AUTHOR OF "DUE WEST; OR, ROUND THE WORLD IN TEN MONTHS,"
"DUE NORTH; OR, GLIMPSES OF SCANDINAVIA, RUSSIA, AND RUSSIAN POLAND," "DUE SOUTH; OR, CUBA PAST AND PRESENT," ETC.
... Of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi.—Shakspeare.
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND COMPANY
211 Tremont Street
1888
Copyright, 1887,
By Maturin M. Ballou.
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
PREFACE.
Dr. Johnson is reported to have said that the best way to travel is to sit by one's own fireside and read how others have done it; but though this may be the safest mode it certainly is not the pleasantest. This any travelled writer knows; and he also knows that could he succeed in adequately inspiring the reader with his accounts of the delights of foreign experiences, especially those of the grand, beautiful, and marvellous exhibitions of Nature, he would surely induce him to add to his own enjoyment by similar personal experiences. That there is a degree of pleasure in recording these observations we freely confess; but that one constantly feels how inadequate is language to convey a realizing sense of what is actually enjoyed in travel we must as freely admit. Madame Swetchine was more sarcastic than truthful when she pronounced travel to be the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones. To an observant person nothing can be more instructive than travel; in fact it may be said to be the only royal road to learning. Travel is a magician,—it both enchants and disenchants; since while it delights the eye, it often proves the winding-sheet of many cherished illusions. There is always some bitter to be tasted with every sweet; but even the bee which finds a thorn on every rose comes home laden with honey.
M. M. B.