Fallow Years, 1844—1849 205 



for bringing a boat from Jaffa and with his permission navigating the Dead Sea, as 

 Costagan had done, but poor fellow he had died in the act. On returning to Jerusalem 

 I found letters urging me to return home principally on account of some trust business 

 for my sister Adele. I went, hardly thinking it was a final parting with Syria, but so it 

 was and the next year Lynch the American came, subsidized my Sheikh, surveyed the 

 Jordan and Dead Sea very thoroughly and published the results in a big and valuable 

 book, which by the way does not contain a word of allusion to myself, his predecessor. 



Peancis Galton. 



A perusal of this sketch of Galton's tours in Egypt and Syria will 

 indicate to the reader that the Wanderlust, however keen, had not yet 

 ripened into the desire for scientific travel. Galton was still touring 

 for the boyish fun of movement and of new scenes. He had not yet 

 thoughts of the language, habits or archaeology of the people he 

 mingled with. It was, as far as we can judge, still possible for him to 

 settle down as a sporting country gentleman after finishing the some- 

 what extended "grand tour" of the day. The significant incidents of 

 the Egyptian and Syrian tour, which seem most markedly to have 

 weighed with him in after life, were the meeting with Arnaud — of 

 which he wrote that his words were " a division of the ways in my 

 subsequent life" — the incident with the Sheikh on the same day", and 

 the death of the faithful AH. Galton reached England in November, 

 1846. One longs for the graphic letters of the earlier tours, or still 

 better for a sample of such as came later from Africa, but none have 

 survived. The following letter addressed to Beyrout shows that 

 Galton must have been in continuous correspondence with some of his 



Cambridge friends : 



Wilton Crkscent, June 24, 1846. 



Mr DEAR Galton, — Your letter was such an enormous time reaching me that if this 

 be similarly long in arriving at its destination, I entertain serious doubts as to your 

 getting it, particularly as I have been lazy and have put off writing till the day before T 

 start for Ostend, amidst the infinite hurries of packing. I own I ought to have written 

 or brickbatted earlier but Kay positively told nie that it was useless as you never 

 acknowledged his, and that he did not know wliere to direct. Your letter is a great 

 work of art, worthy to be ranked with the most ingenious productions of modern times ; 

 of course I don't believe it, and am inclined to think you have been all the time in 

 105 Park St concealed, and examining the map of Africa. If I really could put my 



' " The cabin reeked with the smells of the recent carouse, when the door opened and 

 there stood the tall Sheikh marked with sand on his forehead that indicated recent pros- 

 tration in prayer. The pure moonlight flooded the Bacchanalian cabin, and the clear 

 cool desert air jwured in. I felt swinish in the presence of his Moslem purity and 

 imposing mien." Memories, p. 88. 



