DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0032
6 TRAVELS IN UPPER
Amidst so many causes of disgust, amidst con-
vulsions too violent to be endured by a sensibility
which promised to be the charm of my life, but
which has proved its bane ; amidst distractions so
serious and so mortifying, how was it possible to
engage in an undertaking that required undivided
attention ? Where was the possibility of surmount-
ing difficulties of another kind, which arose out
of the very nature of the work ? Twelve years em-
ployed in. traversing distant regions may, it is ac-
knowledged, furnish a large stock of information,
and extend the field of experience; but this in-
tenseness of application does not constitute the
talent of writing, and the prosecution of this spe-
cies of expedition is far from being favourable to
the formation of the scholar. Familiarized to the
image of personal destruction which the perils of
every day are incessantly presenting to him, a prey
to unremitting fatigue, pressed by wants which re-
cur almost without a moment's interval, the man
who devotes himself to the business of travelling,
ought to set out with a soul encompassed by a
threefold rampart, to shelter him from fear and
depression. Frequently intermixed with barbarous
and ferocious men, he is sometimes obliged to em-
ploy the services of savr.ge natures which he is un-
able to restrain ; to these he must communicate a
portion of his own intrepidity, and as it is not
always easy to make an impression on gross and
Amidst so many causes of disgust, amidst con-
vulsions too violent to be endured by a sensibility
which promised to be the charm of my life, but
which has proved its bane ; amidst distractions so
serious and so mortifying, how was it possible to
engage in an undertaking that required undivided
attention ? Where was the possibility of surmount-
ing difficulties of another kind, which arose out
of the very nature of the work ? Twelve years em-
ployed in. traversing distant regions may, it is ac-
knowledged, furnish a large stock of information,
and extend the field of experience; but this in-
tenseness of application does not constitute the
talent of writing, and the prosecution of this spe-
cies of expedition is far from being favourable to
the formation of the scholar. Familiarized to the
image of personal destruction which the perils of
every day are incessantly presenting to him, a prey
to unremitting fatigue, pressed by wants which re-
cur almost without a moment's interval, the man
who devotes himself to the business of travelling,
ought to set out with a soul encompassed by a
threefold rampart, to shelter him from fear and
depression. Frequently intermixed with barbarous
and ferocious men, he is sometimes obliged to em-
ploy the services of savr.ge natures which he is un-
able to restrain ; to these he must communicate a
portion of his own intrepidity, and as it is not
always easy to make an impression on gross and