THE GLOBE TROTTER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1841, 29 August 1913, Page 8

THE GLOBE TROTTER.

THE BEST WAY ROUND THE WORLD. A. VIVID SKETCH. "Which is the bust- way round Um world?" asks tho London! "Times" in a delightful travel article. 'l'ho writer views the routes from the Old Country point of view, but what he has to say is not without interest at this end ol' the world. "There can-he 110 greater mistake," he declares, "than to suppose that the Siberian railway is (lull. "Who that has seen the golden doilies ■of K'rasnoiarsk shining in the morning sunlight across the broad bosom of tho mighty Yenisei can ever forget that moment? The chill solemnity Lake Baikal, the valleys of Transbaikalia carpeted with flowers in summer time, even the immense verdureless wastes of North-West Manchuria, where the train seems' like a ship on a ljfcless ocean, each has a fascination of its own. "But is it best to start eastward and seek tho rising sun, or go westward, and plunge .first into tlw shrill vitality of Canada?' Perhaps that is a matter of mood and temperament. Some may find that after contact with the introspective East, and long days and nights spent tossing on the Northern Pacific, it is bracing and reviving to step ashore a.mid the courageous liopefulnoas of Vancouver. Tlie Hookies carry the traveller into free air and groat spaccs; tho waysido towns seem instinct with tiio energy of a neiv and thriving land after the jjrairios are passed all the wondrous little lakes carry an invitation upon their green waters; and when Montreal is reached, tho landing-stages of England seem very near at last. But others may prefer to make Asia a late stage in their progress, and to watch the curious process of passing through layers of Asiatic peoples, until slanting eyes and high cheek-bones are loft far behind, and they enter once moro the Europe they know, best, and in which thy are most at homo. The landward way back is more dramatic and alluring. A Way Which Leaves Much Out. "Tho defect' of tho Siberian una Canadian route is tnat id leaves out so much of the world. Tho traveller sees .Russia sluggishly developing halt a continent, Japan striving lor her place among tne nations, Canada enrusting her ploughs nearer tho Arctic circle, ami pe-rnaps tho soaring buildmgs ot unique Aew \'ork. he traverses steppes and deserts and prairies, and. loiters in half a hundred' cities. The trains are not restlul, but he should not journey such huge distances to rest,., and those-who need rep'o-sc had better stay at home. Tho drawback of tho northern routo is that it leaves out the tropics, and those who have never sojourned in the realms of sunlight lose something in perspective. "Moreover tho northern route does' not touch the truo East, the lands of palm trees, and golden bcaches, of devouring jungle and fierce growth,-where tho world's myriads chiefly dwell. The way to these regions lies through r.llO Suez Canal, the mysterious gateway of sand and clear skies whero in the moonlight .great moving lamps arc for over transforming the banks into sheets of driven snow. Tiio time must ultimately cpmo when the pathway to tho East will run past the dead cities of Persia, or across that dead bare plain by the Hclmund, rarely seen by Europeans, which prophets still believe to bo the appointed scene of Armageddon. Or 'it may pass through the Cilician Gates and load past the water of Babylon to the Persian Gulf—the mysterious inland sea where civilisation 'began, only to move elsewhere and leave its birth-place to pearl-fishers and gunruuuers and tired bluejackets. An Incomparable Routo. "These things arc not yet. Southern Asia still awaits its trunk railways, .which will run froni country' to country, though assuredly it will not wait for ever. Meanwhile, the only highway i 3 the sea, which reveals so little, as is shown by the unheeding thousands who ar'o for ever coasting along tho derelict solitudes of Arabia. . Yet the southern routo offers incomparable advantages. . No man. who has not seen our austere nilo in India can claim fully to know tho British' Empire; lie'who has riot entered Hong-Kong by tho Lyomoon pass on a bright afternoon still has something to live for; and tho white stranger who from within a narrow Canton shop sees a crowd of yellow faces staring at him through the window grows suddenly conscious that he is in the presence of a new world-problem which -will thenceforth possess his thoughts. "The southern route, therefore, though it so largely follows tho sea, still draws the wanderer as the northern route has never quite done yet. It takes in India and China, and, if it is correctly followed, it will lead to the bewildering revelation of tho United States. Until the traveller has seen the States, and grasped at first hand the 'mighty forces seething in that agglomeration of races, his data for coming to conclusions about tho issues of his day and generation are incomplete. Does the pilgrim who passes from continent .to continent really learn . anything which helps toguido his thoughts by bis own fireside afterwards? It depends upon himself. A day in Chicago or Now York, rightly spent and pondered 011, conveys more than the reading of a shelf-full of books about America. Africa and . Australia. 1 "But, though we have weighed tho . relative attractions of the main north--1 crn ancl southern routes,. half the world has still been left nnvisited. We have said nothing of Africa, now: in the pro--1 cess of a belated awakening, and still ' -waiting to prove whether its. dark 1 masses can ever rise in the social seals; ! nothing of .Egypt, the best of all coun- ' tries for a winter holiday; nothing of i Australia, though there are many who 1 hold that a .'wide detour beneath the Southern Cross is worth more than > many months of Asia; and nothing of t South America, whero great new 11aE tions have grown to manhood un- ' regarded. 1 "Our .purpose was to inquire tho 1 best way round, the world, but we fear r tho ultimate verdict -must be that it is a matter of taste and inclination. The northern route has incontestable advantages in tho minor matter of time, and j, it also promises touch with newer probr lenis. The southern route is, 011 the > w'liole, more comfortable, its charms are a moro vivid, and it stimulates inquiry into issues which are deeper/and more » functaniental. Whichever route be f chosen, most Englishmen wlip have seen B much of the world generally return " with the conviction that-, given sufficient 6 means,- their own laud ia, for them, the best to dwell in. To Quicken Transit. ' "A confc-renco is to be held at a Moscow .next month to consider proj posals for quickening transit on the northern route round the world, by way of Siberia and- the Pacific mid „ Canada. Ths essence of th<? scheme is ■, to taku passengers 1 and mails ovoi Japanese railways in Ivoya, whenct , new fast steamers will carry them t; ■Japan. "We have no doubt the plan wi! prove admirable lor the postal authori ties, and for people who want to get t< ■Japan in a hurry; hut travellers win ]. are journeying round the world ii order to see ft ought to go slower m '' 1 stead of faster*"-