COMMENTS
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SCARCE WORLD TRAVEL BOOK BY WRITER BY A NOTED LOCAL HISTORIAN
IN THIS rare first edition book, the author visits and writes about Amsterdam, Belgium, Bethlehem, Denmark England, Egypt, Italy, Scotland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Jerusalem, London, the Nile Valley, France and many other places.
This is not your ordinary 19th century travel / adventure book. Matson was a genuine character and his personality certainly comes out in this narrative.
Ruth Ewers Haberkorn wrote about this book in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol 53, No. 2. Here are some of her comments.
In 1868 he had taken an eleven months’ tour through Europe, Egypt and Palestine and filled many notebooks with his observations, on which the book was based. As a result, the book is vastly informative about travel of that time. There was not much that his tremendous curiosity did not lead him to see in the thirteen countries visited, and he did not limit himself to the usual tourist sights; he talked with ratcatchers in England and went up in a balloon in Paris. Since he was accustomed to accurate research, he noted the exact sizes of churches and the contour of lands. He frequently complained of the dense population, especially in London when someone tramped on his corns as he was walking across London Bridge. When visiting the Catacombs in Rome, he declared that the statements of the guides and monks “require more credulity than I possess, to believe.” He stubbornly refused to take off his hat when the Pope passed by.
Though he was critical and provincial, he nevertheless read Pliny, as well as standard reference books, in an attempt to better understand what he was seeing. Nothing was too much for his inquiring mind, and physical danger did not daunt him; his guide at Mount Vesuvius had to pull him back from the edge of the crater.
The Alps monuments to William Tell made him believe that Tell was not merely a legend. He climbed mountains and was entranced by Alpine horns and bells. The old stone bridges throughout Europe were a joy to him. Art, Brussels lace, loaves of bread five to six feet long, zoos, the cost of Holland’s dikes, prisons under palaces, gorgeous cathedrals, the crowded, unsanitary cities, all these interested the adventurous Nehemiah.
Both Matson’s humor and ire were aroused once in Copenhagen when he was besieged by newsmen after the publication of an editorial claiming that this honest Illinois surveyor had really been a governor of Illinois who had stolen much money. Beggars swarmed to his door, enlarging on the story and calling him a “stingy cuss.”
In Egypt and the Near East, he rebelled at overcharges and often frightened off Arabs who annoyed him with their constant demand for “‘baksheesh.”” Once when some of them were carrying him across a slough on the way to the pyramids, they stopped and demanded more money to go on. But this big, strong American kicked his bearers until red marks appeared on their legs, and they were soon glad to go on for the original fee. Matson remained suspicious throughout his journey and never let his passport and valuable papers out of his hands.
Jerusalem, where he spent fifteen days, and other biblical sites fascinated him, but he was often skeptical of many of the so-called “biblical spots. Evidently Matson was a good Bible student. Once in Jerusalem, he fearlessly went into the loathsome leper quarter, where he was surrounded by diseased beggars. Another time he measured an olive tree which, he reported, was nineteen feet in circumference.
This is a must have book for anybody interested in antique World Travel books and in Nehemiah Matson
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