Thomas Cook (26 page)

Each tourist had a Bible, a hymn book, a guide book and a folding map. On foot, mule, donkey or horse, they sang English hymns or the psalms of David. Once, a clergyman, Edwin Hodder, borrowed a hornpipe and danced the Highland fling at Solomon’s Pools. Some wanted wine, but, after tasting it, one tourist quipped that, if it was served to the American public,
⁶
it would encourage ‘total abstinence with enthusiasm’.

On his first trip, sightseeing was interrupted by an unexpected occurrence. At 3a.m. one morning, the aged Mrs Samuels died and the body had to be crated and secretly carried until a suitable place for burial was found. Miss Riggs of Hampstead recounted in her journal:

Arabs have a great superstition with regard to the dead – and as she was to be taken to Jerusalem to be buried, the natives were told that she was ill and she was packed up and carried on a palanquin. A dead person could not be taken from the convent without government permission. So altogether it was thought advisable to act this deception – she died at 3 [a.m.] and was conveyed thither at 6 in the morning and buried that night – eastern burials are so awfully rapid – we all felt the solemnity of the event . . .

The Times
,
Daily News
,
Evening Standard
and
Pall Mall Gazette
, ignored the death, but wrote detailed reports of the overnight robbery. Miss Riggs’s diary recorded every event, such as when each tourist fell off his horse, the sight of naked Arabs along the river banks and the dancing girls ‘which the gentlemen patronised’.
⁷

In a strange way, Thomas Cook brought tourism full circle. Apart from the number of female travellers, among the unexpected parallels with his tours and those described by Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century was his choice of Jerusalem as a destination. By looking at Thomas’s career, initially propelled by his deep faith, one can see parallels with medieval travel when people set forth on pilgrimages.

Chaucer’s Wife of Bath in his classic description of English life,
The Canterbury Tales
, went to Jerusalem three times. In emphasising her journey Chaucer showed both how women travelled then and how popular Jerusalem was as a destination. As the Wife of Bath was a lusty, rather than a saintly type, he also showed that pilgrimages were not only for the pious. Such journeys were so much on the increase that William Wey, a Fellow of Eton, who visited Jerusalem in 1458 and 1462, produced Britain’s first proper travel guide, stating the prices of inns in Venice, and what to see
en route
, and how to get an ass at Jaffa.

O
n his return to London, Thomas started advertising another trip to Egypt for the spectacular opening of the Suez Canal. On 1 July 1869, he wrote of the ‘balm and beauty of the Egyptian night . . . he may watch the moon rising in a silver dawn’ and said:

On November the 17th, the greatest engineering feat of the present century is to have its success celebrated by a magnificent inauguration fête, at which nearly every European royal family will have its special representative . . . The canal [of the ancient Pharaohs] is said to have cost the lives of 120,000 slaves who were employed in making it. At first it seemed as if something of the kind was to be repeated in connection with the present undertaking, for originally the forced labour of 25,000 Egyptian fellahs, or serfs, was resorted to, but this, on the earnest representations of England, was ordered to be dispensed with by the Viceroy of Egypt . . .

In the
Excursionist
of 28 July, an advertisement announced the ‘Opening of the Suez Canal . . . to leave England on 3rd November and sail from Brindisi on 8th, in the hope to landing at Alexandria on 12th. The canal is to be opened on 17th – fares £35 first class, £28 second class. Hotels and other arrangements to be . . .’ In August and September more advertisements appeared for Palestine and the Grand Opening of the Suez Canal. Not enough customers were coming forward – even with an article in the
Daily News
of 5 August which commended Thomas as ‘the Napoleon of Excursionists. Last year more than two hundred thousand people travelled by means of Cook’s tickets; this year the number will approach, if it does not exceed, three hundred thousand; and from the time of the commencement of the system until now, between three and four millions of tourists have availed themselves of the facilities offered by it . . .’

