James Augustus St. John

“ Yet, says the traveller, such cordial pleasures are inherent in society, that though pent up in a dark hovel, which afforded but a flimsy shelter against the mounds of snow furiously hurled against it, our good-humour with each other and an ample supply of firing produced cheerfulness and content. A Persian of more than ordinary education, and who possessed a taste for poetry, amused them with reading Jami’s story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which, for its scenes of wondrously pathetic adventure, and the luxuriant genius of the poet, is admirably calculated to soften the rigour of a winter’s day. ”

“ Hasselquist could not, of course, omit while at Cairo to visit the pyramids. The country about Gizeh, to which he proceeded by water, was so fertile and so admirably cultivated, that it was an object of perpetual admiration; and in winter the whole of this part of Egypt appears, when contemplated from an eminence, to be nothing but one vast sea of verdure, extending in every direction farther than the eye can reach. ”

“ It has often been remarked, that the interest of a book of travels arises not so much from the newness and strangeness of the objects described, as from the peculiar light which is reflected upon them from the mind of the traveller. This fact is strikingly exemplified in the case of Lady Mary, who, though journeying through places often visited, throws so much of energy and vivacity, and frequently of novelty, into her concise yet minute sketches, that we never pause to inquire whether the objects delineated now come before us for the first time or not. ”

“ Though there was a beautiful moonlight, so thick a cloud of dust arose from the houses which had fallen down, or were still falling all around, that it was impossible to discern any object at the distance of ten paces; and from amid this dense canopy, which hung suspended over the whole city, shrieks, groans, and sobs, wild lamentations for the dead, the moans of the crushed and wounded, yells of agony, and exclamations of terror were heard on all sides. Humanity, however, in the midst of this awful scene was busy at the work of salvation. ”

“ To the young mind which makes companions of its own dream, solitude is sweet, as it favours their growth, and throws a gorgeous mantle over their deformities. Our young traveller seems to have early conceived the design of achieving a reputation, and in the mean while, until he should have made the first step, and acquired the right to exact some degree of consideration among mankind, the dim forest, or the lonely river, was a more agreeable associate in his mind than any of those two-legged animals with which a residence at college daily brought him into contact. ”

“ He was thus employed when the canoe approached Bellows Falls. The noise of the waters rushing with impetuous velocity through their narrow channel between the rocks, roused him to a sense of his danger, fortunately, in time to enable him by the strenuous use of his paddles to reach the shore. His canoe was dragged round the fall by the kindness of the good people of the neighbourhood, who were amazed at the boldness and novelty of his enterprise, and again safely launched upon the waters below. No further account is given of this singular voyage. ”

“ Ledyard and his Hibernian companion begged by turns, and in this way reached London, where they separated, each to cherish his poverty in a different nook.
Hunger, which has a kind of predilection for great cities, seems to sharpen the sight as well as the wits of men; for, amid the vast throng of equipages which jostle and almost hide each other in the streets of London, Ledyard’s eye caught the family name upon a carriage; and he learned from the coachman the profession and address of the owner, who was a rich merchant. ”

“ One of the greatest ornaments of the gardens in the environs of Smyrna, which are enclosed by hedges of willows planted along the brink of a ditch, is a species of ivy, which, when it finds a proper support, bends round into arches, or hangs from tree to tree in festoons, in so rich and beautiful a manner, that Hasselquist, who seems to have had a high notion of royalty, thought it ought to have adorned the garden of a king. Nature, however, is no respecter of persons. Kings or no kings, Turks, Jews, and gentiles are all one to her. ”

“ Within the same degrees of latitude, pursuing our researches round the globe, we have black men and white; cannibals, and races remarkable for humanity; men so gross in their intellects that they retain nothing of man but the shape, and others with a character and genius so admirably adapted to receive the impressions of laws and civilization, that they turn every natural or accidental advantage of their position to the greatest account, and run on in the career of improvement with gigantic strides. ”

“ Having reached Pamper, our traveller embarked in a boat on the Jylum, and proceeded by water to the city of Serinagur, which, with its houses covered with parterres of beautiful flowers, possesses at a distance a splendid and imposing aspect, answering in some degree to the idea which the historians of the flourishing days of India have given of it. But on entering the streets the illusion is quickly dissipated. Slaves are invariably filthy in their habits, and the people of Kashmere are now the slaves of the Afghans. ”

“ On arriving in the neighbourhood of the pyramids, he was hospitably entertained by an Arab sheikh, who was encamped there with his tribe. Two kids were slain, and reduced to an admirable pilau; and with a rough board for a table, a rush mat for a table-cloth, and their fingers for spoons, the whole party made a frugal but wholesome supper. It is necessary, says our traveller, that in such cases we should accommodate ourselves to the ways of the people, which if we do, there is no nation upon earth among whom we shall find so much friendship, frankness, and benevolence as the Arabs. ”

“ Here the orange, the pomegranate, the fig-tree, the olive, the palm, and the cypress intermingled their foliage; and it would, perhaps, be necessary to have imbibed something of the tastes of a naturalist to conceive the pleasure with which our traveller, to whom most of them were new, beheld them put forth their blossoms, or otherwise manifest their being under the influence of spring. ”

