SOME ACCOUNT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY
TRAVELLER.

No longer ago than this Easter time last
past, we became acquainted with the subject
of the present notice. Our knowledge of him
is not by any means an intimate one, and is
only of a public nature. We have never
interchanged any conversation with him, except
on one occasion when he asked us to have the
goodness to take off our hat, to which we
replied 'Certainly.'

MR. BOOLEY was born (we believe) in Rood
Lane, in the City of London. He is now a
gentleman advanced in life, and has for some
years resided in the neighbourhood of Islington.
His father was a wholesale grocer (perhaps),
and he was (possibly) in the same way
of business; or he may, at an early age, have
become a clerk in the Bank of England, or in
a private bank, or in the India House. It will
be observed that we make no pretence of
having any information in reference to the
private history of this remarkable man, and that
our account of it must be received as rather
speculative than authentic.

In person MR. BOOLEY is below the middle
size, and corpulent. His countenance is florid,
he is perfectly bald, and soon hot; and there
is a composure in his gait and manner,
calculated to impress a stranger with the idea of
his being, on the whole, an unwieldy man. It
is only in his eye that the adventurous
character of MR. BOOLEY is seen to shine. It is
a moist, bright eye, of a cheerful expression,
and indicative of keen and eager curiosity.

It was not until late in life that MR. BOOLEY
conceived the idea of entering on the
extraordinary amount of travel he has since
accomplished. He had attained the age of sixty-
five, before he left England for the first time.
In all the immense journies he has since
performed, he has never laid aside the English
dress, nor departed in the slightest degree
from English customs. Neither does he speak
a word of any language but his own.

MR. BOOLEY'S powers of endurance are
wonderful. All climates are alike to him.
Nothing exhausts him; no alternations of
heat and cold appear to have the least effect
upon his hardy frame. His capacity of travelling,
day and night, for thousands of miles,
has never been approached by any traveller
of whom we have any knowledge through the
help of books. An intelligent Englishman
may have occasionally pointed out to him
objects and scenes of interest; but otherwise
he has travelled alone, and unattended.
Though remarkable for personal cleanliness,
he has carried no luggage; and his diet has
been of the simplest kind. He has often found
a biscuit, or a bun, sufficient for his support
over a vast tract of country. Frequently, he
has travelled hundreds of miles, fasting, without
the least abatement of his natural spirits.
It says much for the Total Abstinence cause,
that MR. BOOLEY has never had recourse to
the artificial stimulus of alcohol, to sustain
him under his fatigues.

His first departure from the sedentary and
monotonous life he had hitherto led, strikingly
exemplifies, we think, the energetic character,
long suppressed by that unchanging routine.
Without any communication with any member
of his family—MR. BOOLEY has never been
married, but has many relations—without
announcing his intention to his solicitor, or
banker, or any person entrusted with the
management of his affairs, he closed the door
of his house behind him at one o'clock in the
afternoon of a certain day, and immediately
proceeded to New Orleans, in the United
States of America.

His intention was to ascend the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers, to the base of the Rocky
Mountains. Taking his passage in a steamboat
without loss of time, he was soon upon
the bosom of the Father of Waters, as the
Indians call the mighty stream which, night
and day, is always carrying huge instalments
of the vast continent of the New World, down
into the sea.

MR. BOOLEY found it singularly interesting
to observe the various stages of civilisation
obtaining on the banks of these mighty
rivers. Leaving the luxury and brightness of
New Orleans—a somewhat feverish luxury
and brightness, he observed, as if the swampy
soil were too much enriched in the hot sun with
the bodies of dead slaves—and passing various
towns in every stage of progress, it was very
curious to observe the changes of civilisation
and of vegetation too. Here, where the doomed
Negro race were working in the plantations,
while the republican overseer looked on, whip
in hand, tropical trees were growing, beautiful