A Tramp's Notebook   By: Morley Roberts (1857-1942)

BY

MORLEY ROBERTS

AUTHOR OF

"RACHEL MARE," "BIANCA'S CAPRICE," "THE PROMOTION OF THE ADMIRAL."

LONDON

F. V. WHITE & CO. LTD.

14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1904

CONTENTS

PAGE

A WATCH NIGHT SERVICE IN SAN FRANCISCO 1

SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES 16

A PONDICHERRY BOY 40

A GRADUATE BEYOND SEAS 51

MY FRIEND EL TORO 61

BOOKS IN THE GREAT WEST 71

A VISIT TO R. L. STEVENSON 79

IN CAPETOWN 88

VELDT, PLAIN AND PRAIRIE 95

NEAR MAFEKING 101

BY THE FRASER RIVER 110

OLD AND NEW DAYS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 118

A TALK WITH KRUGER 128

TROUT FISHING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND CALIFORNIA 136

ROUND THE WORLD IN HASTE 142

BLUE JAYS AND ALMONDS 162

IN CORSICA 167

ON THE MATTERHORN 176

AN INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONGRESS 186

AT LAS PALMAS 194

THE TERRACINA ROAD 204

A SNOW GRIND 216

ACROSS THE BIDASSOA 230

ON A VOLCANIC PEAK 238

SHEEP AND SHEEP HERDING 244

RAILROAD WARS 256

AMERICAN SHIPMASTERS 263

TRAMPS 267

TEXAS ANIMALS 275

IN A SAILORS' HOME 282

THE GLORY OF THE MORNING 293

A Tramp's Note Book

A WATCH NIGHT SERVICE IN SAN FRANCISCO

How much bitter experience a man keeps to himself, let the experienced say, for they only know. For my own part I am conscious that it rarely occurs to me to mention some things which happened either in England or out of it, and that if I do, it is only to pass them over casually as mere facts that had no profound effect upon me. But the importance of any hardship cannot be estimated at once; it has either psychological or physiological sequelæ, or both. The attack of malaria passes, but in long years after it returns anew and devouring the red blood, it breaks down a man's cheerfulness; a night in a miasmic forest may make him for ever a slave in a dismal swamp of pessimism. It is so with starvation, and all things physical. It is so with things mental, with degradations, with desolation; the scars and more than scars remain: there is outward healing, it may be, but we often flinch at mere remembrance.

But time is the vehicle of philosophy; as the years pass we learn that in all our misfortunes was something not without value. And what was of worth grows more precious as our harsher memories fade. Then we may bear to speak of the days in which we were more than outcasts; when we recognised ourselves as such, and in strange calm and with a broken spirit made no claim on Society. For this is to be an outcast indeed.