THE ENGLISH ABROAD
By BARBARA WORSLEY-GOUGH
ACURIOUS change in the demeanour of the English takes place directly they set foot on the continent of Europe. An aggressiveness which one would have be- lieved to be quite foreign to their nature begins to assert itself, and a mean-spirited disposition to haggle, which they would blush to exhibit at home. This is due, I think, to a deep-rooted conviction that all foreigners are, in the first place, despicable, and in the second place, intent upon getting the better of the guileless English who venture to travel abroad. The average Englishman seems to set out on his travels determined that he, at least, will not allow himself to be bullied and cheated, that he will uphold the reputation of his country for fair play and no nonsense, and that he must begin as he means to go on. It is this regrettable frame of mind which leads him into quarrels with petty officials, arguments with hotel-keepers over the cost of a prix-fixe meal, and similar stupidities which he would avoid with horror in his own country. He proceeds to shout at the customs officials, and to reward the porter who carries his numerous trunks with a sum of money which he would not offer to a porter for carrying a suitcase in England. The customs officials inevitably shout back at him, the porter very naturally complains, and the Englishman departs in his comfortable train with a line feeling of superiority over these hysterical and grasping foreigners, while he looks round the com- partment for a likely opponent in the battle which he will shortly wage in the ea 1Se /i fresh air.
The average h'.ngli,lmw Oman travelling abroad behaves, on the whole, less indefensibly than the Englishman. She does at least drink, with pleasure if not with dis- crimination, the wine of the country in which she is travelling, instead of calling for whisky-and-soda and then complaining of the price of it. She has less con- fidence than the male traveller in the likelihood of making oneself understood in any country in the world by the simple method of speaking pidgin-English very slowly and loudly to the accompaniment of a large number of quite un-English gestures. Having either too little assurance or too much common sense to make a fool of herself in this particular way, she adopts a procedure of her own. On alighting front a train she rambles about the station in a distracted manner. demanding of all and sundry, " 01 est le Cook's homme ? " until that benign and braided personage appears at her elbow and relieves her of the necessity of further truck with the foreigners. This, while fostering the notion, popular in Latin countries, that the English arc all either half-witted or mentally deranged, does not other- wise detract from the national character in the eyes of the world. When visiting a foreign capital, most Englishwomen discard the familiar burden of Burberrys and Baedckers and make a brave attempt to appear in appropriately urban attire. Their male relations, on the other hand, make no such effort, and arc not ashamed to stalk about Paris and Brussels and Rome in dusty plus-fours and muddy brogues, smoking their pipes and staring condescendingly about them, for all the world as if they were walking through the village at home.
The English, always the most enterprising travellers in Europe, were the people who invented a special equipment for travelling. Less determined excursionists of other nationalities had simply set forth on their journeys wearing such clothes as seemed appropriate to the occasion. Not so the English. Inspired by a sub- conscious slogan—" A kit for everything, and everyone in the correct kit "---they proceeded to evolve the travelling-rug, always tartan, and, to the foreigner, an unmistakable clue to its owner's nationality ; the travelling overcoat, immensely long and . provided with vast pockets for the traveller's myriad. necessities ; the cloth cap, to replace more formal headgear in the train as a protection against those draughts which the foreigner avoids by keeping the window shut ; the dust-, coat, a garment like a dressing-gown which enjoyed- brief favour and now only survives -comically in the- German auto-mantel. This complicated outfit had at least the merit which belongs to all forms of dressing-up --it lent an air to the proceedings, removing them some- what from the prosaic paraphernalia of trunks and tips and tickets, and even suggesting ..that an element of pleasure might possibly enter :into the stern business of travelling. Nowadays, unfortunately, the typical- English traveller seems • to have abandoned all thought of a special wardrobe for journeys abroad, having made the regrettable discovery that the' clothes ordinarily kept to be Worn when will do well enough for the purpose:. . - " There is, of course; another type of-English traveller, who is not typical at all. - He is •rare, but not as rare as I could wish him to he: He is the man who is not only determined,- when in Rome, to do- as Rome does, but to demonstrate to the inhabitants of- that city just how: Roman it is possible to be. He is the;man whose French accent has been elaborated to such a point of perfection- that only very superior Frenchmen can understand him ;.• who has constant recourse to the latest argot, to the horror of crape-draped dowagers ; who asks the Swiss head waiter if he is not indeed a native of the Midi as one can tell from his speech, hero a? He is the man who insists On talking politics to a porter in Munich station until you are convinced that you will all three find yourselves- in a concentration eamp- in' no time. He is the man' who knows the specialiti de la-niaison of every little hotel. in Europe, and insists on ordering an intimidating concoction which takes half an hour to prepare and is full of garlie, when all the time you are craving for an Omelette and some salad.
The two types are precise antitheses. The stupid, haggling, plus-four clad Englishman abroad considers it a point of honour to speak roughly to the little Frogs, and- if compelled to address one of them for the purpose, say, of asking the way, he will march up to a' Paris' policeman on point duty and say abruptly "Gendarme-' IV (lire Dame !" with a menacing, your-eathedral-or-your; life air which -annoys- the policernitU ---,enormously. The' cosmopolitan type of English traveller, on the other hand, has learned long ago that it is one of the rules of polite life in France to gush to policemen. He will take off his hat to the fellow with a bow of a type so formal that it is now scarcely practised in Europe except by the remnant of the ancient aristocracy of Sicily; and say : '`Je vous demande milk pardons, Monsieur 'Agent, de your deranger ainsi, mais jc serais infiniment oblige si vous auricz la bonte de neindiquer la route de. . . ." The policeman's surprise at being so addressed, though agreeable, will be almost equal to his astonishment at the temerity of the other type of tourist. If the abrupt enquiry is offensive, the over-elaborate one is highly diverting.
For this reason, at least, the cosmopolitan type of travelling Englishman is less of a disgrace to his country of origin than the pig-headed type who stands upon his rights, calls all -foreigners frogs, wogs, and dagos, and refuses to " jabber their lingo." It is better to be a source of amusement than a-cause of offence, both as an individual and as an unofficial ambassador abroad.' It seems a pity, however, that the travelling English cannot manage more often to avoid both pitfalls.
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