PREFACE.
Shakespeare says, in All's Well that Ends Well, that "a good
traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;" and I never was
more struck with the truth of this than when I heard Mr. Thomas Stevens,
after the dinner given in his honor by the Massachusetts Bicycle Club,
make a brief, off-hand report of his adventures. He seemed like Jules
Verne, telling his own wonderful performances, or like a contemporary
Sinbad the Sailor. We found that modern mechanical invention, instead
of disenchanting the universe, had really afforded the means of exploring
its marvels the more surely. Instead of going round the world with a
rifle, for the purpose of killing something, - or with a bundle of tracts,
in order to convert somebody, - this bold youth simply went round the globe
to see the people who were on it; and since he always had something to
show them as interesting as anything that they could show him, he made
his way among all nations.

What he had to show them was not merely a man perched on a lofty wheel,
as if riding on a soap-bubble; but he was also a perpetual object-lesson
in what Holmes calls "genuine, solid old Teutonic pluck." When the
soldier rides into danger he has comrades by his side, his country's
cause to defend, his uniform to vindicate, and the bugle to cheer him
on; but this solitary rider had neither military station, nor an oath
of allegiance, nor comrades, nor bugle; and he went among men of unknown
languages, alien habits and hostile faith with only his own tact and
courage to help him through. They proved sufficient, for he returned
alive.

I have only read specimen chapters of this book, but find in them the
same simple and manly quality which attracted us all when Mr. Stevens