One hundred years ago
In the celebration on Wednesday of the jubilee of Mr. Cook's great under- taking for lightening the responsibilities and difficulties of travellers, Mr. Cook was treated as a star of quite the first magnitude. His services to the Mah- ommedan pilgrims to Mecca have no doubt been very great, to say nothing of the millions of tickets which he issues yearly to English travellers. In a demo- cratic age, it is quite right that the great populariser of travel should receive the incense of popular homage; but it can- not be denied tht in removing so many of the dangers and difficulties of travel, Mr. Cook has dissipated a great part of its halo of romance. When the late Mr. Kinglake found himself dashing through the desert on a fleet dromedary without a single guide or attendant, and even deposited helpless on the ground by a sudden jerk of the animal, night coming on and his steed vanishing into the darkness, he did real- ly experience one of the perils which lend much more than half the charm to travel, — at least as it is seen in memo- ry. But Mr. Cook has taken the best security that the traveller of the present and the future shall incur no such risks, and recall no such thrilling experience. That, perhaps, is a dubious boon.
The Spectator, 25 July 1891
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