THe Tour Around the World

It is getting to be more and more the fashion to spend the five or six winter months in making a tour around the world, by which is meant visiting Japan, China, Ceylon, India and Egypt.

There are two ways of doing this. One, perhaps the most popular, is to leave the Pacific Coast early in autumn, so as to be in Japan when the foliage there is turning, and during "chrysanthemum time." The other plan is to travel eastward in midwinter; so as to be there during the spring, "cherry-blossom time," or up to the beginning of June ; but in either case India must be visited from December to March.

There is no more delightful way of spending six months than in making this tour, for the traveler has continuous changes of place, people and scenery. A month can be spent among the charming and refined Japanese; two or three weeks in China, whose intensely industrious and now observant millions are fast coming to the front; a fortnight in the beautiful island of Ceylon; and six weeks, or a month, in wonderfully interesting India.

The advantage of going westward is that the tour brings the traveler to Egypt in good time to take the Nile trip, and to Palestine, the Levant and Italy during the spring months, consequently to northern Europe during the summer; the eastbound trip brings the traveler back to America in the early summer, and this is the proper season to visit the Yosemite Valley and Yellowstone Park.

The tour around the world is not expensive, as traveling goes nowadays. .£500, or $2,500, will cover the bulk of the cost of the trip during, say, six months — partly on account of so much of the distance being by water travel, and partly from the inexpensive rates charged at the hotels in Eastern countries. Of course these hotels do not provide the modern comforts and luxuries to which the traveler is accustomed in American and European hotels, but to adapt one's self to the customs of each country is the secret for thorough enjoyment of travel. Another thing the traveler should bear in mind, in making this tour, and that is the matter of dress. It is the custom in tropical countries for a man to wear a white duck suit during the day, and at night a dinner suit. This rule holds good on land and sea, and unless it is complied with, especially as to evening dress, the traveler will soon feel himself out of place. The same rule applies to ladies, bearing in mind that the principal recreation among Europeans in the East Indies, during the evening, is dining and dancing. Many of the hotels are furnished with ballrooms, and the evening "hops" on the steamer's deck are a regular thing.

The men whom European countries send out to represent them in their colonies are generally the flower of the nation, consequently they will always be found well- bred, intelligent and interesting. England will permit no indigent persons of British nationality to live in India, as to do so would impair her reputation among the native population.