incident—Headlong rush of extraordinary turn-out—The politically-minded signalman and the doubtful voter—"Decent bodies"—Confidence in the future—Conclusion

INDEX