Feb. 1, 1867.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



9S 



TKAVELLEBS' TALES. 



" We ought not to be too hasty in casting ridicule upon the narrative? of ancient travellers. In a geographical point 

 of view they possess great value, and if sometimes they contain statements which appear marvellous, the mystery is often 

 explained away by a more minute and careful inquiry." — Tennant's " Ceylon." 



T is an unfor- 

 tunate circum- 

 stance, that the 

 necessary isola- 

 tion of explorers 

 should render 

 them so liable 

 to the insinua- 

 tions of the malicious and the 

 cavils of the hypercritical. 



Marco Polo, • Bruce, and 

 Du Chaillu have successively 

 suffered, in character and in 

 prospects, from suspicions 

 which subsequent inquiry has 

 proved to have been utterly 

 groundless. 



Brave men are seldom un- 

 truthful, and the high quali- 

 ties of head and heart neces- 

 sary to form a successful 

 explorer are rarely, if ever, combined with that 

 meanness and mendacity which can claim credit 

 for actions neve^r performed, or discoveries never 

 made. At the same time, it cannot be denied, 

 that too many travellers have unnecessarily exposed 

 themselves to the attacks of hostile critics by a 

 deficient chronological arrangement of their narra- 

 tives, by exaggerated statements, and a neglect to 

 properly discriminate between mere hearsay and 

 actual observation. 



It is against the statements of the great geo- 

 graphers and historians of antiquity, that modern 

 critics have specially delighted to break a lance, 

 and condemn as more or less fabulous and untrust- 

 worthy. Upon this subject Sir Emerson Tennant 

 has made some just observations in his work upon 

 " Ceylon." 

 In recent times many of the suspected statements 

 No. 26. 



of ancient writers have been strikingly corroborated. 

 The gorilla of Hanno have been rediscovered, 

 probably upon the same coast upon which the 

 Carthaginian explorer found them ; the remains 

 of that prodigious bird, the iEpyornis, have been 

 disinterred in Madagascar — the very country in 

 which Eastern tradition located the monstrous 

 roc, so well known to all readers of the "Arabian 

 Nights;" and the gold-fields of California and 

 British Columbia are situated precisely in that 

 portion of North America in which the traditions 

 of the American aborigines placed the El-Dorado of 

 the Spanish conquerors. 



It is curious that after an interval of some two 

 thousand years, a people should still exist in 

 Southern and Central Africa, almost exactly an- 

 swering to the description which Pliny, Aristotle, 

 and Herodotus gave of the Ethiopian Troglodytes. 

 Yet the Bosjesmen of to-day have the same croaking 

 speech, the same cave-dwelling and reptile-eating 

 propensities. These Bushmen have generally been 

 considered to be a deteriorated branch of the 

 Hottentots ; but I believe that, on the contrary, it 

 will be found that the former is the purer race, and 

 that the Hottentots, who, thanks to the Dutch 

 Boers, are now nearly extinct, are an improved and 

 hybrid race formed by some slight admixture of 

 Kaffir blood. 



Aristotle and others mention four peculiarities of 

 the dwarfish Troglodytes, who, apparently, then 

 dwelt in Abyssinia, a country from which they 

 have been since driven or extirpated by the Gallas, 

 Kaffirs, Mayintu, and other Asiatic-African races. 

 Pirst, they left the sick and aged to die alone, 

 oftentimes of hunger and thirst. This the Hottentots 

 did when first discovered by Europeans. Secondly, 

 some of them ate their parents ichen they attained old 

 age. Kingsley has defended tins act as dutiful and 

 religious, and without going quite so far, it may be 



c 



