AN EIGHTY DAYS' TRIP.
IN
these days of locomotion, when the railway and steamer vie
with each other in gratifying the curiosity, or administering to the
pleasure of the traveller in quest of knowledge, health, or recreation,
we are not startled out of our senses in having placed in our
hands a description of a gentleman and his servant performing the
feat of travelling round the world in eighty days.
Our readers may possibly have seen the last amusing book of
M. Jules Verne, the author of so many entertaining volumes; and
when one learns that he works from five in the morning till one in
the afternoon, passes the day in visiting shops and factories, goes
to bed at seven, and reads books of science and travel till midnight;
has travelled in Europe and America, "makes verses with extreme
ease," was a barrister and now is a broker, and writes so many books
in the year that the publishers in both worlds are at their wits' ends
to know how to issue them with a decent interval between each,
one may take for granted that M. Adrien Marx's description of him
is tolerably correct, as being an "eloquent, witty, affable and sym-
pathetic man."
The peregrinations of Mr. Phileas Fogg and his man Passepartout
must be read through to be thoroughly appreciated, and we
shall not attempt here to extract the pith of a narrative which would
lose its force if told in a meagre compass of a magazine article.
Phileas Fogg, the hero of the book, is the most deliberate person
in the world, exactitude personified, a perfect type of that English
composure which Angelica Kauffman has so skilfully represented on
canvas; and, seen in the various phases of his daily life, gave the idea
of being perfectly well-balanced, and about as exactly regulated as a
Leroy chronometer. His servant, Passepartout, a Parisian living
in England, appears to have been an honest, pleasant fellow, by no
means one of those pert dunces depicted by Molière, but who had seen
somewhat of service in English houses, being rather a vagrant in
his early years, and had served upwards of ten masters, his last,
a young lord, sometimes returning from his nocturnal amusements
on the back of a policeman's shoulders. Getting tired of variety,
he accepted the services of Mr. Phileas Fogg, who was living in
Saville Row; and it came about that Mr. Fogg, having taken a
wager over a game of whist at the Reform Club, that he would go
round the world in eighty days, the two started on the "Excursion,"
and at the end of the thirty-ninth chapter Mr. Fogg enters the
whist-room of the Reform Club, having won his wager of twenty
thousand pounds by two seconds, though as he had spent nineteen
thousand in doing it his pecuniary gain was small.
In performing this wonderful journey Mr. Phileas Fogg had
employed every means of conveyance — steamers, railways, carriages,
yachts, trading vessels, sledges, and elephants. And what did he
gain thereby? A charming wife, Aouda, made him the happiest
of men, and Passepartout had the honour of giving her away.
And after all, how did our friends accomplish their feat? By the
way, we may answer, that you, I, and any one else might travel
to-morrow. From London to Suez, viâ Mont Cenis and Brindisi,
by rail and steamboats, 7 days; from Suez to Bombay, by steamer,
13 days; from Bombay to Calcutta, by rail, 3 days; from Calcutta
to Hong Kong, by steamer, 13 days; from Hong Kong to Yokohama,
by steamer, 6 days; from Yokohama to San Francisco, by
steamer, 22 days; from San Francisco to New York, by rail, 7
days; from New York to London, by steamer and rail, 9 days —
total, 80 days.
The reader must see for himself how bad weather, contrary winds,
railway accidents, and the like, were included in Mr. Fogg's estimate
of the time required; and how he was successful in overcoming
adverse influences that might possibly have affected his calculations
so as to lose him his wager.
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A POOR MENDICANT.
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Mr. Fogg and Passepartout started alone; Mr. Fogg with
"Bradshaw" under his arm, and Passepartout with a bag which
contained 20,000l., and which the valet nearly dropped in the mud
when he learned the contents, but soon recovered himself and the bag
when he also learned that the needful was not in gold. The last act
of Mr. Fogg's in London was to drop twenty guineas into a poor
mendicant's hand, the proceeds of a rubber of whist which he had
won at the club a few minutes before his hurried departure to win
his wager.
When Mr. Fogg had fairly got on his way his friends who had
taken the wager began to get uneasy about their rashness, and all
the daily papers condemned the madness of the man, except the
Daily Telegraph, which stuck manfully by him, and the Illustrated
News came out with a portrait, and several of the gentler sex began
to strongly espouse his cause.
At last the wagers for or against Fogg became heavy, and bonds
were issued, which making their appearance on 'Change, were in great
demand, but subsequently went down until the "Phileas Fogg"
bonds were offered by packages of a hundred! Then the bets stood
at 200 to 1 against him, for by a ruse he was telegraphed for to Suez
as a "bank robber," and the members of the Reform Club firmly
believed the quiet, polished gentleman had departed merely to elude
the hands of the detectives.
The Red Sea and the Indian Ocean prove propitious to the
designs of our traveller, and the defeat of the detective in finding
just cause for arresting Mr. Fogg at Suez is graphically told, also
how the detective embarks on board the "Mongolia" with him,
determined to arrest him on English territory the moment of
arriving at Bombay. Mr. Fix, the detective, was however foiled
in his praiseworthy endeavours to arrest Mr. Fogg on suspicion,
and the two travellers resumed their journey across India. A
stoppage in the railway did not much impede him, for
four-wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by zebras, palanquins and
ponies were put in requisition by some of the travellers. Mr.
Fogg and Passepartout employed the services of a well-known
elephant, which had the effect of hurrying the very monkeys from
their path with their usual contortions and grimaces.
