I fell on my knees in silent gratitude, shedding tears of thankfulness; for I now saw clearly what was to be my future condition.  Shut out by early sins from all human society, I was offered amends for the privation by Nature herself, which I had ever loved.  The earth was granted me as a rich garden; and the knowledge of her operations was to be the study and object of my life.  This was not a mere resolution.  I have since endeavoured, with anxious and unabated industry, faithfully to imitate the finished and brilliant model then presented to me; and my vanity has received a check when led to compare the picture with the original.  I rose immediately, and took a hasty survey of this new field, where I hoped afterwards to reap a rich harvest.

I stood on the heights of Thibet; and the sun I had lately beheld in the east was now sinking in the west.  I traversed Asia from east to west, and thence passed into Africa, which I curiously examined at repeated visits in all directions.  As I gazed on the ancient pyramids and temples of Egypt, I descried, in the sandy deserts near Thebes of the hundred gates, the caves where Christian hermits dwelt of old.

My determination was instantly taken, that here should be my future dwelling.  I chose one of the most secluded, but roomy, comfortable, and inaccessible to the jackals.

I stepped over from the pillars of Hercules to Europe; and having taken a survey of its northern and southern countries, I passed by the north of Asia, on the polar glaciers, to Greenland and America, visiting both parts of this continent; and the winter, which was already at its height in the south, drove me quickly back from Cape Horn to the north.  I waited till daylight had risen in the east of Asia, and then, after a short rest, continued my pilgrimage.  I followed in both the Americas the vast chain of the Andes, once considered the loftiest on our globe.  I stepped carefully and slowly from one summit to another, sometimes over snowy heights, sometimes over flaming volcanoes, often breathless from fatigue.  At last I reached Elias’s mountain, and sprang over Behring’s Straits into Asia; I followed the western coast in its various windings, carefully observing which of the neighbouring isles was accessible to me.  From the peninsula of Malacca, my boots carried me to Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Lombok.  I made many attempts—­often with danger, and always unsuccessfully—­to force my way over the numerous little islands and rocks with which this sea is studded, wishing to find a north-west passage to Borneo and other islands of the Archipelago.

At last I sat down at the extreme point of Lombok, my eyes turned towards the south-east, lamenting that I had so soon reached the limits allotted to me, and bewailing my fate as a captive in his grated cell.  Thus was I shut out from that remarkable country, New Holland, and the islands of the southern ocean, so essentially necessary to a knowledge of the earth, and which would have best assisted me in the study of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.  And thus, at the very outset, I beheld all my labours condemned to be limited to mere fragments.