"The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp is fascinating reading and we can only hope for future volumes detailing his later itinerant travels to far away places and foreign climes."

--The Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review

--Boat Books UK

--Kew Books

We also recommend:
A Beachcomber in the Orient by Harry L. Foster
The Confessions of a Beachcomber by E.J. Banfield
A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe by John MacGregor
Down the Columbia by Lewis R. Freeman

The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp is the first travel narrative written by Harry La Tourette Foster, a veteran of World War One who really couldn't "go back down on the farm" after he had seen Parie. Gripped by a impulse to adventure, Foster spent most of his life after the war wandering the main roads and back roads of the world, first in Mexico and South America, then later in Asia, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean.

This first book, however, is a splendid narrative of an average man turned adventurer. The plucky and resourceful Foster finds himself a shoe clerk in Panama after working his way through Mexico following his discharge from the army. But clerking is much too tame for Foster.

Taking his last few pesos, he books "steerage" on a tramp steamer bound for Peru, and lands there with but two pennies in his pocket. Taken under the wing of a "tropical tramp," one of a breed of men that wandered the tropics in search of fortune and work in the aftermath of the war, Foster learns to support himself by taking odd jobs, first as a mining clerk in the high Andes, then as reporter for a Lima paper which gives him access to much of the interesting life of the region. Subsequently, he fills his time as war correspondent "without a war," and then diplomatic attache, a position that brings him into contact with the highest--and lowest--of ex-patriot society.

Finally bored, he joins two missionaries and helps them trek overland to the headwaters of the Amazon, and then joins them on an adventure-filled journey down the tributaries to the Amazon itself. Finding himself penniless again in a dilapidated outpost of colonialism, he takes a step that becomes a trademark of his travels--playing ragtime piano in the sleaziest of bars until he earns his passage home to New York.

Foster's observations understate his resiliance and courage. His prose flows easily between stories of the characters he meets and descriptions of the places where he works or visits. If you want a window into the reality and excitement of true adventure during the early part of the 20th Century, this is the book to start with.

About the Author

Harry La Tourette Foster was born in Brooklyn in Oct. 31, 1894, the son of Alonzo Foster and Mary Emily La Tourette. He went to prep school at the Newton Academy in New Jersey, and then attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. While still in college, though, he joined the 1st R.O.T.C. at the Madison Barracks in New York (1917), and after graduation was commissioned as a 2nd Lt., infantry, and sent to serve with the 78th Division in France.

Foster's level head and courage quickly got him promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and he became an instructor in modern warfare. His last posting took him to the Mexican border in 1918 to serve with the the 25th U.S. Infantry. When he was discharged in 1919, he worked his way down through Mexico and Central America until he reached Panama. From there he worked his way through parts of South America, detailing his travels and exploits in The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp

For the next decade, Foster stayed on the go despite catching malaria while he was traveling in Asia. He was prolific, publishing regular magazine and newspaper articles as well as book after book of adventure travel, including A Beachcomber in the Orient (1923); A Gringo in Manana-Land (1924); and A Tropical Tramp with the Tourists (1925).

In between his frequent trips, Foster would return to New York for a few weeks or a few months, and it was on one of these longer stays in 1925-1926 that he co-authored his only theater drama, Savages Under the Skin produced in 1927. During that extended stay, he also edited a guidebook to South America.

But "wanderlust" always seemed to grip Foster as these visits lengthened, and he was soon off again to new tropical venues, producing A Vagabond in Fiji in 1927; Combing the Caribbees (1929); and A Vagabond in the Barbary (1930).

Although his books are written with almost a moralistic tone, there is no doubt that Harry Foster was an expert on the red light districts of every country he visited, often working in dives as a piano player (a skill he apparently learned at Newton) and that he may have taken the dictum of "work hard, play harder" as his personal goal.

What shouldn't be overlooked, however, is the incomparable picture of everyday people in a post-war world that Foster's travelogues present. Although he allows little of his own character to be available to the reader, he paints generous and interesting portraits of the people he meets and the places he visits. The life of hard travel caught up with Harry Foster, though, and he died, unmarried, at just age 36. In those 36 years, however, he logged enough adventure for three lifetimes.

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About the Book

Title: The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp
Author: Harry L. Foster
Publisher: Dixon-Price Publishing
Mechanicals: 6x9 - trade paperback
ISBN: 1-929516-16-9
Price: U.S. $17.99

Mechanicals: downloadable pdf - ebook
ISBN: 1-929516-11-8
Price: U.S. $6.99

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