ON the afternoon of May 14, 1881, the good ship “City of Richmond,” steamed out of New York harbor with a varied assortment of passengers on board, all intent upon seeing Europe. Among these was the writer of the pages that follow.

Six of the passengers having contracted a sort of liking for each other, made a tour of six months together, that is, together most of the time.

This book is the record of their experiences, as they appeared originally in the columns of the Toledo Blade.

It is not issued in compliance with any demand for it. I have no recollection that any one of the one hundred thousand regular subscribers to the Toledo Blade ever asked that the letters that appeared from week to week in its columns should be gathered into book form. The volume is a purely mercantile speculation, which may or may not be successful. The publishers held that the matter was of sufficient value to go between covers, and believing that they were good judges of such things, I edited the letters, and here they are.

The ground we went over has been gone over by other writers a thousand times. We went where other tourists have gone, and what we saw others have seen. The only difference between this book and the thousands of others that have been printed describing the same scenes, is purely the difference in the eyes of the writers who saw them. I saw the countries I visited with a pair of American eyes, and judged of men and things from a purely American stand-point.

I have not attempted to describe scenery, and buildings, and things of that nature, at all. That has been done by men and women more capable of such work than I am. Every library in America is full of books of that nature. But I was interested in the men and women of the countries I passed through, I was interested in their ways of living, their industries and their customs and habits, and I tried faithfully to put upon paper what I saw, as well as the observations and comments of the party that traveled and observed with me.

I have a hope that the readers of these pages will lay the book down in quite as good condition, mentally and physically, as when they took it up, and that some information as to European life will result from its perusal. As I make no promises at the beginning I shall have no apologies to make at the ending.

It is only justice to say that much of the descriptive matter is the work of Mr. Robinson Locke, who was with me every minute of the time, and the intelligent reader will be perfectly safe in ascribing the best of its pages to his pen.

I can only hope that this work, as a book, will meet with the same measure of favor that the material did as newspaper sketches.

D. R. L.

Toledo, Ohio, June 29, 1882.