I take this opportunity of remarking that though I have been indebted for information to a very large number of authors and correspondents, yet I am sorry to be unable to make my acknowledgements except in comparatively few instances.  The fact is that the passages in this book are seldom traceable to distinctly definite sources:  commonly more than one person giving me information that partially covers the same subject, and not unfrequently my own subsequent enquiries modifying or enlarging the hints I had received.  Consequently I have given the names of authorities only when my information has been wholly due to them, or when their descriptions are so graphic that I have transferred them without alteration into my pages, or else when their statements require confirmation.  It will be easy to see by the context to which of these categories each quotation belongs.

Francis Galton

ART OF TRAVEL.

PREPARATORY INQUIRIES.

To those who meditate Travel.—­Qualifications for a Traveller.—­If you have health, a great craving for adventure, at least a moderate fortune, and can set your heart on a definite object, which old travellers do not think impracticable, then—­travel by all means.  If, in addition to these qualifications, you have scientific taste and knowledge, I believe that no career, in time of peace, can offer to you more advantages than that of a traveller.  If you have not independent means, you may still turn travelling to excellent account; for experience shows it often leads to promotion, nay, some men support themselves by travel.  They explore pasture land in Australia, they hunt for ivory in Africa, they collect specimens of natural history for sale, or they wander as artists.

Reputed Dangers of Travel.—­A young man of good constitution, who is bound on an enterprise sanctioned by experienced travellers, does not run very great risks.  Let those who doubt, refer to the history of the various expeditions encouraged by the Royal Geographical Society, and they will see how few deaths have occurred; and of those deaths how small a proportion among young travellers.  Savages rarely murder new-comers; they fear their guns, and have a superstitious awe of the white man’s power:  they require time to discover that he is not very different to themselves, and easily to be made away with.  Ordinary fever are seldom fatal to the sound and elastic constitution of youth, which usually has power to resist the adverse influences of two or three years of wild life.

Advantages of Travel.—­It is no slight advantage to a young man, to have the opportunity for distinction which travel affords.  If he plans his journey among scenes and places likely to interest the stay-at-home public, he will probably achieve a reputation that might well be envied by wiser men who have not had his opportunities.