By 21 October, Thomas’s advertisement had an anxious ring: ‘The last of the Season! A year ago, we had, as now, completed the summer series of tours; but, on this very date of 1868, we were in the Turkish metropolis, sounding the way for the Eastern expeditions that followed in the early months of the current year. At the present moment the eye looks again to the East, and a new series of engagements loom in the prospects of the future. Our projected trip to the opening of the Suez Canal is but the precursor of a much greater expedition to the East . . . Thousands of anxious eyes are now directed. Kings, princes and potentates of various distinctions, heralded by the enthusiastic Empress of the French, are preparing to join the assemblance which will soon be gathered in Egypt, from all nations, to land the triumphs of science . . . and energy of M. Lesseps . . . hesitancy of the public to advance the necessary deposits of cash to justify any personal responsibilities . . . so few and feeble were the responses that our doubts . . .’

Yet another anxious announcement followed: ‘This is Mr Cook’s Programme; and all he now adds is, Send The Money and Secure The Remaining Ten Places. First come, first served.’ Keen to put Egypt permanently on his timetable, he wanted to lay the foundation with this trip. In the end, only thirty customers paid the fifty guineas.

Wednesday 17 November 1869 was the day set for the opening of the Suez Canal, when the first ships were to sail through the Maritime Canal to the Red Sea. The three pavilions erected along the main quay at Port Said had started to fill, but all visitors were waiting for the Emperor of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia and Eugenie. Napoleon III, suffering from bouts of rheumatism and a persistent stone in the bladder, had been too ill to travel. The streets of Port Said, teeming with visitors in turbans, head cloths, fezes and sun helmets fitted with veils, were adorned with a double line of red flagstaffs, brightly coloured banners and lines of red, yellow, blue and green lanterns. On the canal itself, the forest of ships’ masts behind the royal yachts became confused and indistinct as the deep glow faded from the sky. The night sky was lit only by moonlight and lights flashing from lighthouses. Flights of rockets ascended into the sky, lighting up the scene with exploding stars, then with showers of falling gold.
¹

On 16 November, watched by the international dignitaries, the canal was blessed by two ceremonies in Port Said, one for Roman Catholic France and one for Muslim Egypt. Escorted by a glittering galaxy of princes and ministers, on board
L’Aigle
, Eugenie, leaning on the arm of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, who rarely left her side, was the star of the show. Next day, she and de Lesseps were together on the bridge of
L’Aigle
, the first of sixty-seven ships, all decorated with flags and bunting, making the historic journey south in the magnificent Steamboat Procession through the canal to the Red Sea. Behind were yachts carrying the Khedive, the Emperor Francis Joseph, the Prince Royal of Prussia, Prince Henry of the Netherlands – and Thomas Cook himself on an Austrian Lloyd steamer,
America
. Crowds waited for the moment when, it was said, the waters of two great seas would merge, allowing ships to take a short cut from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean. As the decorated ships sailed down the canal Britain, France and Holland literally became closer to their Asian colonies. The canal would also open the whole of Egypt to the Western world, making it truly international.

Thomas and his party then went by rail to Cairo, where, as he related, ‘special preparation was made by the Khedive for public dinners, and the free consumption of champagne and other costly wines, which had no attraction for my little teetotal party’. Britain was represented at the dazzling ceremony by only a lowly ‘Mr’ from the Foreign Office. No members of the British royal family were present.
²
Eschewing the theatre as usual, Thomas had not attended the inauguration of the lavish new opera house, a replica of La Scala in Milan with Oriental additions, such as boxes screened with fretworked wood for the Khedive’s harem. Here on 1 November the lush velvet curtains opened Verdi’s
Rigoletto
, based on Victor Hugo’s
Le Roi s’amuse
. Despite its lavish Egyptian spectacle, Verdi’s later opera
Aida
had no direct connection with the opening of the canal. The work was commissioned in 1870 and first performed at the Cairo opera house in 1871.

