While the honest burgess François Pyrard, was, so to speak, in spite of himself, and from having indulged the desire of making a fortune too rapidly, launched into adventures in which he had to pass much of his life, circumstances of a different and romantic kind caused Pietro della Valle to determine upon travelling. Descendant of an ancient and noble family, he is by turns a soldier of the Pope, and a sailor chasing Barbary corsairs. Upon his return to Rome he finds that a rival, profiting by his absence, has taken his place with a young girl whom he was to have married. So great a misfortune demands an heroic remedy, and Della Valle makes a vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. But if, as saith the proverb, there is no road which does not lead to Rome, so there is no circuit so long as not to lead to Jerusalem, and of this Della Valle was to make proof. He embarks at Venice in 1614, passes thirteen months at Constantinople, reaches Alexandria by sea, afterwards Cairo, and joins a caravan which at length brings him to Jerusalem. But while en route, Delia Valle had no doubt imbibed a taste for a traveller's life, for he visits in succession Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and even pushes on as far as the ruins of Babylon. We must believe that Della Valle was marked out as an easy prey to love, for upon his return he becomes enamoured of a young Christian woman of Mardin, of wondrous beauty, whom he marries. One would imagine that here at length is fixed the destiny of this indefatigable traveller. Nothing of the kind. Della Valle contrives to accompany the Shah in his war against the Turks, and to traverse during four consecutive years the provinces of Iran. He quits Ispahan in 1621, loses his wife in the month of December of the same year, causes her to be embalmed, and has her coffin carried about in his train for four years longer, which he devotes to exploring Ormuz, the western coasts of India, the Persian Gulf, Aleppo, and Syria, landing at length at Naples in 1626.
The countries which this singular character visited, urged on as he was by an extraordinary enthusiasm, are described by him in a shrewd, gay, and natural style, and even with some degree of fidelity. But he inaugurates the pleiad of amateur, curious, and commercial travellers. He is the first of that prolific race of tourists who each year encumber geographical literature with numerous volumes, from which the savant finds nothing to glean beyond meagre details.
Tavernier is a specimen of insatiable curiosity. At two-and-twenty he has traversed France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. Then when Europe no longer offers any food for his curiosity, he starts for Constantinople, where he remains for a year, and then arrives in Persia, where the opportunity and
Quelque diable, aussi, le poussant,
he sets to work to purchase carpets, stuffs, precious stones, and those thousand trifles of which lovers of curiosities soon became passionately fond, and for which they were ready to pay fabulous sums. The profit which Tavernier realized from his cargo induced him to resume his travels. But like a wise and prudent man, before starting he learnt from a jeweller the art of knowing precious stones. During four successive journeys from 1638 to 1663, he travelled over Persia, the Mogul Empire, the Indies as far as the frontier of China, and the Islands of Sunda. Dazzled by the immense fortune which his traffic had obtained for him, Tavernier would play the lord, and soon saw himself on the verge of ruin, which he hoped to avert by sending one of his nephews to the east with a considerable venture, but instead, his ruin was consummated by this young man, who, judging it best to appropriate the goods which had been confided to him, settled down at Ispahan. Tavernier, who was a well-educated man, made a number of interesting observations upon the history, manners and customs, of the countries which he visited. His narrative certainly contributed to give his contemporaries a much more correct idea of the countries of the east than they previously possessed.
All travellers during the reign of Louis XIV. take the route to the East Indies, whatever may be the end they have in view. Africa is entirely deserted, and if America be the theatre of any real exploration, it is carried out without aid from government.
Whilst Tavernier was accomplishing his last and distant excursions, a distinguished archæologist, Jean de Thévenot, nephew of Melchisedec Thévenot—a learned man to whom we owe an interesting series of travels—journeyed through Europe, and visited Malta, Constantinople, Egypt, Tunis, and Italy. He brought back in 1661 an important collection of medals and monumental inscriptions, recognized nowadays as so important a help to the historian and the philologist. In 1664, he set out anew for the Levant, and visited Persia, Bassorah, Surat, and India, where he saw Masulipatam, Burhampur, Aurungabad, and Golconda. But the fatigues which he had experienced prevented his return to Europe, and he died in Armenia in 1667. The success of his narratives was considerable, and was well deserved by the care and exactitude of a traveller whose scientific attainments in history, geography, and mathematics, far surpassed the average level of his contemporaries.
We must now speak of the amiable Bernier, the "pretty philosopher," as he was entitled in his polite circle, in which were found Ninon and La Fontaine, Madame de la Sablière, St. Evremont, and Chapelle, without reckoning many other good and gay spirits, refractories from the stiff solemnity which then weighed upon the entourage of Louis XIV. Bernier could not escape from the fashion of travelling. After having taken a rapid survey of Syria and Egypt, he resided for twelve years in India, where his good knowledge of medicine conciliated the favour of Aurung-Zebe, and gave him the opportunity of beholding in detail, and with profit, an empire then in the full bloom of its prosperity.
To the south of Hindostan, Ceylon had more than one surprise in reserve for its explorers. Robert Knox, taken prisoner by the natives, owed to this sad circumstance his long residence in the country and the collection of the first authentic documents relating to the forests and the savage natives of Ceylon, the Dutch, with a commercial jealousy which they were not singular in evincing, having until now kept secret all the information which had come to light concerning an island of which they were endeavouring to make a colony.