Stories 19
- GB
Around the world in eighty daysOct 1872Five minutes late
Arrested in Liverpool, released, five minutes late to London. Then a proposal, a vicar, and a day I had not known I had.
City7 min read
- US
Around the world in eighty daysOct 1872The bridge at Medicine Bow
An unsafe bridge, a vote of the passengers, one sensible suggestion ignored, and a crossing at full speed.
Nature5 min read
- USAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
A sermon in the sleeping car
Three hours held up by bison, and an hour in which Passepartout was the whole of a congregation.
Nature4 min read
- GBAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
How to buy a ship and burn it
Captain Speedy would not go to Liverpool. Then he went, without being consulted. Then I bought his ship and burnt it.
Tips & practical7 min read
- USAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
San Francisco, a political meeting
A day in San Francisco: a good breakfast, a quantity of firearms, and an election in which I took no side and still lost.
City5 min read
- USAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
New York, forty-five minutes late
The China sailed at nine. We reached the pier at a quarter past eleven. I slept well, all the same.
City3 min read
- USAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
A sledge with a sail
Two hundred miles of frozen prairie, a sail, a west wind and Mr Mudge. The fastest thing I rode in America had no engine.
Nature4 min read
- GBAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
Nineteen days of whist
Yokohama to San Francisco: nineteen days, no incidents, and a complete record of the whist.
Review2 min read
- USAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
Fort Kearney
A duel interrupted, a train stopped, Passepartout taken. I spent a night and a morning I had not budgeted for.
Road trip7 min read
- JP
Around the world in eighty daysOct 1872Passepartout's account: the Long Noses
My servant's own account of how he reached Yokohama without me, without money, and very nearly without a nose.
City7 min read
- GBAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
Four days on a pilot boat
Eight hundred miles to Shanghai in a twenty-ton pilot boat, through a typhoon, for a hundred pounds a day.
Nature6 min read
- IN
Around the world in eighty daysOct 1872Two thousand pounds in Calcutta
An elephant given away, a magistrate's court, a pair of shoes produced in evidence, and the Rangoon at noon. Expensive, but punctual.
City5 min read
- HK
Around the world in eighty daysOct 1872Hong Kong, one steamer short
A storm in the China Sea cost the Rangoon a day. The Carnatic did not wait, and my servant went with it.
City4 min read
- INAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
The pagoda at Pillaji
A procession in the forest, a young woman who had not consented to any of it, and a night spent deciding how to be of use.
Culture & history7 min read
- INAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
The railway that wasn't finished
Fifty miles of railway that existed only in the newspapers, and what it cost to cross them on an elephant named Kiouni.
Nature7 min read - INAround the world in eighty daysOct 1872
Bombay, and Passepartout's shoes
Four hours in Bombay: a passport office, an indifferent dinner, and a servant who came back to the station without his shoes.
City3 min read