Roland Burrage Dixon

“ Quite apart, moreover, from any or all of these things, desirable as they are, is the pleasure of travel in and for itself. It has been already pointed out that this is for some the main, and for many at least an important if unadmitted, motive. To the real traveler there is no joy which is keener, no pleasure more lasting, no call more imperious, than that of travel. There is fatigue, hardship, perhaps suffering, to be endured—for him this is of small moment, for they will soon pass ”

“ THE MOTIVE OF CONQUEST
A different force, but one which has at all times been effective, is that of war or conquest. To the explorer enrichment of experience, not increase of possessions, is the aim; he does not care to whom the world belongs if only he may be free to travel therein. The conqueror, however, demands possession, and the lust for it and for revenge has, in the case of savage and civilized alike, led men into distant lands and among strange people. ”

“ Travel is then, as we have seen, as old as the human race, and of travelers there are and have been many kinds, according to the motives which induced them to fare forth. The records of these many travelers form a body of literature whose interest is undying, for besides the facts which they have gathered, and the additions to our knowledge which they have made, they give us often a clear and vivid picture of the character of the travelers themselves, their courage in the face of danger, their patience in overcoming every kind of obstacle ”

“ Such a hasty glance at the history of travel from earliest times can do little more than suggest the vastness and the interest of the field. In so wide a prospect only the larger features of the landscape can be seen, and if we have, so to speak, had only glimpses of the higher mountain peaks, it does not follow that there is less of interest in the valleys that nestle at their feet. We have of necessity considered only the great travelers, the great journeys, but those more humble and of lesser compass are not therefore to be despised. ”

“ Perhaps the most characteristic feature of travel during this time was the prominence of the religious motive, for the travelers were largely pilgrims and missionaries, or, toward the latter end, those who, making religion their war cry, journeyed as Crusaders to wrest Jerusalem from the Saracen. The pilgrim, as already pointed out, was, although a traveler, usually an unobservant one; his interest was centered in his goal and in the spiritual benefits which were to accrue from his long and perilous journey, so that for the incidents of the day he had little care. ”

“ The light that led them was, however, not alone the cold flame of ideal science, although for many this may indeed have burned with pale but steady glow; for them, perhaps as much as for any men, it was the fiercer flame which burns in the hearts of all true explorers, for whom the doing is more than the deed, who go because in very truth they must. ”

“ THE MOTIVE OF RELIGION
Another very potent incentive to travel has been religion. From its influence have developed the pilgrim and the missionary, types which have furnished some of the greatest travelers of historic times. Pilgrims, led by the desire to visit the holy places of their faith, often undertake journeys of great length and difficulty. Singly or in companiesthey traverse their hundreds or thousands of miles, their eyes fixed always on the distant goal, and too absorbed in anticipation of the things to be to take notice of the things about them as they go. ”

“ So they have journeyed and still journey in their thousands, century after century; in early times from China and other parts of Asia to the sacred places of India; from the uttermost parts of Europe to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages; from every corner of the Mohammedan world to Mecca to-day. Each and all are seeking for salvation, for all the reward is of the spirit; we may not blame them, therefore, that they do not heed the world through which they pass.
In one sense pilgrim travel may be said to be centripetal, in that it draws the traveler by known roads to some great center of his faith ”

“ He may play consciously the part which for the traveler memory plays unconsciously, and from the mass of experience select and hold only the best. For him thus the patience, the heroism, and the indomitable perseverance revealed in the lives and deeds of great travelers may serve as an inspiration; and from their description of the wonder and the beauty of the world he may gain some understanding of and sympathy with those who have in all ages set their faces toward the unseen ”

“ Travel away from the beaten track or exploration in untraveled regions is still and of necessity slow compared with what it is in civilized lands, but the traveler and explorer in remote places to-day has at least this inestimable advantage, that he is able to reach quickly and easily the actual point of departure into the unknown. ”

“ Of such more modest travelers, whose little journeys lay in narrower fields, there are a host; and from the best, with their intimate local knowledge, their keen and critical observations, their sympathetic descriptions, we may gain great pleasure and be stimulated perhaps to make all the use possible of the opportunities which come to us to see more thoroughly and with a more observing eye the country and the people round about. ”

“ Journeying to India from northern China to visit the places made holy by the life and death of Gautama, the Buddha, and to consult and copy some of the sacred writings, they have left us records which are not only of the greatest interest as stories of travel, but which are of quite inestimable value as giving practically the only information to be had in regard to the condition of India and the life of its people at this time. ”

“ During the long period in which human civilization has been developing it is clear, moreover, that in the shifting of populations, which has constantly been going on, the same areas have thus been explored again and again, now by this people, now by that. Of these countless travels and travelers, little definite trace of course remains, and it is only with the beginning of the historic period that records of travel become available. ”

“ One after another the great nations of the world have taken up the task, until to-day the volume of scientific travel is immense. Darwin's famous voyage in the Beagle, [12] and Wallace's years of travel in the East Indies have revolutionized much of the science of our times, and show how great may be the outcome of travel when directed toward a purely ideal end. As part and parcel of this growth of science as an inspiration to travel, we have the splendid records of the search for the Poles. ”

