“1. I Discover Bucephalus” in “Around the World on a Bicycle”

CHAPTER 1 I Discover Bucephalus

EARLY ONE JUNE MORNING I ARRIVED IN NEW YORK, AND AFTER gaping up and down at this monstrous metropolis, with the awe of a little boy watching a hippopotamus yawn, I embarked on the good ship Black Osprey, a freighter bound for Rotterdam. As the ship rolled into the waves, sending a spray of salt water over my position in the prow, I opened my mouth regularly and methodically, thereby allowing the spray to alleviate my blistered tonsils—a result of the mid-day visit to Manhattan.

Being a very typical landlubber, I served on the ship in the capacity of painter, dishwasher, winch-wiper, boxing coach to the more martial gobs, and nursemaid to four of the five other workaways, who had difficulty in getting their sea-legs. For amusement, the captain suggested that I play shuffleboard with a twenty-pound rust scraper.

After twelve days alone on the Atlantic, the Black Osprey nosed into the crowded English Channel from which poured an endless row of ships. It was like emerging from a desert into a crowded city thoroughfare.

The ship crawled up the channel and the river to Rotterdam where, after docking, I was honorably discharged; I received the regular salary of a workaway: one cent per month! I wrote a receipt for my salary and gave it to the captain.

After two days of sight-seeing in Rotterdam and The Hague, I left for a short visit with friends in Gotha, Germany. There I purchased an excellent Original Reinhardt bicycle. It was a case of love at first sight. The moment I first laid eyes on the beautiful blue steel frame of this sturdy steed, I knew that Bucephalus was meant for me. It was merely a matter of seconds before I had dashed into the bicycle shop, flung sixty-seven Reichmarks on the counter, and breezed out the door with my new found friend.

In company with an eighteen-year-old German boy, Werner Faber, I left Gotha on July 9 for the North Sea and Norway. At once there were interesting customs and beautiful scenes for our enjoyment: picturesque landscapes; beautiful country lassies; a town crier with his “Hear ye, hear ye, people of this village!”; famous Wartburg castle at Eisenach; dialect of people unintelligible even to Werner! Finally, to bed on fresh hay in a delightful barn in Wahlburg. (One gets permission from the Burgomeister before one is allowed to remain in a village over night.) We traveled light, planning to cook most of our meals and spend the night wherever the end of the day found us.

In a day’s journey we wound through scores of Westphalian villages with their needle-spired churches and ancient inns with inner courts. Between the villages we traveled through impenetrable forests, dotted with feudal castles.

Occasionally we passed funeral processions. The horses were draped in black sheets, with black hats. The pallbearers walked behind the black stage coach wearing swallowtail coats and high silk hats. Then followed all the relatives of the deceased wearing long black robes and riding bicycles, some of them five-passenger models, with two babies in a basket in front of mama’s (or papa’s) handlebars, and two more children in a basket behind the seat.

On July 14, after bicycling 640 kilometers through northern Germany in five days, we crossed the border into Denmark, singing lustily the marching song of the “Canadian Infantry.”

In Denmark, as in Germany, there were special roads for bicycles only, and even though the wind was against us, we pedaled through the entire country—from south to north—in three days. On the fourth day, we looked out of our barn window to see the sun rise over the sea.

All in all, Denmark is a wholesome and hospitable country, filled with friendly and solid people. This is a land of beautiful horses, fine cattle, oceans of grain, potatoes, turnips, strawberries—a land carefully tilled and scientifically managed—a land of comfortable homes—a land where life is worth living—a land where the simpler virtues and wholesome customs abound.

We left Frederickshaven docks bound for Göteborg, Sweden, on a little 18-foot sailing skiff laden with a cargo of fish, as the guests of the captain and first mate, who constituted the crew in toto. Even though this toy boat nearly turned a flip at each wave, my sea legs held firm and I still could look forward to my first experience of sea-sickness.

Our entree to Sweden in the afternoon was via a ten-mile trip up one of Sweden’s famous fjords, for Göteborg, like Rotterdam, is not on the coast. All the way to the city cold, gray stone hills frowned down upon us. Even after we hoisted our “iron horses” ashore and got into the familiar saddles again, the outlook still loomed gloomily. We found it too dangerous to ride in Göteborg, with traffic laws the reverse of those to which we were accustomed.

Nosing our bicycles into a driving wind and rain, sweeping down from the north, we plowed up a muddy highway winding between giant grey cliffs, endless rock fences, and villages of big, top-heavy wooden houses.

Night-fall found us sitting in an old stage coach in a barn twelve kilometers from Monkeyville on the road to Kunslav, with a half gallon of fresh milk, a loaf of black bread, and a pound of cheese for supper.

In the twilight a large steamer was gliding up a little stream of water between two fields of rye which were in turn between two stone cliffs. The boat seemed to pass through the fields, dodging the haystacks in a game of hide-and-seek, for the river could not be seen from the ground level.

One can go all over Scandinavia by boat, train, airplane, bus, or last and least used, bicycle. As our weary wobbly legs were stern reminders that we had not chosen the easiest means of transportation over this rugged region, we did not regret crossing on a ferry into the black forests and green vales of Norway, a pleasant change from the cold, grey, stony coast of Sweden.

In spite of days marked by constant head winds and rain, noonday swims in icy fjords, time out to eat wild berries, and for frequent visits to old Swedish castles, during ten days we pedaled our bicycles nearly 900 miles, over what were for the most part very bad roads.