Polos, the Sir John Mandevilles, and the Ibn Batutas of old time, and
their modern disciples and imitators! Nothing in the shape of travel
and gossip, by the way, comes amiss to us, from Cook's voyages round
the earth to Count De Maistre's journey round his chamber. When the
cark and care of daily life and homely duties, and the weary routine
of sight and sound, oppress us, what a comfort and refreshing is it to
open the charmed pages of the traveler! Our narrow, monotonous horizon
breaks away all about us; five minutes suffice to take us quite out of
the commonplace and familiar regions of our experience: we are in the
Court of the Great Khan, we are pitching tents under the shadows of
the ruined temples of Tadmor, we are sitting on a fallen block of the
Pyramids, or a fragment of the broken nose of the Sphynx, dickering
with Arab Shieks, opposing Yankee shrewdness to Ishmaelitish greed
and cunning: we are shooting crocodiles on the white Nile, unearthing
the winged lions of Ezekiel's vision on the Tigris--watching the
night-dance of the Devil-worshipers on their mountains, negotiating
with the shrewd penny-turning patriarch of Armenia for a sample from
his holy-oil manufactory at Erivan, drinking coffee at Damascus, and
sherbet at Constantinople, lunching in the vale of Chaumorng, taking
part in a holy _fête_ at Rome, and a merry Christmas at Berlin. We
look into the happiness of traveling through the eyes of others, and,
for the miseries of it, we enjoy _them_ exceedingly. Very cool and
comfortable are we while reading the poor author's account of his
mishaps, hair-breadth escapes, hunger, cold, and nakedness. We take
a deal of satisfaction in his moscheto persecutions and night-long
battles with sanguinary fleas. The discomforts and grievances of his
palate under the ordeal of foreign cooking were a real relish for us.
On a hot morning in the tropics, we see him pulling on his stocking
with a scorpion in it, and dancing in involuntary joy under the
effects of the sting. Let him dance; it is all for our amusement. Let