PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
This Edition does not differ materially from the fourth. I have incorporated some new material, including Colomb and Bolton's flashing signals, but in other respects the Work is little altered. I therefore reprint the
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
In publishing a fourth Edition of the 'Art of Travel,' it is well that I should preface it with a few words of explanation on the origin and intention of the Book and on the difference between this and former Editions.
The idea of the work occurred to me when exploring South-western Africa in 1850-51. I felt acutely at that time the impossibility of obtaining sufficient information on the subjects of which it treats; for though the natives of that country taught me a great deal, it was obvious that their acquaintance with bush lore was exceedingly partial and limited. Then remembering how the traditional maxims and methods of travelling in each country differ from those of others, and how every traveller discovers some useful contrivances for himself, it appeared to me, that I should do welcome service to all who have to rough it--whether explorers, emigrants, missionaries or soldiers,*--by collecting the scattered experiences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." To this end, on my return home, I searched through a vast number of geographical works, I sought information from numerous travellers of distinction and I made a point of re-testing, in every needful case, what I had read or learned by hearsay.
[Footnote] * ". . . the soldier should be taught all such practical expedients and their philosophy, as are laid down in Mr. Galton's useful little book . . . "--'Minute by the late Sir James Outram on Army Management.' Parliamentary Return, of May 240, p. 159.
It should be understood that I do not profess to give exhaustive treatises on each of the numerous subjects comprised in this volume, but only such information as is not generally known among travellers. A striking instance of the limited geographical area over which the knowledge of many useful contrivances extends, is that described as a 'Dateram,' p. 164, by which tent ropes may be secured in sand of the loosest description. Though tents are used over an enormous extent of sandy country, in all of which this simple contrivance would be of the utmost value on every stormy night, and though the art of pitching tents is studied by the troops of all civilised and partly civilised nations, yet I believe that the use of the dateram never extended beyond the limits of a comparatively small district in the south of the Sahara, until I had described it in a former Edition; and further, my knowledge of that contrivance was wholly due to a single traveller, the late Dr. Barth.