356 Appendix A 



aeologist may not be competent to speak of current social 

 or political problems, so a man who has done capital work 

 as a tourist observer in little-visited cities and along re- 

 mote highways must beware of regarding himself as 

 being thereby rendered fit for genuine wilderness work or 

 competent to pass judgment on the men who do such 

 work. To cross the Andes on mule-back along the reg- 

 ular routes is a feat comparable to the feats of the ener- 

 getic tourists who by thousands traverse the mule trails 

 in out-of-the-way nooks of Switzerland. An ordinary 

 trip on the highway portions of the Amazon, Paraguay, 

 or Orinoco in itself no more qualifies a man to speak of 

 or to take part in exploring unknown South American 

 rivers than a trip on the lower Saint Lawrence qualifies 

 a man to regard himself as an expert in a canoe voyage 

 across Labrador or the Barren Grounds west of Hudson 

 Bay. 



A hundred years ago, even seventy or eighty years ago, 

 before the age of steamboats and railroads, it was more 

 difficult than at present to define the limits between this 

 class and the next ; and, moreover, in defining these limits 

 I emphatically disclaim any intention of thereby attempt- 

 ing to establish a single standard of value for books of 

 travel. Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" is to me the 

 best book of the kind ever written ; it is one of those clas- 

 sics which decline to go into artificial categories, and 

 which stand by themselves; and yet Darwin, with his 

 usual modesty, spoke of it as in effect a yachting voyage. 

 Humboldt's work had a profound effect on the thought 

 of the civilized world ; his trip was one of adventure and 

 danger ; and yet it can hardly be called exploration proper. 



