In 1855, a Londoner advertised the plan he had conceived of taking
some people over to visit the International Exhibition in Paris.
For a fixed sum paid in advance he offered to provide everything
and act as courier to the party, and succeeded with the greatest
difficulty in getting together ten people. From this modest
beginning has grown the vast undertaking that to-day covers the
globe with tourists, from the frozen seas where they "do" the
midnight sun, to the deserts three thousand miles up the Nile.
As I was returning a couple of years ago VIA Vienna from
Constantinople, the train was filled with a party of our
compatriots conducted by an agency of this kind - simple people of
small means who, twenty years ago, would as soon have thought of
leaving their homes for a trip in the East as they would of
starting off in balloons en route for the inter-stellar spaces.
I doubted at the time as to the amount of information and
appreciation they brought to bear on their travels, so I took
occasion to draw one of the thin, unsmiling women into
conversation, asking her where they intended stopping next.
"At Buda-Pesth," she answered. I said in some amusement:
"But that was Buda-Pesth we visited so carefully yesterday."
"Oh, was it," she replied, without any visible change on her face,
"I thought we had not got there yet." Apparently it was enough for
her to be travelling; the rest was of little importance.
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