VACATION RAMBLES 257 



of Europe which offered anything to a curious observer. 

 Descartes wandered alone and almost furtively, for hardly 

 more than a single friend knew where he was at any time. 

 He particularly loved a pageant, and would travel far to 

 see a coronation. It is very remarkable that a man of his 

 tastes, who had lived abroad half his life, should nowhere 

 speak of any detail of foreign life, nor of any city or build- 

 ing which he had visited. That he should make no mention 

 of striking scenery, although he had crossed the Alps, and 

 had occupied himself with the avalanches and other natural 

 wonders of Switzerland, is less remarkable, when we 

 consider what the readers of his day looked to find in any 

 solid book. The descriptive traveller did not then exist, 

 or used his talent only to gratify the curiosity of personal 

 friends. 



Naturalists were among the first to discover how much 

 they might enlarge their knowledge by travel. John Ray 

 and his pupil Willughby made many and long peregrina- 

 tions both at home and abroad. Linnaeus explored Lapland, 

 resided long in Holland, and visited England. His pupils 

 explored every land accessible to them. Sir Hans Sloane 

 diligently collected the plants of Jamaica. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, though a wealthy Lincolnshire squire, endured the 

 hardships inevitable to a circumnavigation of the globe 

 with Captain Cook. All these were men of exceptional 

 energy or exceptional opportunities. The man who had 

 his bread to earn was in the eighteenth century generally 

 forced to remain at home round the year. Dr. Johnson 

 saw the sea for the first time when he was fifty-six years 

 old ; his wife never saw it at all. George III. at thirty- four 

 had never seen the sea, nor been thirty miles from London. 1 

 " I have described so much," said Richter, " yet I die 

 without having seen Switzerland or the ocean." 



Steam now makes it possible for many a busy man of 

 small income to escape once a year from the cities which 

 the love of gain has made unnecessarily sordid, and to 



1 Birkbeck Hl\\Vs Johnsonian Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 52 (note}. 



R 



