20 



SPECULATION ON CURIOSITY. 



the '22d of December, we anchored off the entrance 

 of the Bay of Guayaquil : but, owing to the light 

 winds and the ebb tide, it was not till the evening 

 of the next day that we reached the entrance of 

 the river. The weather, in the day-time, was 

 sultry and hot to an intolerable degree : at night, 

 the land-breeze, which resembled the air of an 

 oven, was heavy and damp, and smelled strongly 

 of wet leaves and other decaying vegetables. We 

 anchored near a small village on the great island 

 of Puna, which lies opposite to the mouth of the 

 river, and presently afterwards a pilot came off, 

 who, to our surprise, undertook to carry the ship 

 up the river, as far as the town, in the course of 

 the night. It was very dark, for there was no 

 moon : not a soul in the ship had ever been here 

 before ; the pilot, however, appeared to understand 

 his business perfectly, and I agreed to his proposal, 

 upon his explaining, that, during the greater part 

 of the night the wind and tide would be favourable, 

 whereas in the day-time both were likely to be 

 adverse. 



This pilot was a remarkably intelligent person, 

 and I have observed in every part of the globe, 

 that this class, and in most cases the guides on 

 shore also, are a superior race of men to the gene~ 

 rality of their countrymen of the same rank in life ; 

 a remark which holds good, whatever be the degree 

 of civilisation of the rest of the inhabitants. The 

 reason of this striking fact is intelligible enough : 

 a pilot must know his business thoroughly, if he is 

 to subsist at all ; for, if he knows it imperfectly, he 

 soon runs a ship on shore, and from that instant his 

 occupation is so utterly gone, that we see no more 

 of him. Thus the profession, in process of time, 

 is effectually weeded of the inefficient plants ; or, 

 what is the same thing, none are allowed to assume 

 the office without an adequate education, and a due 

 course of experiment as to general ability. This 

 is of essential consequence, for the duties of a pilot 

 are frequently of a high order, and require much 

 foresight and presence of mind, in addition to ac- 

 curate local knowledge. It happens also, generally 

 speaking, that where a man is well informed upon 

 any one subject, he will have tolerably just ideas 

 upon many others ; and a good pilot will probably 

 be a man of more general information than those 

 about him. It is an amusing and exhilarating 

 sight, after a long voyage, to observe the eager 

 crowd which assembles round the pilot, generally 

 the first person who comes on board. Questions 

 are poured upon him by hundreds : every word 

 he speaks is received with the most greedy anxiety, 

 and is long recollected as the first touch of a re- 

 newed intercourse with scenes from which we 

 have been long cut off. This is more remarkably 

 the case on the return home ; but even in strange 

 countries, and on occasions such as the present, 

 the interest is always of a peculiar and lively de- 

 scription. The novelty of the stranger's language, 

 the strange dress, the foreign manners, and the 

 new story he has to tell, all conspire to awaken the 

 attention even of the dullest booby on board ; and 

 for sonic time afterwards, it is easy to discover, on 

 coining upon deck, that a new set of topics are 

 afloat. Various detached groups are soon formed 

 on the deck — some to obtain and some to impart 

 information -■Ome to discuss what they have just 



heard) and others to frame new interrogatories to 



the stranger, who, like the inhabitant of another 



planet, seems to have dropped from the clouds 

 amongst them. I may take flccasion here to men- 

 tion, what indeed might have been inferred from 

 other views of society — the wonderful difference 

 which exists amongst voyagers as to the degree of 

 curiosity, and, generally speaking, of interest, as 

 to strange objects, on approaching countries quite 

 new to them. 



Curiosity is thought to be the most universally 

 diffused of human passions, if I may call it so, 

 and a pretty general belief is entertained, that it is 

 strongest in the rudest and least cultivated stages 

 of society. All my experience goes in the other 

 direction, and tends to show that curiosity, and 

 the faculty of observing to agreeable and useful 

 purpose, are qualities which improve by exercise 

 in acuteness and power, more than almost any 

 others. Of our number in the Conway, there were 

 many on their first voyage, who took scarcely any 

 interest, either pleasurable or otherwise, in the 

 very novel circumstances which were constantly 

 presenting themselves to our view. On the other 

 hand, all those who had travelled much previously, 

 were far more interested with the new objects than 

 those who had never gone beyond the Atlantic. 

 Those, in short, who had most objects stored up 

 in their memory, were perpetually finding out 

 similitudes or discordances at once curious and 

 instructive. Their field of observation appeared 

 to be ten times wider than that of the others ; they 

 seemed to have the faculty of discovering, at every 

 turn, innumerable distinctions and combinations, 

 abundantly manifest, when pointed out, but which 

 were passed unheeded by those who had less expe- 

 rience. Thus, instead of a more extended view of 

 the world and its wonders, rendering an observer 

 fastidious and indifferent about what are called 

 ordinary objects, I have observed that exactly the 

 contrary effect takes place. The truth seems to 

 be, that in every natural scene, the number and 

 variety of objects which are worthy of attentive 

 examination are so great, that no diligence can 

 hope to describe, or even to enumerate the whole. 

 To many eyes, however, these nicer differences, 

 or refined analogies, are totally and irremediably 

 invisible, just as certain sounds are said to be in- 

 audible to certain ears. Some observers are so 

 ignorant, or so perverse, that they will insist upon 

 looking at the wrong end of the telescope, and are 

 predetermined to see everything in little which 

 is out of their own country ; on such people, of 

 course, travelling is quite thrown away, or, what 

 is worse, it tends only to confirm prejudice and 

 error. Others are sufficiently disposed to hold the 

 glass properly, but still can see little but a confused 

 mass of many images floating before them. I would 

 illustrate the proper effect of travelling by sug- 

 gesting, that it gives the judicious observer the 

 power of adjusting the focus of his mental tele- 

 scope to that distinct vision, suited to his particular 

 taste and capacity ; and the faculty thus acquired 

 will generally be found available not only in con- 

 templating, to good purpose, new objects in remote 

 countries, but will open up to his improved powers 

 of perception, wide fields of curious and rich 

 inquiry, or of agreeable observation, in quarters 

 with which he had imagined himself to be already 

 so thoroughly and familiarly acquainted, that no- 

 thing further was to he discovered. 



It was not until I had made many voyages, and 



