to what is seen, whether in desert or 
forest, in mountains or plains. 
A tourist needs to know another 
writer. One reads Ruskin with a sense 
of watching another man at his work. 
One needs only to watch Ruskin. No 
such sense of comfort and ease accom- 
panies the follower of Henry David 
Thoreau. “Walden Pond,” “A Week 
on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers,” 
“Cape Cod,” “The Maine Woods,” and 
the compilations from Thoreau’s di- 
aries are among his writings. It is 
feasible to obtain many of these books 
cheap at second-hand book-stores, or in 
some cases, in cheap editions. Thoreau 
makes his readers work. To follow him 
demands alertness, comprehension, and 
a wit quick with innuendo. 
If one faithfully labors through—or 
flies on wings of delight amid— the 
pages of Thoreau and Ruskin, unques- 
tionably the profit end enjoyment of 
any tour will be a thousand times in- 
ereased. Nothing stands more to reason 
than the fact that the more one knows, 
the more one sees in any landscape. A 
city man riding day after day across 
the prairies of Indiana, [llinois, Iowa 
and Nebraska does not know oats, or 
corn, or wheat, or barley. He does not 
know elms or maples or evergreens. 
He does not know river bottom or wild 
rice marsh or woodlots or pastures. 
Neither does he know any of the data 
of agriculture, of geology, or flowers 
or trees. He actually does not, and 
cannot know what he sees, much less 
appreciate the significance of any- 
thing. How much greater his interest 
and pleasure would be, if he had for a 
year or two before his trip along the 
Lincoln Highway, or the National Old 
Trails, or the Lake Shore trail to Chi- 
cago, taken some pains to study the 
map, read the state histories, clipped 
newspaper items of all kinds from 
towns along the routes—crop, crime, 
political, manufacturing, and the rest 
—and has along a good flower, tree and 
bird book! 
Certainly, I know only too well the 
sensation of bewilderment when all my 
preconceptions of a region prove ut- 
terly unlike the reality. But every 
picture formed in my imagination by 
this preliminary reading has invari- 
ably proved to be a standard by which 
to measure what I actually found. And 
when I have gone into a region with- 
out any preconceived pictures and 
ideas, that country lacked the shock, 
the surprise, the astonishment that I 
found in the regions about which I 
dreamed. And in my recollections 
there is nothing more vivid than, for 
instance, a desert since my precon- 
ceived notion was so wholly ridiculed 
and belittled by the actuality. 
Preliminary reading for touring 
stimulates the hopes and raises in- 
Page 43 
In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. 
numerable questions. These in every 
case are modified even before the start. 
When one is on the way, a kind of 
reading is feasible that will make the 
localities visited much more interest- 
ing. I try to obtain local newspapers 
on the way. Their commonplaces are 
news and information, revelations of 
the countless shades and hues on the 
American map. I find in local book- 
stores treasures of significant writings. 
Local people demand fiction that 
faithfully depicts themselves, their 
characteristics. A local history—geo- 
logical study, narrative of travel, or 
biography may be had. Consider, for 
example, what it means to read the life 
of Daniel Boone in the Cumberlands, 
or the siege of Vicksburg, at Vicks- 
burg, or the story of the Cliff Dwellers 
in one of their caves. 
True, books are often painfully dis- 
appointing when one tries to read them 
in the environment of their topic. 
What seems most vivid in the prelim- 
inary proves flat and unamusing at the 
scene. Almost no author measures up 
to the opportunity. <A few, if we be- 
lieve some of the protests from Main 
Street, or Utah, or the offices of our 
leading real estate agents, go ’way be- 
yond the actualities, making the people 
and conditions far more interesting 
than they are. 
Nevertheless, I know that when one 
reads Mary Austin in “The Land of 
Little Rain,” that land is even so, and 
the book interprets; also her story of 
“The Flock.” We are not always in 
the mood to read. We may not on a 
long journey find opportunity to read 
more than a few pages. But never 
have I suffered so for “something good 
to read” as on my earlier trips when 
I neglected to carry with me an assort- 
ment of books covering the subjects 
that for any reason I happened to de- 
sire to look into. 
Lately there have come forth five- 
and ten-cent-book libraries. I find 
three or four pounds of these books, 
widely assorted, wonderfully helpful, 
as I have minutes or an hour or two 
to devote to pocket literature. On a 
slow, leisurely, extended journey, such 
as the one on which I am now on, and 
the Border Trail toward Yuma lies 
before me, I find that I need, and must 
have, a great variety of reading, ac- 
cording to my range of intellect. 
By no means do I confine myself to 
local, topographical or regional litera- 
ture. I find that general topics, as 
Shakespeare’s life, or Carlyle’s “Choice 
of Books,” and especially mythology of 
any kind—Indian, Grecian, Roman— 
make apt and appropriate reading. 
One understands something of what 
was in the Indian mind when he says 
that in the West dwelt the Thunder 
God, after seeing the sun notched at 

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