Traveller

“ These things are left behind, as the traveller leaves the mire and stones of the road he travels, and shakes off the dust of his garments as he approaches some queenly city, throned amid the hills, and looks back with sorrow on the crooked way he has traversed, where others still drag their slow and lingering length along. ”

“ The traveller—foot-sore, feverish, and satiated with glacier and precipice,—lies back in the corner of the diligence, perceiving little more than that the road is winding and hilly, and the country through which it passes, cultivated and tame. ”

“ The imagination of a traveller, if as susceptible as a traveller's imagination should be, has thus a constant food for its exercise; it accompanies these several groups to their home or destination, and calls before its view the busy market, the quiet village, the blazing hearth, the returning husband, and the welcoming wife. No man is fit for a traveller who cannot while away his time in such creations of his fancy. I pity the traveller from my heart, who in a barren or uniform road, has no other occupation but to count the mile-stones, and find every mile as long as the three preceding. ”

“ How much do a traveller's impressions depend upon the weather, and even on the time of day in which he sees objects. He sees most of the country through which he travels but once, and it is the face which any point assumes at that one moment which is brought to his recollection. ”

“ A traveller on foot in this country seems to be considered as a sort of wild man or out-of-the way being, who is stared at, pitied, suspected, and shunned by everybody that meets him. ”

“ No "maid and valet affectionate in the rumble." All the pomp and circumstance, all the ease and calm, of Travel have vanished, and with them all sense of independence and [206] responsibility. The modern traveller is shot like a bullet through a tunnel, or hauled like a parcel up a hill. He certainly sees the world at very little cost, but he sees it under wonderfully uncomfortable conditions. ”

“ A journey being so great an affair, the traveller was of course a marked man, and his arrival at an ordinary was the signal for the gathering of all who could crowd in to hear of his adventures, and also to hear the public and private news of which he might be the bearer. ”

“ Then remembering how the traditional maxims and methods of travelling in each country differ from those of others, and how every traveller discovers some useful contrivances for himself, it appeared to me, that I should do welcome service to all who have to rough it--whether explorers, emigrants, missionaries or soldiers,*--by collecting the scattered experiences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." ”

“ Thousands of foot-passengers, crowds of pilgrims, long rows of coolies, oxen and horses bearing heavy burdens meet the traveller, who during frequent rests at the foot of the steep slopes has an opportunity of studying the variegated life of the people. ”

“ Rarely does a traveller climb the heights that stand between those settlements and the higher civilization of the plains and cities, but the few who push their adventurous way into those uninviting regions find themselves suddenly carried back into life and times of which we read now-a-days as if in the pages of romance. ”

“ An attentive examination of the works of travellers of all ages and countries has at length created a contrary conviction in my mind. In a judicious personal narrative the traveller is but one interlocutor in a drama exhibiting innumerable characters and a perpetually changing scene. ”

“ The raw traveller not only sees something mysterious, picturesque, or classical in every object that meets his eye after passing the frontier, from the children's toys to palaces and general festivals, but is apt to discern wisdom and solemnity in everything that is said to him, from the greeting of the landlord to the speculations of the politician. ”

“ And here may follow a few more remarks of theirs, chosen as suggestive of the characteristics of sixteenth-century travel in so far as it differs from our own, not neglecting proverbs:—
A traveller has need of a falcon's eye, an ass's ears, a monkey's face, a merchant's words, a camel's back, a hog's mouth, a deer's feet. And [59] the traveller to Rome—the back of an ass, the belly of a hog, and a conscience as broad as the king's highway. ”

“ It is a remark which I have frequently made during the composition of these Lives, that when an original-minded traveller directs his course through a well known but interesting country, we follow his track and peruse his observations with perhaps still greater pleasure than we should feel had he journeyed through an entirely new region. ”

“ A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an expedition in which natural history is one of his leading objects, flatters himself with the thoughts of shears or curved blades fastened to long poles, with which he imagines he will be able to reach and cut down whatever he desires ”

“ Of course the deeply inquiring traveller will alight as promptly as possible; for the pleasure of climbing into this queerest of cities on foot is not the least part of the entertainment of going there. ”

“ Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. ”

“ The intelligent traveller, however, must not anticipate an excursion as destitute of interest and variety as the surface of the country which he is about to traverse, for like the shabby mien of the miser, its aspect but ill accords with its hoards ”

“ At whatever hour the traveller proposes to continue his journey, he is sure to find his horses and his breakfast ready for him, with warm demonstrations of friendship and invitations to come again, should he return by the same road. ”

“ The traveller that resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hours of day-light in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages. ”

“ Now, while journeys, whether on land or sea, are apt to be but tiresome businesses when they are undertaken at the call of some tedious errand, they are vastly different affairs when they conduct the traveller to joyful places and delectable pursuits. ”

“ When a tourist who, having mapped out his itinerary in accordance with the time at his disposal for a European trip, arrives at a city for seeing which he has allowed two or three days at the utmost, the first question he puts to a fellow traveller, the hotel clerk, or his Baedeker is, "What must I see?" ”

