Alfred Charles Smith — In Memoriam. 203 



can never be seen at all by the modern railway traveller. In this 

 way, he tells us in his " Autobiography of an Old Passport," pub- 

 lished in 1893, which contains a record of these tours, that he 

 reckons that they had driven in all over some 10,000 miles of road 

 on the Continent. In 1840 they drove through France, Belgium, 

 Germany, and the Tyrol to Munich, where the winter of 1840-41 

 was spent. In 1841 the tour was continued through Germany, 

 Tyrol, Italy, Switzerland, and France. In 1844 their route lay 

 again through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; in 1846 

 along the French side of the Pyrenees, along the Eiviera, and home 

 through France ; in 1850 through Belgium, Germany, Denmark, 

 Sweden, and Norway ; in 1851 and 1858 he was again in Belgium, 

 Germany, Tyrol, Switzerland, Italy, and France ; in 1861 in 

 France, Belgium, and Germany, and also in Spain and Morocco ; 

 in 1863 he was in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and the following 

 winter on the Eiviera. In the winter of 1864-5 several months 

 were spent in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In 1868 Spain and 

 Portugal were visited, and in 1875 and 1878 France, Italy, 

 Switzerland, Germany, and the Eiviera. 



Of these tours the records remain in the four books of travel of 

 which some account is given in the list of his works appended to 

 this notice. In these books it is easy to see that the every-day life 

 of the people — and the birds — had a charm for him that even the 

 Temples and the Pyramids of Egypt could scarcely rival. Pictures 

 and architecture he leaves — as he says himself — to the recognised 

 guide books, partly, one cannot help feeling, because they did not 

 to himself constitute the real charm of Continental travel. 



His Wiltshire books, and his many papers, on divers subjects, in 

 the Magazine, constitute probably the most valuable and the most 

 lasting of his literary works ; but after all, with those who knew 

 him — and twenty years ago who in Wiltshire did not know him ? — 

 it is not his books that will keep his memory green. Few men, 

 perhaps, have been the object of more widespread and affectionate 

 regard. He was always cheery, always genial, never sinking the 

 spiritual in the secular side of his office, but yet a man of wide mind, 

 many interests, and large knowledge in many directions. He will 



