ELEMENTS OF BARTRAM'S LANDSCAPE 79 



Yet Bartram's detailed discussion of food is in reality more 

 than a Robinson Crusoe touch. It is in a point like this that he 

 exemplifies the difference between the genuine explorer and 

 the novelist or poet romanticising about the wilderness. Bar- 

 tram is direct; he knows what part food plays in the life of the 

 explorer. Along with the details of his camp site, he therefore 

 sets down what he ate and under what circumstances. Thus he 

 tells us that one afternoon, to escape a storm, he took " quiet 

 possession " of an Indian hunting cabin and 



finding some dry wood under shelter of the old cabin, I struck up a 

 fire, dryed my clothes, and comforted myself with a frugal repast of 

 biscuit and dried beef, which was all the food my viaticum afforded 

 me by this time, excepting a small piece of cheese which I had furnished 

 myself with at Charleston and kept till this time (p. 344) . 



Another afternoon he ascended the bank of the river and found 



abundance of Peach and Fig trees, loaded with fruit, which affording 

 a very acceptable dessert after the heats and toil of the day, and evening 

 drawing on apace, I concluded to take up my quarters here for the 

 night (p. 407). 



Bartram, plain Quaker that he was, may have had a touch of 

 the epicurean, but here it is necessary to emphasize the absolute 

 realism of his travel account. It was not epicureanism that 

 made him enter into his journal the fact that he had but a small 

 piece of cheese left for future provision ; it was the hard experi- 

 ence of a traveler who has sometimes hungered and conse- 

 quently can appreciate the value of any kind of food. A more 

 purely romantic traveler, such as Chateaubriand, may, upon his 

 first arrival at a place, observe '" mocking-birds and cardinal- 

 birds flying about " ^ rather than pay attention to his " viati- 

 cum," but Bartram spent five years in traveling, for the most 

 part through a wilderness, and, besides observing the scenery, 

 he learned enough about the realities of traveling to exclaim: 



How supremely blessed were our hours at this time ! plenty of delicious 

 and healthful food, our stomachs keen . . . (Travels, 110-111) 



or to rejoice at his good fortune in " having taken three young 



• Travels in America and Italy, I, 95. 