“ But exactly the things that do strike the traveller as extraordinary are the ordinary things, the food, the clothes, the vehicles; the strange things are cosmopolitan, the common things are national and peculiar. ”

“ The tarriers at home can little realize the many disagreeable offsets to the pleasure one derives from visiting foreign lands; while the traveller learns, by a painful daily experience, to appreciate all the little conveniences and proprieties, as well as the thousand substantial comforts of home. ”

“ The traveller, accordingly, was a sacred being in the eyes of all people. They greeted his arrival with respect, and resorted to him for news of other countries, and of the general progress of humanity. At present, if the traveller has not sufficient means of his own, he must become either a beggar, a thief, or a strolling player. ”

“ When a traveller arrives, he rides in without question or inquiry, turns his horse to his provender, spreads his carpet beside him for himself, sups on whatever he brings with him, sleeps where he eats, on the floor, and departs the next morning without payment. ”

“ Every traveller on his first arrival at a large place of any interest, and where his time is limited, must have experienced a difficulty in classing and forming, as it were, into a mental map, the various objects around him, and in familiarizing his eye with the relative position of the most striking features. ”

“ There is nothing in the traveller’s rapid transit by the straightest route, through the lowest passes, across the outskirts of nature and of cities, confined to a seat which you may not have chosen, and in propinquity with (perhaps) very undesirable fellow-travellers, eating unwholesomely, and sleeping uncomfortably, to compensate one for liberty to choose his route, to breathe unpolluted air, to “take his ease in his inn” when he chooses, sleeping and eating in comfort. ”

“ Full of the particular part of the world in which he is, the traveller may hear all parts of the world discussed from some purely personal or professional aspect, without a single original observation to add anything to his stock of ideas. ”

“ Now the traveller with no preoccupying purpose, and fresh from a bird's eye view of large sections of the country, is likely to talk a good deal of nonsense, and yet he may tell some things of interest that the old resident has ceased to see from very familiarity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sometimes a pilgrimage seemed nothing but an excuse for a lively and pleasant holiday, and the travellers often made themselves very merry on the road, with their jests and songs, and their flutes and fiddles and bagpipes. ”

“ Travelling is now so generally understood, that it is hardly necessary to give any instructions for the exploration of wild countries; but a few hints may be acceptable upon points that, although not absolutely essential, tend much to the comfort of the traveller. ”

“ Many short trips may be taken from here either by boat or train, and he who would fill his portfolio with quaint and lovely pictures, will find his enthusiasm aroused, no matter in which direction he may venture, or whether his expedition be on land 135 or water. Interesting localities are always within easy reach, and the moderate rate for transportation and accommodation render all points accessible to the traveller whose purse is of the most slender dimensions. ”

“ The tourist, however, more and more declines to stick to Europe, a large number of him having seen Europe pretty thoroughly anyway. As for the tourist in fancy, he goes everywhere. The business man is another traveller who is omni-itinerant. I suppose the widest audience for the series of books called “Carpenter’s World Travels” is composed of what one commentator rightly describes as “the incalculable company of stay-at-home travellers.” ”

“ The duty of the traveller visiting already visited countries is to not limit himself to general descriptions, but to make with particular care the kind of observations for which circumstances have fitted him best. ”

“ It is probable that, in each of these supposed cases, the traveller and visitor, resigning the desire to achieve what is impossible, would give themselves up to the agreeable guidance of a wandering and wayward fancy. ”

“ Travellers may be divided into two categories: those who wish to find on foreign soil the identical conditions to which they have been accustomed at home, and those searching for novelty of outlook and novelty of surroundings. ”

“ I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. ”

“ If a traveller, having been shipwrecked in some expedition, should learn the secrets of an unknown land, its arts and resources, his fellow-citizens, on his return, would not hesitate to follow his direction in respect to those novel matters. ”

“ When I began to read the numerous narratives of travels, which compose so interesting a part of modern literature, I regretted that travellers, the most enlightened in the insulated branches of natural history, were seldom possessed of sufficient variety of knowledge to avail themselves of every advantage arising from their position. ”

“ Travellers, whether through unformed tracks of distant countries or over the mighty mass of waters, must possess minds little susceptible of impression, if they do not, in such situations, feel themselves more peculiarly under the protecting hand of providence. ”

“ Or is there really in the instinct some subtle feeling of the temporary sojourner in a strange land, prepared for eventualities, ready, because unencumbered, to move on at a moment’s notice? Travellers, explorers, are often the tidiest of men, clearing up behind them, as they advance, having its place for every article of their kit, and scrupulous to maintain it. ”

“ We have in our world, as you have in yours, intrepid travellers—learned men, who make voyages to almost inaccessible planets—and they return even as those of earth, with sketches and graphic outlines of the strange sights they have witnessed; and those less venturesome who remain at home are as anxious as your citizens might be to hear accounts of wonderful regions that have been visited. ”

“ Travellers do not enjoy a tenth part of the pleasure in traversing these countries, which they must receive on their journies through our old countries, where they, almost every day, meet with some vestige or other of antiquity: now an antient celebrated town presents itself to view ”