This edition is fully illustrated with the original drawings by F.S. Coburn. "There is no romance to us quite equal to one of Bayard Taylor's books of travel. Fact, under his wonderful pen, is more charming than Fiction."
-Hartford Republican Bayard Taylor, as a young poet, spent a happy time in roaming through certain districts of England, France, Germany and Italy; that he was a born traveller is evident from the fact that this pedestrian tour of almost two years cost him only £100. The graphic accounts which he sent from Europe to The New York Tribune, The Saturday Evening Post, and The United States Gazette were so highly appreciated that on Taylor's return to America he was advised to throw his articles into book form. In 1846, accordingly, appeared his Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff. His next journey, made when the gold-fever was at its height, was to California, as correspondent for the Tribune; from this expedition he returned by way of Mexico, and, seeing his opportunity, published a highly successful book of travels, entitled El Dorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire. He published Boys of Other Countries about some of the young friends he met along the way.