PREFACE. THE first-class tourist may see the beauties of a country's landscapes and scenery from the window of a palace-car, but his vision goes no further-does not penetrate below the surface. To know a country one must fraternize with its people, must live with them, sympathize with them, win their confidence. High life in Europe has been paid sufficient attention by travellers and writers. I was desirous of seeing something of low life; I donned the blouse and hobnailed shoes of a workman, and spent a year in a "Tramp Trip" from Gibraltar to the Bosporus. Some of my experiences have been related in letters to the New York World, the Philadelphia Press, the St. Louis Republican, and other American newspapers, and in my official report to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C., on the condition of the laboring classes in Europe. While the following pages contain some of those newspaper letters, the greater portion is now in print for the first time. The reader may possibly not care to make the experiment himself, yet the perusal of how another travelled on fifty cents a day may not prove altogether uninteresting. ST. LOUIS, September, 1886. LEE MERIWETHER. ODD COMPANIONS. AN ENTHUSIASTIC ITALIAN.-THE PROFES- SOR.-CLIMBING THE ALPS.-THE SIMPLON PASS.-AN ENG- LISH GIRL GIVES ME ALMS.-DIFFERENT SORTS OF TOURISTS: GERMAN, FRENCHI, ENGLISH. .... A TWO-CENT TRICK.-MUSICAL SURPRISES IN GENEVA.-BOGUS AFOOT IN GERMANY.-POVERTY OF THE STUDENTS.-ADVENT- AMONG THE FACTORIES.-LIFE OF GERMAN MILL OPERATIVES. IN A SALT-MINE. -TWO THOUSAND FEET UNDER THE EARTH. THE STEERAGE TO CONSTANTINOPLE.-A TURKISH FLIRTATION. -SEARCH FOR CHEAP QUARTERS.—THE GREEK RESTAURANT. SCENES IN STAMBOUL.-A TRIP TO ASIA MINOR.-THE HOWL- ING DERVISHES.-THEIR TERRIBLE RITES.-DINNER WITH A TERING RUSSIA. THE CZAR'S METHOD OF BUILDING RAIL- ROADS: SIMPLE BUT INCONVENIENT.-PEASANTS AND PEO- IN THE HEART OF RUSSIA.-HOW TAXES ARE COLLECTED.-THE PILGRIM CHURCH AND THE WONDERFUL PICTURE OF THE |