Exploits and adventures of a soldier ashore and afloatAdams, William Llewellyn
History
Exploits and adventures of a soldier ashore and afloat
Adams, William Llewellyn
Adams, William Llewellyn; Americans -- Foreign countries; United States. Army -- Military life
All aboard for St. Petersburg shouts the conductor of the Great
Siberian Express, from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg and return.
“Under and over the sea” pipes a sailor; “take a ride in a submarine,
ten thousand leagues under the sea.” From a balcony over the entrance
to the Old St. Louis arena, “The Cowboy’s Farewell” is being played by
a genuine cowboy band. This arena is the Indian’s favorite place of
amusement, as the scenes are typical of frontier life. Wading ankle
deep in confetti, you enter into the enchantments and desolations of
Paris, with its relics of the Inquisition, Waterloo, and the Bastille,
the bridge of the Invalides, Rue de Rivoli, and Champs Elysées, here
represented in miniature, where songs were sung by gay Parisians.
Further on are the Japanese and Chinese tea-gardens, Cummings’ wild
west show, Hoyle’s fire-fighters, and Hagenbach’s celebrated animal
show.
Arabs with tomtoms are attracting a stream of people to mysterious
Asia. Here you find Hindu jugglers, magicians, and snake-charmers,
Oriental dancers of the hootche kootche, and venders of wares of the
“Far East,” camels and donkeys for hire, elephants with gorgeous
canopies in which the children love to ride. This concession has the
spicy odor and Oriental aspect of the Far East.
Blarney Castle and the Irish village are next. “Ho for the Irish
jaunting car!” All pile in, and we’re off for the Lakes of Killarney,
climb to the Castle and kiss the blarney stone. A Dublin colleen who
is vending shillalahs, canes, and other ornaments of Irish bog-oak,
sweetly sings, “Where the River Shannon flows,” as she pins a fresh
green shamrock on each uniform, then remarks, “If I was a man, I’d be
a soldier too.” The café has a seating capacity of nearly one thousand
people; here the tinkling of glasses is interspersed with sweet music
by harpists from the “Emerald Isle.” You order an Irish high-ball, and
you receive a crême de menthe with a shamrock in it.
The Pike was the favorite promenade of the “Fair,” something doing
every minute. Here millionaires nudged elbows with paupers;
celebrities of distinguished vocations with the butcher, the baker,
and the candlestick-maker. The various nations of the earth here
commingled in harmony, all possessed with the same feeling of
curiosity and intent on having pleasure.
After doing the Pike, the Tyrolean Alps was a favorite resort for
midnight diners whose mirth and good fellowship were in keeping with
their surroundings. Delicious terrapin, lobster, and rare-bits were
specialties in this extraordinary café. From a pass in the mountain
chain of the Alps came the clear yodel of a quartette of Tyrolean
singers, whose notes reverberated from the cliffs to the scenes below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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