432. Voyage of the Novara. 



collections of natural history. Most of these requh^ed great 

 care and attention, some on account of their fragile texture, 

 others in consequence of being of a perishable nature. All 

 these were transported with as much care as though they had 

 been cliarged the very highest rate of freight. The treat- 

 ment of scientific travellers is to some extent a measure of the 

 degree of civilization of a people. Hence it is that the North 

 American States and the British colonies are the points of the 

 globe where the efforts of scientific travellers elicit the hearti- 

 est sympathy, where he may count upon the most friendly 

 reception, and the most cordial co-operation in carrying out 

 the objects he has in view. And speaking now after ten years 

 of the most varied experiences of travel, I look back tliankfully 

 to the conspicuous evidences of good- will wliich I have uni- 

 versally received from all Americans, from the banks of the 

 St. Lawrence to the shores of ih.Q Gulf of Mexico, and recall 

 with gratitude how every class of the community bestirred 

 itself to promote and facilitate the scientific researches of a 

 solitary traveller, — how, more particularly, the press, that great 

 power of the intellect, lent the utmost assistance of its influen- 

 tial position to forward my wishes, and how its columns, 

 thanks to the interest its conductors themselves felt, were 

 always open in the most remote districts to welcome the 

 stranger. And now, when for a second time I received 

 from the sons of that same mighty republic the same cordi- 

 ality of welcome, I recalled with redoubled vivacity the hap- 

 piness of those long-vanished but most pleasant days, as I 



