DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0028
3
TRAVELS IN UPP ER
highly commendable, no doubt, is likewise ex-
tremely natural. In truth, when a man has had
the courage to cast himself away, if I may use the
expression, in countries remote, uninhabited, or,
what is still worse, inhabited by nations whose rude
or half-formed civilization is infinitely more dan-
gerous than the state even of savage humanity ;
when he has been endowed with a vigour capable
of surmounting obstacles, with the perseverance ne-
cessary to overcome the difficulties which obstruct
his path at every step, and with the fortitude which
supports amidst the ills physical and moral to which
enterprises of this kind are necessarily exposed ;
when, in a word, talents, experience, or good for-
tune have extricated him out of dangers and dis-
tresses innumerable ; there is, it must be acknow-
ledged, a satisfaction, a real enjoyment in retracing
the variousevents which excited powerful emotions
during his progress, the obstructions, the fatigues,
the hazards which by turns attacked or threatened
the very existence of the traveller; for if it be plea-
sant to call to remembrance calamities»which are
past, it is still more so to relate them.
If to these motives purely personal, but which,
nevertheless, rarely fail to awaken a general interest,
the man who has devoted himself to the dangers of
tedious peregrinations, unites views more exalted,
considerations more powerful; if, transported with
the
TRAVELS IN UPP ER
highly commendable, no doubt, is likewise ex-
tremely natural. In truth, when a man has had
the courage to cast himself away, if I may use the
expression, in countries remote, uninhabited, or,
what is still worse, inhabited by nations whose rude
or half-formed civilization is infinitely more dan-
gerous than the state even of savage humanity ;
when he has been endowed with a vigour capable
of surmounting obstacles, with the perseverance ne-
cessary to overcome the difficulties which obstruct
his path at every step, and with the fortitude which
supports amidst the ills physical and moral to which
enterprises of this kind are necessarily exposed ;
when, in a word, talents, experience, or good for-
tune have extricated him out of dangers and dis-
tresses innumerable ; there is, it must be acknow-
ledged, a satisfaction, a real enjoyment in retracing
the variousevents which excited powerful emotions
during his progress, the obstructions, the fatigues,
the hazards which by turns attacked or threatened
the very existence of the traveller; for if it be plea-
sant to call to remembrance calamities»which are
past, it is still more so to relate them.
If to these motives purely personal, but which,
nevertheless, rarely fail to awaken a general interest,
the man who has devoted himself to the dangers of
tedious peregrinations, unites views more exalted,
considerations more powerful; if, transported with
the