“ The view from the fort of Bijjighur, where he arrived next day, is highly diversified and magnificent; but when you throw the eye on the deep and rugged precipice beneath, the prospect is infinitely grand, though not divested of that horror which naturally affects the mind when contemplating objects from so abrupt a height. The rising and setting sun here exhibits a magnificent scene, and excites a train of ideas strongly impressed with a grateful admiration of the First Cause of nature. ”

“ As they proceeded, indeed, a few patches of coarse grass, with small groves of acacia, met and refreshed the eye. On the 14th of November they halted in a small hollow, called Waadi-el-Halboub, and “were here at once surprised and terrified,” says Bruce, “by a sight surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from west and to north-west of us we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness. ”

“ With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry I drank the sweet draught, and if hungry ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish. ”

“ Men, goaded on by the sting of affection, rushed desperately in between the threatening ruins in search of the objects of their love,—their wives, their parents, their children,—and returned, some joyously with their living friends in their arms, others with livid and ghastly looks bearing the corpses of those in whom all their earthly happiness had centred. ”

“ But the chief glory of Kashmere is its rose, of all the vegetable world the most exquisite production, unrivalled for its brilliancy and delicacy of odour, and yielding an essential oil, or attar, in comparison with which all other perfumes are as dross. The season when the rose first opens into blossom is celebrated as a festival by the inhabitants of the valley, who, repairing in crowds to the surrounding gardens, give loose to their passions, and riot in every species of licentious rejoicing. ”

“ After groping about for an hour and a half by torchlight through those mysterious chambers sacred to the generative power of nature, of which beauty has always been one of the principal symbols, from the sting which its appearance infixes in the human soul, he issued forth filled with enthusiasm, under the influence of which he attempted to climb up to the apex of the temple. ”

“ While they were lying on the shore awaiting the reply of the governor of Astrabad to Hanway’s application for protection, they beheld the forests on the neighbouring mountains on fire, and the wind blowing with violence prodigiously increased the force of the flames, which, blazing aloft in the darkness of the night, exhibited a magnificent but terrific appearance. ”

“ Though the principal object of Pococke’s travels, perhaps, was the examination of antiquities, and the illustration of ancient geography, he very wisely extended his researches to the modern condition of the country, and the manners of its actual inhabitants. He visited the convents of dervishes and monks, the cells of hermits, the cemeteries of Turks, Jews, and Christians, and observed with care the character and costume of every class of the population, from the sovereign bey to the houseless courtesan, who, like Tamar in the Bible, sat by the wayside to inveigle passengers. ”

“ He seemed everywhere to discover proofs of the vast influence of climate in rendering men what they are, morally as well as physically; though he could not be ignorant that while the climate of Greece and Italy remains what it was in old times, the physiognomy of the inhabitants has undergone an entire change, while their moral condition is, if possible, deteriorated still more than their features. The mind of man seems, in fact, after having borne an extraordinary crop of virtues, knowledge, and heroic deeds, to require, like the earth, to lie fallow for a season. ”

“ The most favourable time for observing the performances of these singular people is in the month of July, when the violent heat of summer hatches myriads of serpents, scorpions, lizards, and every abominable reptile among the sands of Egypt, and sends them forth rejoicing in the vigour of their youth and the potency of their virgin poisons. ”

“ He is lost in the immense expanse of desert which he sees full of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees, he becomes dispirited from the effect of sultry climates, shrinks from attempting any discovery in the moving sands of the Saccara, and embraces in safety and in quiet the reports of others, who, he thinks, may have been more inquisitive and more adventurous than himself. ”

“ From Solekampsky they proceeded to the Oural Mountains, which divide Russia from Siberia. These are covered in all directions by vast forests, excepting in a few valleys where they have been felled by man, where our traveller found the landscape beautiful even in the depth of winter. On descending their eastern slope into the plains, a milder prospect, woods, villages, cornfields, and meadows, met the eye; but winter still reigned over all, binding up the streams, whirling his snow-drifts over the plain, or clothing the forests with frost and icicles. ”

“ The world itself would be a dull panorama without man. It is only as the scene of his actions, passions, sufferings, glory, or shame, that its various regions possess any lasting interest for us. Where great men have lived or died, there are poetry, romance,—every thing that can excite the feelings or elevate the mind. ”

“ The views and feelings of savages are not easily comprehended, and it is seldom that those who enjoy opportunities of observing them possess the genius to divine, from a few flitting and often constrained manifestations of them, the secret temper of the soul.
During their stay at this island one of the mariners formed an attachment for a young female cannibal; and, in order to wind himself the more effectually into her affections, he secretly caused himself to be tattooed, resolving, when the ships should sail, to make his escape, and relapse into the savage state with his mistress. ”

“ A multitude of human beings standing in darkness, fearful that the earth would open beneath their feet and ingulf them; not daring to fly, lest they should tumble into chasms already formed around them; incapable of aiding each other; a prey to every terrible idea, to every horrible foreboding. But at length the earth became still, and while the inhabitants were preparing to bury their dead, our traveller obtained horses and fled away from the city. ”

“ Of antiquities, the peculiar objects of our traveller’s researches, it could boast but few specimens, though his practised eye discerned upon the tower of the great mosque several broken inscriptions, the letters of which, however, were either so inverted or filled up with lime and whitewash, that nothing could be made of them.
The environs are remarkable for their beauty, consisting of a rapid succession of hills and valleys, sprinkled with gardens and villas, to which the more wealthy among the citizens retire during the heats of summer. ”