I have often been asked seriously, whether the Road can be looked upon as a necessary school of discipline for certain natures; whether, for instance, as an anxious mother of a wayward boy, once put the query to me, "is there enough that is worth while in it, if looked for, to overbalance that which is not worth while?" It depends both on the boy and the treatment he gives to and gets from his pals. In general, the Road is not to be recommended--not for morals, comfort, cleanliness, or "respectability." It is a backwater section of our civilization; it is full of malaria and other swampy things. Yet, with all its miasma, this backwater district has sent many a good man back to the main Road, which we all try to travel. In my own case, I can certainly say that many desirable truths were revealed to me while in Hoboland which it seemed impossible for me to grasp until having had the Hoboland experience. But to speak seriously of the Road as a recuperating place for deteriorated morals, or as an invigorator for weak natures, I can only say--in general, don't try it. There are too many "building-up" farms and "nerve strengthening" sanatoriums to make it necessary to-day for any one to have to resort to Hoboland to be put right again. Yet the Road will probably be with us, for better or for worse, after the soothing farms and disciplinary sanatoriums have dwindled away; I mean such as may be patronized, say, in the next thousand years or so. There were tramps thousands of years ago, and I fear that they will be on the earth, if there be an earth then, thousands of years hence. They change a little in dress, customs and diet as the years roll by, just as other people change. But, for all practical purposes, I should expect to find the ancient Egyptian hobo, for instance, if he could come to life and would be natural, pretty much the same kind of roadster that we know in our present American type. Laziness, loafing, _Wanderlust_ and begging are to-day what they ever have been--qualities and habits that are passed on from generation to generation, practically intact. My longest _Wanderlust_ trip came to an end in the much maligned city of Hoboken, N. J. Some work done for a farmer, near Castleton on the Hudson River netted me a few dollars, and, one night in September, in company of an aged Irishman, I drifted down the river to the great city on a canal boat. The Irishman got separated from me in the crowded thoroughfares in New York, and I drifted alone over to Hoboken, bent on an important errand, but doubtful about its outcome. Little did I realize then what a hard task there was ahead of me, and how great the change in my life was to be, the task once finished. CHAPTER VIII MY VOYAGE TO EUROPE