Thomas enjoyed the attention given to him and other British businessmen at the ceremonies because of the absence of any famous or distinguished British visitors at the ceremonies. Even though he was well aware of the commercial benefits of semi-official status at such events, the consequences were beyond his wildest dreams. The following year, Thomas Cook & Son were appointed agent for Nile passenger traffic by the Khedive. This not only enabled Thomas to get a firm foothold in Egypt thirteen years before the British controlled the country, but soon the Khedive granted him the exclusive control over all passenger steamboat traffic on the Nile as far as the first and second cataracts. In return, the Cooks had to take risks. For instance, they were obliged to invest in rented steamers, owned by the Khedive, and also to undertake the management of the service at their own expense. After visiting the Pyramids and the Sphinx, tourists would float down the Nile on a luxury
dahabieh
between Cairo and Aswan listening to one of the specially recruited ‘experts’ telling the history of the monuments. And all this began just seven years after moving into Great Russell Street and living across the road from the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities on show outside Egypt.

N
either Thomas nor his son would ever have contemplated becoming a soldier, but in 1870 both would be within earshot of the guns, less than half a mile from the front lines of the Franco-Prussian war and the siege of Paris. The initial cause of the war, like so many, seemed trivial. The Spanish throne was vacant because Queen Isabella had been driven out during the 1868 revolution. Prince Leopold Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens
¹
was put forward as a candidate, but, in response to France contesting his candidature, had withdrawn his name. France then accused Bismarck of waving ‘the red flag before the Gallic bull’
²
by drafting a telegram sent in the name of the King of Prussia, which offended France. Sensing political intrigue by Bismarck behind the move, France, seeing a German prince in Spain as a threat to the balance of power, requested confirmation that the prince would not attempt to take the throne again.

In Paris crowds in the boulevards, responding to the recent anti-German propaganda and the depressed economy, started singing the
Marseillaise
and shouting ‘
A Berlin! A Berlin!
’ People at last had something on which they could vent their anger. War fever gripped the nation. The empress was eager for battle, and the generals confident of victory.
³
On 19 July 1870, Napoleon III started moving troops to the border. So did the Prussians. So great were the numbers of soldiers in Berlin marching to railway stations that the city resounded with the beat of their boots. Troops, closely packed in cattle trucks, with tents, food, water, guns and ammunition, sped to Metz. Others joined at stations on the Leipzig–Dresden line.

In Germany over 1 million troops were on the move with 462,000 being transported to France by train. Railways had been used for war in Crimea, but these men were the first European troops who never had to march to battle. Observers said that travelling to the front by train instead of on foot allowed soldiers to conserve their energy for fighting. Trains also meant that men could be more easily supplied with food and bullets.
⁴

Troop movements were disrupting and causing chaos to passenger services on the continent. Tourists everywhere from Oberammergau
⁵
to Paris panicked. The British rushed home, packing ferries crossing the English Channel. Some, though, hurried in the other direction. Undeterred either by press censure, or by reminders that some spectators at the Crimean war had been killed, John Mason was about to escort a group of men close to the front.

On 30 August, Napoleon travelled by train to Sedan, a fortified town in northern France close to the Belgian border and about 120 miles north-east of Paris. At dawn the next day, 2 September, the Bavarians attacked and the disastrous Battle of Sedan began. French loses were so high that by mid-afternoon Napoleon hoisted a white flag and surrendered to Prussian forces, ending his shaky empire and his twenty-two years in power. France was now a republic-in-waiting. Once it was known that Prussia coveted Alsace-Lorraine, the French would not cede an inch of their native soil. The Parisians, too, like the soldiers at the front, refused to give in to either the Emperor or the Prussians. As the fighting continued, newspapers carried the headline ‘
Chute de l’Empire!
’ Rebellion broke out in Paris.

Thomas himself wrote little about tourism on the fringes of war, but the
Observer
of 4 September 1870 – six days before Eugenie, accompanied by her American dentist, arrived as a refugee at Hastings – criticised him for his ‘doubtful taste’ in escorting tourists down the Rhine on a steamer
en route
from Frankfurt. The Prussian advance from the east forced the main French armies, about 150,000 strong, to encamp at Châlons. John Mason, though, was nearer to the action than Thomas – probably as close as half a mile to the fortress of Metz where the other main French army was beaten. Most of the French professional soldiers were stationed in Metz, but John Mason departed before the Germans started their siege there on 19 August, only to travel to the edges of another besieged area, Paris, to find that Thomas had got there first.