CHAPTER V.

RULES FOR TRAMP TOURISTS. -HOW TO LOOK FOR A FOUR-CENT ROOM, AND HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY CENTS A DAY.

FROM my note-book I copy the following Rules for Tramp Tourists:

First Look as shabby as possible.

I met one day among the ruins of Pompeii five Danes, students, men of educated families. They said they had not been approached by a single commissionaire since the day they had left Copenhagen. Why? Because they looked shabby. They had walked all the way from the northern frontier of Germany, and were as tough a looking set as one could imagine. Worn boots, tattered garments, uncut hair, huge clubs in their hands-no wonder guides and hotel-runners avoided them. They were on their way to Palermo, Sicily, whence they intended returning home by steamer through the Mediterranean, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the North Sea.

rance.

Second: No matter whether or not you speak the language, to commissionaires, guides, cabmen, etc., feign absolute ignoIt is the only method of ridding yourself of their importunities. Sometimes I put my finger to my ear and intimated by signs that I was deaf and dumb-it insured against further annoyance.

Third: If English or English-speaking, never let the fact be known. If possible pass for a German. German students have the very pleasant reputation of being extremely impecunious. If lucky enough to be taken for a German, you may be sure of bottom-rock prices. Englishmen, on the other hand, have the reputation of being rich, and given to all kinds of absurd freaks. You may dress in rags, and walk yourself into a condition of dilapidation worse than that of any professional

tramp in America, but as soon as your nationality becomes known the game is up.

"Ah, Inglese !" exclaims the landlord or shopkeeper, and placidly proceeds to add thirty or forty per cent. to his charges. A marked diminution in prices is noticeable the greater the distance from England. Beginning with Sicily and the southern part of Italy, where first-class hotels only charge thirty to forty cents for rooms, the price increases little by little until in Belgium and Holland, countries immediately across the channel from England, sixty to eighty cents is charged by a second or third rate inn. In Italy and Switzerland servants do not expect fees of more than two or three cents. In Belgium and Holland, "Sixpence, if you please, sir," and the donation. of a less amount produces a look of withering contempt from the haughty menial.

These rules, it must be observed, are given only with reference to shopkeepers, hotel padrones, and the like; they do not apply to the laborers and peasants. This class, unspoiled by pecuniary dealings with travellers, are hospitality and kindness itself. With laborers and peasants no careful bargaining is necessary; with the other classes mentioned it decidedly is necessary. Baedeker, the great guide-book man, advises his readers to give one-third of the price demanded. This would be good advice if it went far enough. The hotels and shopkeepers have learned of the advice given by Baedeker, and now ask four times as much as the article is worth, and as much as they will finally accept if pushed the point. It would hardly be exaggeration to say that the man at the post-office who sells stamps is about the only man who does not expect a fee and does not have two prices for his goods. The stampman, for a wonder, asks always the same price for stampsfive cents for stamps (Italian, "franco-bolli ") for foreign postage, four cents for letters within the kingdom, Sicily, and the other islands included. Does any one think this an overstatement of the case? Let us see. Take the railroads for an instance.

The fare from A to B will be advertised as, say, one dollar. You buy a ticket with the figures $1.00 stamped thereon. Do you pay only one dollar for your ticket? Not a bit of it. Hand the agent the exact amount the ticket on its face calls for, and he will calmly keep both money and ticket until there is forthcoming the few cents extra that is always charged by the railroad to help pay their taxes.

How is it with express and carrying companies? I had occasion when in Rome to send a package to Berlin.

"What is the charge?" I asked the express agent.

"Three lire" (sixty cents).

It so happened that an acquaintance, an Italian, had sent a similar package to the same destination, and I knew that he had paid but forty cents-two lire—so I said,

"Troppo caro-too dear, signore. I will give two lire." "Ah, signore, impossible; two and a half?"

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'No, two, not a centesime more."

"Due, solo due-only two? Ah, well, let me have it. It is little, but I will send it."

Imagine a customer haggling with the Adams Express Company about the tariff on a package from New York to Chicago!

