TRAVELLERS' CONTRIVANCES.

THE art of travel, wherever gold and silver
are current coin, consists chiefly in having
plenty of both. With these, and the small
change of a civil tongue, a skin indifferent to
entomological attacks, a spare shirt, and a
cube of soap, a man may travel comfortably
for thousands of miles, buying his experience
and his baggage as he goes along; here laying
in a cold fowl and bread for a Spanish
expedition; there purchasing a sheepskin cloak,
or a thin pair of breeches, according to the
climate; but the moment that the traveller,
more adventurous, turns his steps into those
savage regions where towns, roads, banks,
pumps, and butchers' shops are unknown, he
must prepare to uncivilise himself, and relearn
the arts of his ancestors before they were
corrupted into living in houses, and spinning
the wool of innocent sheep into broad-cloth.

The difference between civilised and savage
life is between dependence and independence.
Civilisation grows and expands by wants.
The savage wants nothing: he can find for
himself; and therefore cares nothing for
nobody; and, of course, does nothing beyond
the wants of the hour. As he owns nothing
he improves nothing; he eats when he is
hungry, or when he is not hungry, because he
can't always make sure of a meal; drinks
when he is dry; and goes to sleep when he
has nothing else to do, without waiting for
bed-time.

The more civilised we become, the more
we rely on society to help us to our wants.
We do not study landmarks; because roads
and sign-posts save us the trouble of thinking.
We do not know how to cook, or to make
candles, or tun hides, or carve wooden bowls
and horn spoons, because candles, shoes,
crockery, and metal spoons can be bought
cheaper than they can be made at home.
When the savage walks out, there is one book
he is always reading; and therefore he reads
it fluently, for his existence depends upon it:
the book of Nature. His eyes are constantly
upon the ground; his nose sniffs the air, and
detects the haunts of various animals; his
ears are erect to catch the faintest sound.
"There went a deer," he says to himself, "but
a long time since. There went a bear; and
he's not long gone. That grey tuft, afar off
on the plain, is a sleeping fox." His living
depends, not on his purse, but his personal
acuteness of eye, and ear, and smell. Without
the full use of these organs he may soon
starve, as old people actually do among many
savage tribes. The white man relies on the
water company, or, at any rate, on a well
with a bucket, for drink, if out of reach of
beer, mead, quass, wine, or brandy. He
goes to the butcher for his joint, to the tailor
for his jacket; and rather disdains the pot-
hunter, who makes sure of hare with a cunning
greyhound and a pointer, for the sake of
a roast or a jug.

But the white man's faculties are only
dormant, not dead. White children brought
up in the bush, or on the prairie, are quite as
sharp as savages. Even full-grown men
attain by practice the power of performing
many of the feats that astonish us so much
among Indian and negro tribes. London
pickpockets, before horses were common in
New South Wales, ran down cattle, and
flung them with a dexterous twitch of the
tail. American backwoodsmen and Australian
bushmen make their way through forests,
and even deserts, trace cattle by their
footprints, and find fire, and shelter, and game in
a manner almost worthy of brown aborigines;
while in feats of strength, in fleetness of foot,
and sureness of aim, white hunters, well
trained, are usually superior to savages.

Some critics and statesmen who ought to
know better attribute the winter sufferings
of our soldiers in the Crimea to the helpless
character of the modern Englishman. It
would seem that they had either never read,
or have forgotten, the adventures and letters
of our emigrants and travellers. The English
soldier is taught – disciplined – to be helpless;
but the English emigrant has proved himself,
in every climate, equal to the situation. In the
backwoods of America, the bush of Australia,
and among the Klots of South Africa, he has
settled and housed himself, and found means
to live and thrive in spite of climate frigid or
tropical, savages and wild beasts, without shops
or police. As for English travellers, for
endurance, patience, acuteness, resources under
difficulties, and general ability to do the best
under the most adverse circumstances, such
men as Pallisser, Mansfield Parkyns,
Lieutenant Burton, the English Hadji, Francis