P R E ■ V A C E. 
H E peculiar Pleafure and Improvement that Books of Voyages and 
Travels afford, are fufficient Rcafons why they arc as much, if not more 
read than any one Branch of polite Literature : It may not therefore be 
amifsto inquire a little into the Sources of that Satisfaction and that 
Increa.fe.of Knowledge, which have fo juftly recommended Books of 
this fort to the univerfal Favour of Readers of every Tafte. 
The Mind of Man is fo form’d, as Tcarce to admit of Amufement 
without Indru&ion ; and though it may frequently happen, that the 
latter is imperceptibly conveyed, yet is this fo far from being an Evil, 
that, in Truth, it is a very confidcrable Advantage. If we are delighted with the drange Things 
that are prefented to us in Voyages and Travels, that Delight, when driftly examined, will be 
found to arife from learning what we knew not before; and, confequently, is a rational Pleafure. 
It is therefore a very happy Circumdance in this kind of Reading, that it charms us by a perpetual 
Variety, and keeps alive that Third of Inquiry, which we are apt to lofe, when too elofely con- 
fined to feverer Studies. 
An Indance will eadly convey the Force of this Obfervation, and, at the fame time, convince 
the Reader of the Truth of it. When we read in the Account of Countries, in the Neighbourhood 
of Hud fin s- Bay , that numerous Indian Nations pafs their Time in Hunting, and other Exercifes, 
in fpight of that Cold, the very Defcription of which chills us here ; and that they are able, even 
in the mod rigorous Seafons, to make greater Journies, in a much fhorter Space of Time, than we 
can do in a warmer Climate, and when our Roads are bed; it appears wonderful, and, at the fil'd 
Sight, almod incredible. But then our Curiofity being prompted to inquire more narrowly 
into their Cudoms, Drefs, and Manner of Travelling, we come to be fatisfied, not only that the 
Fad is fo, but why it is fo ; and thence difeover the Folly of that Opinion which fo long pre- 
vailed, that thefe frozen Regions were the wide Wades of Nature, and, from their very Situation, 
abfolutely uninhabitable. Again, when we learn, that at Beni it feldom or never rains, this 
adonifhesus; but when we are likewife informed, that, by the hanging of thick Clouds continually 
over the People’s Heads, they are fo effedually defended from the Heat of the Sun, that the Cli- 
mate is more temperate in New than in Old Spain, we are at once fatisfied as to the Falfhood of 
the before-mentioned Opinion with refped to the Torrid Zone ; and thus a modern Reader of 
Travels becomes, without Trouble or Fatigue, better acquainted with the true State of Things, 
and the real Condition of the Univerfe, and its Inhabitants, than the wifed of the antient Philo- 
fophers with all their Study and Thinking. But,, will any Man fay, that the Knowledge we thus 
acquire, is the lefs certain, or the lefs valuable, for the Eafe with which it is obtained ? Or will 
any Idolater of the Antients affert, that their Ignorance or Midakes were at all leflened by the 
Pains they took to reafon themfelves into Notions which Experience fhews us to be falfe ? No» 
certainly, the Facility on one Side is an undoubted Advantage, and their Toil and Labour an addi- 
tional Misfortune on the other. 
We 