This system is annoying, but with experience comes wisdom. And then the tricks of roguish shopkeepers are rather amusing than otherwise. I stepped up one day to one of the numerous lemonade stands that adorn the Piazzas of Italian cities, and said to the vendor,

"How much for lemonade?"

I knew very well the regular price was one cent per glass, but I wanted to play with the fellow. He looked at me sharply, calculating how green I was and how much I could stand. "Cinque soldi" (five cents), he said.

"Five soldi," I repeated, as if almost of a mind to buy; then, drawing back: "No, signore, too dear, I cannot pay it." "Too dear? No, very cheap. It is fine lemonade. Come, cinque soldi."

"No; too dear."

"Ah, sainted Maria, what do you wish? Four soldi ?”

"Still too dear."

"Three?"

"No, one. I will give you one soldo."

What, one soldo? one soldo? My God in heaven! it is nothing; but take it, signore, take it. I lose, but you can take it," and he proceeded to pour out the lemonade.

In this the reader has a picture of bargaining in Italy.

Hotels frequented by English and Americans charge English and American prices, that is, two or three dollars a day. Hotels of the same class frequented by Italians charge from eighty cents to one dollar a day. Private lodgings of a respectable character may be had for from fifteen to thirty cents a night. About six in the evening I reached Rome. Without removing my knapsack or laying aside my staff, I began a search for quarters.

To succeed in this may seem no difficult matter, but investigation proves the contrary. A great many houses bear a sign. announcing rooms for rent, yet many of these houses have no rooms to rent. The reason is this: signs are taxed. This tax once paid, the landlord naturally wishes it to last as long as possible. If he were to take the sign down on renting the rooms, and when they became vacant again put back his sign, there would be another tax to pay. The consequence is he lets it stay, rented or not rented, and nine times out of ten when you inquire at a house bearing the legend "casa locanda" (rooms to let), you have only your trouble for your pains.

After considerable search I at length stumbled across a man who had a small room on the fourth floor, for which he asked two lire, but took fifteen cents per night. There was nothing magnificent about the room, but it was neat and clean, white curtains at the window, fresh, clean sheets, a few pictures on the walls-on the whole, such a room as in America would cost half a dollar a night, even when taken by the month.

Very much cheaper are beds in workmen's lodging - houses, which are not over-nice. I did not try them after leaving Na

ples. Twenty or thirty men sleep in a single room, the beds arranged like bunks one above the other, and, though only two feet wide, two occupants to the bed, the sleepers "spooning" to each other, packed like sardines. I always paid an extra cent for the privilege of enjoying my bed alone. I then ensconced myself in my sleeping-bag, and, thus armored, reclined on my four-cent couch and talked myself to sleep questioning and answering the ragged, unwashed, but good-hearted Italians.

In the interior of Italy are numerous inns-osteria they are called-but I preferred to stop overnight with the peasants, who, as a rule, are most hospitable and kind. Few if any travellers go into these out-of-the-way places. The stranger as he enters the gates of an interior town creates a commotion similar to that occasioned in American towns by the arrival of a circus. The children at the first glimpse of the strange-looking man with the slouch hat, dirty boots, and knapsack, rush into the house to tell their mother. I draw near, the good woman comes to the door to investigate matters.

"Buon giorno" (good-day), I begin, add something about "La bella lingua Italiana" (the beautiful Italian language), tell her that I am an American, and the way is smoothed at once. The Italians have two weak points-pride of their language and interest in America. Praise the Italian and say you are American; no more need be said, you are friends.

When you have stopped with these people you have stopped with the hewers of wood, the drawers of water-with the workers of the land; and no other method of travel will afford so clear and accurate a conception of the condition of a country's masses, of the millions who produce the wealth which the few enjoy.

I have seen little creatures, six, seven, and eight years old, picking leaves along the roadside to feed silk-worms. I saw a little girl, apparently about five years old, over a tub washing clothes. Old men, lame and weak, hobble along with brooms and baskets, sweeping up the fertilizing material found along the roads. Little children and old people gather up twigs and