The handbooks of the companies, French, Austrian, and Russian, were obtained, and with these books before them the twain sat down one evening in the hotel. It required a couple of hours to arrange a route, but by dint of hard work it was accomplished. The result was something like the following:--
Leave Constantinople by Austrian Lloyd steamer of the --th, and go to Syra, one of the Greek Islands. There connect with a steamer of the same company for Athens.
Spend eight days in and around Athens, and return to Syra by an Austrian Lloyd ship.
Spend a day at Syra, and then take the fortnightly French steamer for Beyrout. It stops two days at Smyrna, and part of a day at each of half a dozen points including Rhodes, Alexandretta, and Latakieh, so that a fair view of those places can be had.
Eight days after the arrival of the French steamer at Beyrout, an Austrian one will touch there. This time will suffice for a journey to Baalbeck, and Damascus, and the return to Beyrout, so as to catch the Austrian steamer, and proceed to Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem.
Eleven days later a Russian steamer will touch at Jaffa, on her way to Egypt. Eleven days will be enough for Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and the river Jordan, together with the return to Jaffa, to catch this Russian steamer.
The plan was carried out to the letter. There was plenty of time for seeing everything, and no loss in waiting for ships in the different ports, save in a single instance that had no serious consequences. The scheme had a decided advantage over the ordinary plan of buying a ticket by a single line, and depending only on the ships of that line. In the latter instance you are compelled to wait for a fixed period, while by traveling independently, and knowing the movements of all the ships serving the ports in which you are interested, there is often a material saving of time.
In addition to the regular lines, there are many independent steamers trading along the coast of the Mediterranean and through the north seas, and by scanning the advertisements, or enquiring at the steamship offices, the traveler will often find something decidedly to his advantage. For example, the writer was once in Singapore, at the Straits of Malacca, intending to go to Java. There is a steamer once a week from Singapore to Batavia, the capital of Java, and the vessel for that particular week was a French one that had only sixteen berths in her cabin; it was whispered around the hotel that she would be terribly overcrowded, as she had nearly fifty passengers booked, and perhaps more. By enquiring at the shipping offices it was ascertained that a Dutch steamer had been at Singapore for repair, and would return the same day and hour as the French one, but she had not been advertised, and nothing would have been known of her in the ordinary way. The writer and his friend secured passage on the Dutch steamer, and had a pleasant voyage; she had the same accommodations as the French ship, and only seven persons to occupy them, while the latter had fifty-two! They were packed somewhat after the manner of sardines in a can, and had a hard time of it, while every passenger on the Dutch ship had a room to himself, and all the space he wanted at the dinner table.