ed and thirty-nine dollars and ten cents. This provides
transportation from any place in the United States around the world to
the starting point. The advantage of a Cook's ticket over the tickets of
other companies is that this firm has the best organized force, with
large offices in the big cities and with banks as agencies in hundreds
of places where you may cash its money orders. This is a great
convenience as it saves the risk of carrying considerable sums of money
in lands where thievery is a fine art. Cook's agents may be found on
arrival by boat or train in all the principal cities of a world-tour.
These men invariably speak English well, and thus they are a god-send
when the tourist knows nothing of the language or the customs of a
strange country. At the offices of Cook and Son in all the large
Oriental cities one may get accurate information about boats and trains
and may purchase tickets for side excursions. Some of the Oriental
offices I found careless in the handling of mail because of the
employment of native clerks, but this was not general. Cook will furnish
guides for the leading Oriental tours and in India and Egypt these are
absolutely necessary, as without them life is made a burden by the
demands of carriage drivers, hotel servants and beggars. Cook will
furnish good guides for Japan, but it is unsafe to select natives unless
you have a guarantee that they know the places usually visited and that
they speak intelligible English. The pronunciation of Japanese differs
so vitally from that of English that many Japanese who understand and
write English well make a hopeless jumble of words when they attempt to
speak it. Their failure to open their mouths or to give emphasis to
words renders it extremely difficult to understand them. Good foreign
hotels may be found in all the Japanese cities and even those managed by
Japanese are conducted in European style. It is a pity that the hotels
are not modeled on the Japanese style, like the Kanaya Hotel at Nikko,
where the furniture and the decorations of the rooms are essentially
Japanese and very artistic. The average charge for room and board in
Japanese hotels of the first class is four dollars, but some of the more
pretentious places demand from five to six dollars a day.

The cost of travel in India is not heavy because of the moderate scale
of prices. Hotels usually charge ten rupees a day for board and lodging
or about three dollars a day. Carriage hire