has an American tourist found himself on board a ship, bound for
Europe, than he is conscious of a social system quite unlike the one in
which he was born and reared. On French ships he may well think himself
already in France. The manners of sailors, no less than those of officers,
proclaim it, the furniture proclaims it, and so do woodwork, wall
decorations, the dinner gong (which seems to have come out of a chateau in
old Touraine), and the free wine at every meal. The same is quite as true
of ships bound for English and German ports; on these are splendid order,
sober taste, efficiency in servants, and calls for dinner that start
reminiscences of hunting horns.

The order and system impress one everywhere on these ships. Things are all
in their proper place, employees are at their proper posts, doing their
work, or alert to do it when the need comes. Here the utmost quiet
prevails. Each part of the great organization is so well adjusted to other
parts, that the system operates noiselessly, without confusion, and with
never a failure of cooperation at any point. So long as the voyage lasts,
impressions of a perfected system drive themselves into one's
consciousness.

After one goes ashore, and as long as he remains in Europe, that well
ordered state will impress, delight and comfort him. Possibly he will
contrast it with his own country's more hurried, less firmly controlled
ways, but once he reflects on causes, he will perceive that the ways of
Europe are products of a civilization long since settled, and already
ancient, while the hurried and more thoughtless methods at home are
concomitants of a civilization still too young, too ambitious, and too
successful to bear the curbs and restraints which make good manners and
good order possible among all classes. It is from fine examples in these
social matters, no less than from visits to historic places, that the
observing and thoughtful tourist derives benefit from a European tour.

The literature of travel in Europe makes in itself a considerable library.
Those who have contributed to it are, in literary quality, of many kinds
and various degrees of excellence. It is not now so true as it once was
that our best writers write for the benefit of tourists. If they do, it is
to compile guide-books and describe automobile trips. In any search for
adequate descriptions of scenes and places, we can not long depend on
present-day writers, but must hark back to those of the