Travelogues in Space and Time a Book of Travellers' Tales Edited by Eric Newby; Viking; 576 pages; $20

By Paul Gray

The publisher had no way of knowing that thanks to concerns about terrorism, the summer of '86 would be the period when hordes of Americans decided to stay home. But the timing of the appearance of A Book of Travellers' Tales could hardly be happier. Those who think that days of bumper-to-bumper traffic are too high a price to pay for a glimpse of Old Faithful or Mickey Mouse may welcome this alternative: they can curl up instead with reports by more than 300 wanderers, spanning some 2,400 years and covering virtually the entire earth. Reading about exotic places is usually the next best thing to seeing them in person. Sometimes, when the natives are unfriendly or the food inedible, a secondhand experience is more enjoyable than the original.

Author Eric Newby, who has written travel books himself and served as travel editor of the Observer in London, divides his anthology into broad geographical sections (Africa, Europe, North America, etc.) and then offers excerpts about each area in chronological order. This method of organization creates travelogues in time as well as space. A Greek navigator who landed on the British Isles around 310 B.C. formed a favorable impression of the residents: "They are simple in their habits, and far removed from the cunning and knavishness of modern man." By the early 18th century, a Swiss visitor to England noted a decline in hospitality: "When the people see a well-dressed person in the streets, especially if he is wearing a braided coat, a plume in his hat, or his hair tied in a bow, he will, without doubt, be called 'French dog' 20 times perhaps before he reaches his destination."

Early travelers tended to emphasize wonders at the expense of precision, secure in the belief that no one would make the same arduous journey simply to contradict them. A colleague of Magellan's reported a strange sight in Patagonia: "One day, without anyone expecting it, we saw a giant, who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping, and singing, and whilst singing he put the sand and dust on his head . . . He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist." After the dawn of the Enlightenment and the scientific method, eyewitness accounts of oddities arrived buttressed by facts. In Africa, a 19th century, English explorer met the sister-in-law of a local chief and noted, "She was another of those wonders of obesity, unable to stand excepting on all fours." He then cajoled the large lady into giving him permission to measure her and dutifully reported the results: "Round arm, 1 ft. 11 in.; chest, 4 ft. 4 in.; thigh, 2 ft. 7 in.; calf, 1 ft. 8 in.; height, 5 ft. 8 in."

Newby includes a number of contributors who are better known as writers than travelers; hence the opportunity to observe familiar names in unexpected locales. While visiting Egypt, Gustave Flaubert attends a performance of a dancing girl so erotic the musicians accompanying her are blindfolded. In Russia, Mark Twain participates in an audience given by Czar Alexander II and marvels at the immense powers vested in the pleasant host: "If I could have stolen his coat, I would have done it. When I meet a man like that, I want something to remember him by." Czech Playwright Karel Capek recounts an unsettling experience at Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London: "Before one particularly effective effigy of a gentleman in a top-hat I stopped and looked into the catalogue to see who it was; suddenly the gentleman with the top-hat moved and walked away; it was awful."

No collection of travel literature would be complete without a smattering of letdowns. Not everyone finds the goal worth the trip. In the early 19th century a Frenchman fulfilled his dream of reaching Timbuktu: "How many grateful thanksgivings did I pour forth for the protection which God had vouchsafed to me, amidst obstacles and dangers which appeared insurmountable. This duty being ended, I looked around and found that the sight before me, did not answer my expectations." Poet Thomas Gray registered similar dismay at another fabled spot: "Well! and is this the great front of Versailles? What a huge heap of littleness!" Sites in the U.S. have not been immune to such reactions. In the 1860s an English journalist arrived at Niagara Falls: "Well, I confess that as I stood staring, there came over me a sensation of bitter disappointment. And was this all?"

Inveterate travelers have always learned to take the discomfiting with the good. The perennial appeal of the open road is the possibility of surprise. In 1817 Stendhal was journeying to Naples when he met a group which had just come from that city. The young French author asked one man whether Rossini's Otello was still being performed there and offered his opinion that "Rossini was the bright hope of the Italian school; that he was the only living composer who had true genius as his birthright." Stendhal gradually realized that his remarks were embarrassing the man and amusing his companions: "To cut a long story short, this was Rossini." Such serendipitous encounters are the rewards of travel, and this compendium of vignettes offers a handsome payoff to those who prefer to sit quietly and read.