The rudest travel book in history
Mrs. Favell Mortimer never left Shropshire, but that didn't stop her from writing a highly opinionated travel book in which she managed to insult virtually every nationality on the fact of the earth. Here are some examples from an article about this mid-nineteenth-century tour de farce in The Independent:
* Though the Welsh are not very clean, they make their cottages look clean by white-washing them every year, and sometimes they white-wash the pig-sties too.
* One of the chief faults of the Scotch is the love of whisky. Another fault is the love of money. They often ask more than they ought, and are very slow to give. They are industrious, but disobliging. They will not take much trouble to please strangers. They are not as clean as English people, and they let their books be covered with dust, and even black with soot.
* Though the Portuguese are indolent, like the Spaniards, they are not so grave, and sad, and silent. They are proud like the Spaniards, but they are more deceitful. They have black eyes, and hair, and dark complexions like the Spaniards, but they have whiter teeth, for they never smoke, and it is smoking paper cigars which spoils the teeth in Spain.
* The reason why the Armenians live in holes in the ground is because they hope the Kurds may not find out where they are.
* The Jews are very troublesome in Poland. They follow travellers about, offering to help them, and will not go away when they are told. The Poles speak very rudely to the Jews, and think themselves much better; but the Jews bear rudeness with great patience, because they are accustomed to be ill-treated. The Poles love talking, and they speak so loud they almost scream; and they are proud of this, and say that the Germans are dumb.
The Pyramids are great piles of stones. There is one much larger than the rest. It is possible to climb to the top, for the stones of the sides are uneven, like steps; yet the steps are so high that Englishmen find it very hard to clamber up such stairs; but some Egyptians can jump from stone to stone like goats, and they help travellers to get up and to get down.
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