John William Myers Sr.
"Travelling"
(a school paper)

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John Myers

"Travelling"

The modes of travelling are not as limited as they were half a century ago. At that time the only way of travelling was on horseback, in wagons, sail-boats and the like.

But now we have the buggy, coach, comfortable rail-ways cars, steam ships, steam-boats, bicicles and tricicles, most of which are comfortable conveyances. There are many useful things to be learned in travelling. First we learn the customs of other people than those of our locality. Travelling is the only true way to study situations, for if one sees a country he will obtain a better idea of it than he would by reading books for weeks. Travelling is also very beneficial to ones health.

The mishaps and dangers of travelling are numerous. They range from misconnections of trains to fatal wrecks.

One great mishap encountered by all travelers is the misconnection of trains or boats.

After one of the above mishaps you have to content yourself walking around the station meantime not giving the roads an excellent reputation.

There is no safe way of travelling. If we take a train to carry us to our destination, it will probably jump the track or fall through a bridge. Take a steamboat and there is danger of it's taking fire and burning to the water's edge, leaving you to swim ashore or drown.

Or if you are on a ship and it happens to get caught by a typhoon and the ship is driven on a rock and leaves you at the mercy of the waves.

If you walk and do not use your eyes vigorously somebody or something will run over you.

There are very few persons and places that I would not like to visit.

But before I would travel in a foreign land for the purpose of sightseeing, I will see the view in our own country.

America has as grand scenery as Europe or any other foreign land. She has the longest and highest waterfalls, the deepest canyons, the most extensive mines, and the greatest geyser region the world produces.

The books of travel I have read are some what limited.

I read a few very interesting extracts from "Across the Dark Continent" written by Stanley.

He describes the jungles, the Congo river and the Nile.

He discovered a river which was the main source of the Nile making it the longest river on the globe. I also read a description of several expeditions to the Arctic Regions, by Kent Kane, DeLong, Greely and others which was very interesting.

John Myers

{the following was added by the teacher}

John Myers - (date) - Study the definition of "paragraphs" - Remember that all the sentences under one head make up a para.