Hints to Lady-Travellers at Home and Abroad. By Miss Campbell
Davidson. (Iliffe and Son.)—This is a useful kind of handbook, and readers with a sense of humour will also find it entertaining. The author observes that since so many women travel nowadays, a thousand conveniences and comforts "have sprung into existence to meet the need of their assistance." The expression is a little awkward, but the meaning is plain, and the writer, who wishes that her readers should avail themselves of the new conditions of life, adds that her advice is "entirely founded upon practical experience and observation." There is, we think, every indication that Miss Davidson understands her subject ; but if we marsuggest a fault in a book so conspicuous for good counsels, it is that she understands it too well. We submit, with a due acknowledgment of our ignorance, that travel which needs so much elaborate preparation may prove a burden rather than a pleasure. The " Hints " inform us that the lady who wishes to be well equipped for a journey, must carry with her a bath and bath towels, a bottle of kid-reviver, a dressing-bag, a spirit-lamp for boiling water, with a sufficient quantity of methylated spirits, a flask, and a small filter. To these comforts the lady-traveller must add provisions, including extract of meat, "one's own tea and coffee;" waistbelts for money, a holdall for rugs and umbrellas, A hot-water bag, a lamp for reading at night, some light literaturg (it must be light in two senses, for "books add enormously to the weight of one's luggage ") ; a small medicine-chest, which, among other articles, should contain pills and ointment, and a roll of fine old linen. Matches and a candle, too, should always be carried ; a door-wedge is a great convenience ; "a tin of insect-powder should never be omitted ;" with a railway-key "one is quite independent;" and "a compass is a most useful accompaniment to the traveller who has to be her own guide." It is necessary also to carry an eyestone, "the use of which is a common custom in America." If there is dust in the eye, this tiny stone, or rather fishbone, is inserted within the lower eyelid. "Almost imme- diately it begins to work its way slowly round the eyeball, and never stops till it has made the complete circuit of the eye, when it drops out, bringing with it whatever object of an alien nature it has encountered on its journey." Then if ladies curl their hair, capital little cases may be had, containing a pair of tongs and a minute spirit-lamp ;" a good toilet-water also is often desired by ladies in travelling, and sulpholine lotion may be carried for sun- burning and freckles. Full particulars, too, are given with regard to clothing ; each dress must have a tray to itself, for "gowns are the terrible part of packing," and, finally, "it is as well, for every reason, to travel with as little luggage as circumstances admit." It is to be feared that if a lady who proposes to travel studies these " Hints " previously—and we have mentioned only a few of them —she will be tempted to wish that the new conditions of life had not arisen, which make "a thousand conveniences and comforts" necessary to the traveller. We cannot recommend the author's use of her mother-tongue ; but perhaps good English is not, to quote one of her own phrases, "an absolute indispensable."
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