FRANCIS GALTON 15 



ence there gained that enabled him to write two 

 years later, in 1855, that wonderful book, The 

 Art of Travel. There he teaches such vitally 

 important things as how to find water, how to 

 train oxen as pack animals, to pitch a tent, to 

 build a fire, to cook, and a thousand other secrets. 



He liked, of course, to be useful to weary and 

 thirsty travellers, but he was as much, or more, 

 impelled by the love of method for its own sake. 

 He was in fact an artist in method. The same 

 thing is shown in a letter he wrote to Nature 

 near the end of his life, explaining how to cut a 

 cake on scientific principles so that it shall not 

 become stale. This again was not so much a 

 philanthropic desire that his fellow men should not 

 have dry cake, as delight in method. 



When I re-read The Art of Travel quite 

 recently, I could not find his method of preventing 

 a donkey braying. My recollection is that, observ- 

 ing a braying donkey with tail erect, he argued that 

 if the tail were forcibly kept down, as by tying a 

 stone to it, the braying would not occur. I certainly 

 believe myself to have read or heard that this most 

 Galtonian plan succeeded. 



Later in life he tried to make his unique know- 

 ledge of value to his country. He writes ^ : 



"The outbreak of the Crimean War showed the 

 helplessness of our soldiers in the most elementary 

 matters of camp-life. Believing that something 

 could be done by myself towards removing this 



^ The passage quoted is from Galton's autobiographic Memories, 

 page 165. I have necessarily drawn largely on this delightful book, 

 and have not generally thought it necessary to give references. 