Mr. Fogg had rescued a pretty woman from death, and brought
her with him to Bombay, and they set off, Fix following them
closely, hoping to have more success at Hong Kong, and the
journey by sea of 3500 miles began. In a storm Passepartout took
a hand at everything and astonished the crew, but they reached
Hong Kong safely. Here Passepartout lost his master and was
carried to Yokohama in the steamer, Mr. Fix being offered a
"lift" in the special vessel Mr. Fogg engaged to perform the
journey with his rescued Aouda.
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IN HIS STROLL PASSEPARTOUT CAME ACROSS A NUMBER OF OLD
NATIVES.
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The story of how Passepartout amused himself at Yokohama to
get a living in the absence of his paymaster, and how he
recognized his patron at the theatre, whilst he, the lively Frenchman,
was acting as "Sectary of the God Tingou," must be read to be
appreciated. The Pacific mail steamer "General Grant" next
bore them happily over the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco.
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THE BRIDGE, COMPLETELY RUINED, FELL WITH A CRASH.
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The journey across the territories of the United States was
enlivened by sundry mishaps. First, the buffaloes impeded the
progress of the railway cars, and next a bridge gives way, but
fortunately just after the carriages had crossed the rapids of Medicine
Bow, the train leaping along the rails, as we have ourselves had
opportunities of experiencing, whilst riding on the engine in
different parts of America, till it went five miles beyond the station
at which it should have stopped.
After this the Sioux Indians made an attack upon the train, and
a regular battle took place, in which passengers and Indians were
killed. The stopping of the train, when the conductor was killed
and bloodshed was going on to an alarming extent, was of the
greatest importance to Mr. Fogg in his calculations, and the
ever-ready Passepartout performed a feat which should have
immortalized him; he was lost in the experiment of stopping the train,
and was finally rescued from a band of Sioux to the great joy of
Aouda and Fix, who had waited at Fort Kearney while the
soldiers, accompanied by Mr. Fogg, went in search of the faithful
valet.
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AN ENORMOUS SHADOW, PRECEDED BY A FLICKERING GLARE.
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Our travellers had to resort to every kind of expedient to get on
their way, the detective Fix always managing to be one of the
number, through his own devices, or through the favour of the
man whom he had tracked so far to arrest on suspicion, and at
one point they had to charter a land-craft or sledge, which was
provided with more sail than a cutter, by means of which they
sped over the snow-covered prairies with a speed equal if not superior
to that of the express trains. The wind happening to be favourable,
they made way to Omaha, and took thence the train to Chicago
and New York.
Arrived at New York, Mr. Fogg has completed the last journey
but one, which was to secure him success in his eventful journey
round the world, and win his wager of twenty thousand pounds. At
New York they were sorely dismayed to find the Cunard steamer
"China" had left three quarters of an hour beforehand. His end
appeared to be now defeated, for he had less than ten days to get
to Liverpool. Nothing daunted, he succeeded after much trouble
in bribing a captain of a steamer who was bound for Bordeaux,
and who was a cantankerous man, to take him to Bordeaux and
nowhere else. Once on board, by a judicious employment of
banknotes he contrived to win over the sailors to his side, and locking
the captain up, took command of the steamer himself. The good
vessel "Henrietta" was then steered straight for Liverpool, and
notwithstanding the storm and shortness of coal — which latter
disaster obliged them to burn seats, bunks, frames, masts and all
available wood — they reached Queenstown, where they disembarked.
Taking advantage of the mail-boat which, disdaining to rise upon
the waves, invariably cut through them, they arrived at Liverpool,
six hours distant from London, on December the 21st, when Mr.
Fix at last seizing his opportunity, arrests Mr. Phileas Fogg "in
the name of the Queen."
Here was a fix! The tempting prize within his grasp, and he
utterly unable to grasp it! In the solitary prison he watched the
minute-hand of his watch go round and round. But Fix had found
out his mistake by being informed that the robber had been found
three days ago, and Mr. Fogg being set free, accompanied by
Aouda and Passepartout, had to hire a special train to London, and
arrived, as he imagined, five minutes behindhand.
During the time that our adventurous friend had been pursuing
the somewhat uneven tenour of his way, his friends in London and
at the Reform Club were by turns downcast and elated. No news
had reached them of his progress, and the police had had no advices
from their servant, the detective Fix. Telegrams were sent to
America and Asia for news of Phileas Fogg. No news: and as the
time drew nigh the bonds fluctuated so that they nearly reached par,
and his old friend, Lord Albemarle, who alone had not deserted him,
now bet even in his favour.
As the hour approached, Pall Mall was impassable from the crowd
that thronged to see if the cheque which Mr. Fogg had signed
before leaving England was to be presented at Barings' the next
day, and his wager lost. The scene at the Reform Club when Mr.
Phileas Fogg opened the door and calmly said, "Here I am,
gentlemen," is well described; and his being behindhand had, by a
lucky chance, which he found out in time, turned out to be a
mistake, as he had, without suspecting it, gained one day on
his journey, accounted for by his travelling constantly eastward,
whilst if he had, on the contrary, gone westward, he
would have lost a day! As he went eastward, he saw the
sun pass the meridian eighty times, whilst his friends in London
only saw it pass the meridian seventy-nine times. Had
Passepartout's famous family watch, which had always kept London
time, marked the days as well as the hours and minutes, it
would have betrayed the fact.
Mr. Phileas Fogg then won his bet, and having spent nineteen
thousand pounds on his journey, generously divided the remaining thousand
pounds between the unlucky detective, Fix, and Passepartout. The
latter had, however, left a gas jet burning in his master's room, and
the amount of the bill sent in by the Gas Company for the eighty
days was deducted methodically by Mr. Fogg from the share that
fell to his careless valet, Passepartout. Mr. Fogg, it need not be
repeated, married the devoted Aouda, gallantly remarking after the
event, that he had gained nothing but a charming woman, who,
strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!
Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour round the
world?