“ With the beginning of the seventeenth century France supplies the names of many who deserve to rank among the great travelers of all time. Champlain, La Salle, Marquette, Verendrye, and many others both lay and cleric, were the pioneers in the exploration of New France, and the story of their journeys and lives forms a record of which any traveler might well be proud. ”

“ This primitive travel was moreover in the truest sense exploration, for these travelers were the first to penetrate into lands wholly unknown and previously untrodden by the feet of man. Once the greater part of the world was overrun, however, the need for travel was by no means at an end. Intensive exploration in the search for the best hunting grounds and fishing places, or, with the advent of agriculture, for suitable and fertile soils, must have continued for generations. ”

“ Great as has been the influence of conquest and religion upon travel, a greater impulse and one leading to even wider results has been that of trade and commerce. In earlier times in search of foreign commodities and products, in modern days of new markets to which to export the products of home manufacture, men have penetrated to the ends of the earth, and to this commercial impulse is attributable most of the great travels and explorations from the thirteenth century to the beginning of modern scientific exploration at the end of the eighteenth. ”

“ The radius of travel of a single individual in such a tribe may, as for example in the case of certain Eskimos, reach as much as a thousand miles. But such extensive wanderings are, on the whole, rare among savage peoples, and we may well admire the courage and skill of those old Polynesian travelers who, according to tradition, dared in their small canoes to push their search for new lands far to the south beyond their sunny seas, until they reached the fogs and drift ice of the Antarctic. ”

“ No one can read the records of the travelers of different periods without being struck by the differences in the character and method of travel which they reveal. Although reference to the comfort, the rapidity, and the safety of modern travel, at least along the great highways of the civilized world, is a commonplace, yet the contrast of the present conditions with those that formerly obtained is none the less noteworthy. ”

“ Be that as it may, it seems certain that the first spread of the human race over the face of the globe must have been preceded by more or less conscious exploration and travel. As population grew and began to press upon the food supply and available hunting grounds, and the need for expansion and emigration was recognized, the relative availability and attractiveness of the country in different directions must have been investigated, and movement have taken place toward the most favorable. ”

“ Dependent for guidance frequently on the information of suspicious or unfriendly folk, they often went astray, and lacking regular or direct means of communication, they had often to journey by very roundabout routes to reach their goal. To-day the conditions have vastly changed. The lonely traveler or the elaborately organized expedition alike are spared much of the hardship and danger, and both may secure all sorts of cunningly devised special equipment and supplies, which not only add enormously to comfort and safety, but to the certainty of success. ”

“ To seek for knowledge for its own sake, to be fired with the desire to extend, if only by a little, the limits of the known, is not wholly a modern trait; but before this could be in large measure an important factor, the extraordinary widening and development of scientific interest characteristic of the last century and a half was necessary. ”

“ A wider tolerance, a juster appreciation of the real values in life, a deeper realization of the oneness of mankind, and a growing wonder at the magnitude of the achievements of the race—these are some of the results which travel rightly pursued cannot fail to produce. ”

“ To the merchant traveler, even more than to the missionary, observation of the country and its products, its peoples and their needs, is important. The easiest and safest roads by which his merchandise may be transported, new materials, new sources, new markets, are the basis of his success ”

“ Here the goal was also an ideal, the price was shorn of any practical value, and trade and commercial motives were wholly barred; yet generation after generation men strove against tremendous odds, and faced suffering and death a thousand times in their attempts to reach these, the last strongholds of the unknown. ”

“ Each has, however, contributed to the advance of the other, and the vast additions to knowledge gained by scientific exploration have in large degree provided the materials from which the present structure of science has been built. As once for religion, so now for science men plunge into the unknown ”

“ We have thus a case in which the religious impulse, combined with that of conquest, impelled many to travel, and also prepared the way for a host of others whose journeyings would not have been made had not the former paved the way. ”

“ There may be few indeed for whom no other motives enter, but it is nevertheless true that for most great travelers, however much they may deceive themselves into thinking that they follow other and, as they believe, higher calls, it is the master motive. ”

“ Others followed, part diplomat, part missionary, such as Rubruquis, and as a result Europe for the first time began to realize the greatness and the wealth of this kingdom of Cathay. Merchants and traders were not slow to respond, and as Venice was then the leader in the eastern trade, it was not unnatural that her merchants should attempt to make use of the route to this rich market made known by the papal envoys. It was under these circumstances, then, that Marco Polo began his famous travels toward the end of the century. ”

“ This would, of course, not hold true where movement was due to war or the pressure of conquest, but much of this earliest movement of peoples must have been largely voluntary. Travel has thus in these primitive scouts and explorers its earliest exponents, and the history of travel is seen to be as old as the race. ”

“ We cannot all be travelers; there are many who must be content to do their traveling in an arm chair. Rightly read, however, the records of others' journeys may bring to the reader much not only of value but of pleasure. ”

“ Here they first reached Iceland, then Greenland, and at last in the eleventh century the northern shores of America. In the sagas the records of many of these voyages are preserved, and in the Saga of Eric the Red [5] we have the first account, albeit a meager one, of the New World.
Following close upon this activity of the Norsemen in the north of Europe there begins a new period, in which there is a great revival of interest in travel among the nations farther south. ”