Around the World on a Bicycle Volume I (1887)

Thomas Stevens's travel book recounts the first leg of his bicycle journey from San Francisco toward Persia. (Open Library)

Watches

Waterbury watch: Stevens repeatedly shows his Waterbury watch while traveling through Asia Minor, noting that its loud tick impresses local onlookers and makes the cheap American watch seem unusually robust.

Source text: The loud, confident tone in which the Waterbury ticks impresses the natives very favorably toward it, and the fact of its not opening at the back like other time-pieces, creates the impression that it is a watch that never gets cranky and out of order; quite different from the ones they carry, since their curiosity leads them to be always fooling with the works. (Project Gutenberg ebook 5136)