# With the Children of Israel explained — Travel Essays

> Chapter companion for Travel Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson.

## What happens

The narrator describes the Kelmar family, Russian Jewish storekeepers who dominate the local economy through credit and debt, and recounts a Sunday excursion with them to sell ship's kettles to settlers. The journey is marked by numerous delays and stops, revealing the Kelmars' business methods and the narrator's growing understanding of their role as 'village usurers.' The chapter also reflects on deserted mining towns in California and the dependence of settlers on merchants like Kelmar.

## Themes in this chapter

### Social Class and Inequality

Explores the power dynamics between the Kelmars and the settlers, who are trapped in debt and servitude, highlighting economic tyranny.

### Human Connection and Community

Depicts the warmth and hospitality of the Kelmar family and the settlers, despite underlying economic exploitation, and the narrator's affection for them.

### Travel and Discovery

The narrator's journey with the Kelmars reveals the hidden economic structures of rural California and the contrasts between memory and foreign landscapes.

## Character check-ins

### Mr. Kelmar

The Russian Jewish storekeeper and central figure of the chapter, described as good-natured but a tyrant over the rural population through credit and debt.

### Abramina

A Hebrew woman traveling with the Kelmars, noted for her simplicity and engaging nature, and for her story about swearing an oath not to misuse passage money.

### Fanny

The narrator's companion, who suffers from hunger and delays during the excursion with the Kelmars.

### Mr. Corwin

Mentioned as 'Corwin the bold' who falls in the bar, part of the scene where Kelmar triumphs and the last kettle is sold.

### Mrs. Hanson

Not directly appearing but referenced as part of the 'Happy Hansons' who host the Kelmars during their Sunday outing.

## Key lines

> If I had ever doubted the purity of Kelmar's motives, if I had ever suspected him of a single eye to business in his eternal dallyings, now at least, when the last kettle was disposed of, my suspicions must have been allayed.

The narrator sarcastically suggests that Kelmar's constant delays were purely for business, as shown by the sale of the last kettle.

_Highlights the narrator's ironic realization of Kelmar's manipulative business tactics._

> The village usurer is not so sad a feature of humanity and human progress as the millionaire manufacturer, fattening on the toil and loss of thousands, and yet declaiming from the platform against the greed and dishonesty of landlords.

The narrator argues that small-scale usury is no worse than the exploitation by wealthy industrialists who hypocritically criticize landlords.

_Reflects the narrator's moral relativism about economic exploitation._

> There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and now and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth.

The traveler carries their own memories and contrasts, making the foreignness come from within rather than the place itself.

_Philosophical reflection on travel and memory._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se/chapters/with-the-children-of-israel
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se/chapters