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 ? Tv^lve 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 ot 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 savage 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 



