A Bicycle Trip In Europe

Mid Oceai), July 6, 1895. Dear Mr. Editor: - A bicyclë trip in Europe, like charity, begins at home. At two o'clock, on the afternoon of June ISth, myself and friend, Harry McClure, left Teciimseh with an escort of wheelmen. The escort diminislied one by one. A patch of deep sand swallowed several ; a convenient town furnished a resting and stopping place for others, but the steadfast few rode 15 miles to Saline and then left us together with Leon Kosacrans, a boy of 15 years, who was to acconipany us to Niágara Falls. Then we rolled along rnerrily to Detroit, passed the night there ; crossed to "Windsor, in Canada, and ran hard aground at the custom house. I don't like to dweil upon what happened to us there. Here is a recipe for passing the custom house with bicycles. Get a day off, and if you smoke, take several pounds of tobáceo and your pipe. Enter the custom house. There you will be told to go back to Detroit and get some letters from the L. A. W. consul. Go and return. You will be told that instructions have just been received from the queen or governor not to accept such papers. Now look disconsolate and discover that you have a friend in Windsor who may aid you. Mount vour wheel, and tear madly np and down the streets until you flnd the friend. Get the friend to ask bis or her unele to entreat his friend to ask the collector to take his guarantee that the wheels will go out at Niágara. Then get dinner and feel relieved. After dinner, learn that the collector has gone to a funeral. Get your wheel and chase the funeral 3 miles, and get frowned at when you gesticulate wildly what you want. Go back and wait calmly until 5 :30 p. m., then the collector will appear, signyour papers and you may go on rejoicing, after losing 9 hours. That was our experience. "We rode thirty miles that evening and put up at the Bicycle Kider's Farm House where they charge nothing a day and give you the eompany bed-room, and all the bread and milk you can eat in the morning. All the next dav, we rode in sight of Lake Erie, blue jand rippling in the sunskine. So in the morning, but in the afternoon we rode in a drizzling rain. Occasionally we bathed our rheumatism with a concoction of ■witch-hazel and árnica, and then struggled on. Canadian roads are of the finest or we could not bave ridden. We looked so be-draggled that even the geese hissed at us when we passed. I have not space to describe the magnifleent view which we had of London, nor to linger upon praises of the beautiful scenery in Dundas valley as we neared Hamilton. Lofty hills surround it, forming a vast amphitlioatre which contains green groves, brown tilled flelds, waving grains, and cloud shadows. Intoxicated with every variety of cherries, we wheeled or reeled into the U. S. again across Niagara's new suspension bridge. Then, Sunday in Buffalo and spin over a few of its 200 miles of asphalt. Here we bade good bye to our boy companion who had ridden nobly the 360 miles so f ar. Monday on the road again, and we soon saw the blue outline of the Appalachian range of mountains. The hospitality in this regon is delightful to bicycle riders at least. We even took breakfast with a crazy woman whe mumbled and croaned while we devoured our meal in baste. That day we passed the north end of lakes Canandaigua, Séneca and Cayuga. Here we toiled up one hill only to plunge precipitately down another. Harry displayed his totaljdepravity by coupling to a load of hay and coasting up one of the longest hills. "We passed through Syracuse and Utica and 'started down the Mohawk, riding the 'Ltow-path. When we met the stubborn mules which drew the canal boats we had to dismount and stand aside respectf ully. "We soon tired of the monotony of the canal, and took to the highway where we passed, uow between gray rocky walls, now through towns with rows of houses built in old colonial style, and here a talkative farmer's wife pointed out General Ilerkimer's historie mansion. At Albany we were compelled by heavy rains to take a day boat down the Hudson to New York. Thia trip was a panorama of historie buildings with lines as strict as Quaker bonnets ; rocky wooded islands ; the lofty hill ealled the Storm King ; mountains and liighlands whose green sides vied witb envy herself ; the blue Katskills suggestive of Kip Van Winkle ; Tarrytown and the Palisades whose continuous rows of perpendicular rocks border the broad, bold, flowing river ; and the rakish looking cottage at Newburg, which was at one time Washington's headqarters. At New York we crated our Victors and were amused to see them taken to the pier in a hack while we walked. Once on board the "Veendam," we witnessed usual parting scènes ; heard volleys of "smacks" in various dialects, and saw the crowd surge off the boat at the last moment. Out in N. Y. bay, the kodak flend flred a last shot at Xew York, and then we went below to dinner. We are on a Dutch boat, and the passengers arè of every nationality, with Dutch and Germán predominent. But the dinner: First course was soup, composed of seven different vegetables and melted grease. Then with great pomp the soup plates were removed and meat of some nondescript character and abominably cooked was brought on, accompanied by potatoes cooked in sea water, and some cooked sea-weed which they called greens. Next course was the same, only reversed. Then desert came in the shape of more seaweed, sweetened, and a new alias, viz: pie plant savce. Of course we had eoflee and milk, so called, but we decided that it had been condensed and then expanded to the utmost tensión or perhaps was the milk of the scape-goat. And the' sugar ! I had supposed it impossible to spoil that, but it looks and tastes like pulverized isinglass. Harry and I tried' one course after another, fearfully vet flrmly, and then went on deck wiser but hungrier men. Soon the dread angel of sea-sickness put his hand on my friend's stomach and so suddenly that Harry .put the ship's oienu on the front of his coat instead of thougiitfully feeding the fishes as many a less hurried man was doing. I want to teil about the fat man whose legs would not go through between the dining table and the seating bench, and the belle of the ship who walked the deck until 1 o'clock a. m. to avoid seasickness - of course the lady had au escort and the three fat men who sit all day and teil stories while they shake all over with laughter, or the inelan. choly fellow who said this boat was a regular stomach pump, and how Harry swore that he would eat that soup this time if it killed him, so that he would not get it again, and the Dutchman who "can't make oud vich is de head or dail of deez offleers." I would enjoy describing these but there is one which surpasses all these. He, too, is Dutch, and we cali him the lying Dutchman. His face is so honest, and his melancholy is pppressive, but cheerful power of lying is collossal. On the day before the 4th of July he carne on deck looking so woe-be-gone that everyone pitied him. The ladies asked his trouble, and he begged them not to talk about it. He said that he had just learned that the ship was to stop right in mid-ocean and celébrate the 4th. They were all to have tub races, and orations, aud the men were to swim on one side of the boat and ladies on the other, and we should fish, "and for dat all yon bays one dollar." His indignation waxed strong. "You dink I stays and bays, no. I goes to my state room and fish the window throo." Then he begged the ladies to go altogether and beg the captain not to stop. Three of the most credulous actually did. Next day he suggested that if there were no fireworks we might have works "for dere ist youst water enough." Iu the evening he inven ted vocal fire-works. We all at a signal hissed a long "sh" and then ejaculated a "bang" when our imaginary sky-rocket burst and this was lowed by a prolonged groan. Next day ourflying Dutchman carne ondeck much perturbed b'y a ]lot whieh he had discovered ainong the steerage passengers to throw all the steamer chairs overboard "And den we stand oop all de time." He liad learned this from his three months oíd son whom he was bringing in the steerage because it was "sheaper." Tliis is all now, but I shall write vou again from Paris.