Round the World on a Wheel
Cite this book
Citation
John Foster Fraser. Round the World on a Wheel. 1907. cyclearchive.com, https://cyclearchive.com/books/round-the-world-on-a-wheel-j-foster-fraser-1907/
Page numbers are pages of the PDF, which can differ from the numbers printed on the page.
Contents
- Fraser says this is a plain book of travel, without theories, and sets out what the ride of Fraser, Lunn and Lowe did and did not involve, from Mohammedan stonings and Chinese mud-pelting to small-pox and no shaving; dated January 1899.
- The three men leave St. Pancras Church at half-past five on 17 July 1896 on black roadster bicycles, cross Belgium and Holland, ride along the Rhine through Germany, and reach Munich and its beer.
- From Munich to the Austrian frontier at Braunau, where duty is demanded on the bicycles, then through Vienna, Buda-Pesth, the Hungarian plain and Transylvania, dealing with Hungarian officials to recover the duty before the Roumanian border.
- Roumania, a row with an innkeeper and the Russian frontier, then the road-less steppes to Odessa, where the three fail to trace a parcel of camera and cycle repairs in the Custom House.
- Out of Odessa along the steppes with telegraph poles and carts, nights in a police-station and a crowded hovel, then the Crimea: Tartars, Bakhchisarai, Sevastopol, Balaclava and Yalta.
- Russian hotels and washing, Kertch and a ride with local cyclists, the Cossack country and its long names, then stranded without money at Ekaterindar until a German stranger lends it.
- Five days across the steppes in a dust-storm, cycling the railway track, a Russian wedding, arrest as spies, an attack by Cossacks with a dagger and a drunken man, and arrival at Vladikavkas under the Caucasus.
- From Vladikavkas over the Caucasus by the Dariel Pass and Mount Kasbek to Tiflis, then south through Armenia and a night among the Kurds, with Mount Ararat in view.
- Three days at Erivan, the monastery of Etchmiadzin with its beam of the Ark, Noah's tomb, Persian tea-houses, the crossing into Persia in water and fever, and arrival at Tavriz and the British Consul-General.
- Tavriz, the Vali-Ahd and its mobs, then the road by Mianeh through snow, stoning and accidents, a night in a cave and a dungeon, and a visit to a harem at Zendjan.
- Lowe rejoins at Zendjan and rides on through Sultanieh and Kasvin in slush, a brush with soldiers, arrival at Teheran, Lunn's adventures, Christmas, and the theft of Lowe's revolvers punished at Kasvin.
- Five weeks at Teheran: the British Legation, the Shah at a review of troops and at home, his day, food, hunting and boxing, and how diplomats are received.
- A visit to the Shah's palace and the royal jewels, departure from Teheran across the Salt Desert to Kum, stoned there as Christians, and the Kurud Pass in a snow-storm to Soh and Mr. Christmas.
- From Soh across the desert to Julfa and Ispahan, the Prince Zil-i-Sultan, and the road south through Yezdikhast, where the three face a mob and the chief man.
- Abadeh and the telegraph engineer Robert Black, a Persian luncheon, losing the way in snow in the Pass of Koli Kush, abandoning the bicycles, gipsies, and the ruins of Persepolis.
- From Persepolis to Shiraz, the poets Hafiz and Sadi, mule caravans and the rocky descent by the Kotals, bears, and the coast, where a launch takes them to Bushire and on to Kurrachee.
- Arrival in India at Kurrachee, ragged and mistaken for dynamiters, the heat and the Indus, a ride to Hyderabad in Sind, a visit to the jail, and Hindustani learnt over curry.
- Night riding by moonlight through the Sind jungle from Hyderabad, a race with a camel, three hundred miles in six days, Anglo-Indian talk and the old fort at Multan.
- Cycling the railway track from Multan to Lahore on the Grand Trunk Road, Umritsar's Golden Temple, Umballa, Delhi, and the Taj Mahal at Agra in full moonlight.
- Leaving Agra for Cawnpore, small-pox, Lucknow, Benares, the Bengal jungle and tigers, and the French territory of Chandernagore.
- The reception by Calcutta cyclists, feasts at Bally, the Muharram festival, an earthquake, and the departure by steamer for Rangoon.
- Arrival at Rangoon, a journalist, the Shway Dagon pagoda, a cycle ride north on the Queen's Jubilee Day, wet clothes and bungalows.
- Burmese bridges and jungle roads, tattooed Burmans and priests, the ride to Mandalay, King Theebaw's city, and a morning with a Buddhist archbishop.
- Sight-seeing at Bhamo, Buddhist and spirit beliefs, preparations and kit for China, rains, and the crossing into China at the Nampoung frontier.
- First days in China: calling cards, the Yunnan mountains, Kachins and mosquitos, a Chinese inn, and the mandarin's passport and escort of soldiers.
- Twelve days at Teng-yueh and Chinese cash, a row at the yamen, the Salween, an obstreperous crowd at Yung-chang-fu, and Fraser keeping two hundred Chinese back with a stick.
- Twenty days over the hills of western China to Tali-fu, illness, theft of Lowe's camera and a thief's beating at the yamen, an opium den, and arrival at Yunnan-sen.
- Yunnan-sen: Chinese officials and ideas of hell, a giant visitor, the missionaries, then the road with stoning, sleeping among pigs, and arrival at Tung-chuan.
- From Tung-chuan along Chinese highways, Chao-tung-fu and its slave girls and child-killing, an all-night play, the Lolos, and an attack in a village with revolvers drawn.
- The starved people of the mountains, the Yang-tze at Sui-fu and the Prefect's call, then Chung-king-fu and the Union Jack.
- At Chung-king-fu with consuls, through the Yang-tze gorges to Ichang, then Fraser alone through Hupeh with a crowd of Chinese demanding bottles.
- Fraser alone on the Yang-tze banks, mobbed, at Shasi and the Manchu town of Kin-cha-fu, across country where no European had been, to Hankow and the first letters in five months.
- Hankow, its Russian and British colonies, the ride along the Yang-tze to Wuhu, a mob and escape on a junk, the Shanghai British colony, and departure for Japan.
- Nagasaki and Japanese roads, geishas and food, officials, the Straits of Shimonoseki, the Inland Sea, and Miyajima with its guide.
- From Hiroshima through Kobe, Osaka, Nara and Kyoto: tea girls, a Japanese entertainment, hill-climbing, and silks.
- Along the Tokiado from Kyoto past Lake Biwa and Nagoya, Fuji-yama and earthquakes, Yokohama and Tokio, then the Pacific crossing to San Francisco.
- San Francisco, then riding through California on the railway track as tramps, over the Sierra Nevada through snowsheds, to a far western town.
- The Nevada desert and heat, cowboys, miners, Red Indians, and being taken for English dukes at Terrace.
- Bad weather and a desert hotel, Kelton, the Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, the Tabernacle, and the summit of the Rockies at Sherman.
- Cheyenne, vile roads and a cyclone, Omaha, five hundred miles in six days, the Mississippi, and Chicago's Fourth of July and its self-importance.
- Chicago's wheat gamble and pork trade, then Indiana and Ohio, Cleveland, Buffalo and Niagara Falls to the Hudson at Albany.
- The Hudson to New York, interviewers, the Atlantic, Southampton, Winchester, Farnham and Guildford, and back to St. Pancras Church in London.