a Swarte Ritter--his face was as
black as a devill in a playe."[92] Inns were death-traps. A man dared
not make any display of money for fear of being murdered in the
night.[93] It was wiser to disguise himself as a humble country boy and
gall his feet by carrying all his gold in his boots. Even if by these
means he escaped common desperadoes, he might easily offend the deadly
University students, as did the eldest son of Sir Julius Caesar, slain in
a brawl in Padua,[94] or like the Admirable Crichton, stabbed by his
noble pupil in a dark street, bleed away his life in lonely
lodgings.[95] Still more dangerous were less romantic ills, resulting
from strange diet and the uncleanliness of inns. It was a rare treat to
have a bed to oneself. More probably the traveller was obliged to share
it with a stranger of disagreeable appearance, if not of
disposition.[96] At German ordinaries "every travyler must syt at the
ordinary table both master and servant," so that often they were driven
to sit with such "slaves" that in the rush to get the best pieces from
the common dish in the middle of the table, "a man wold abhor to se such
fylthye hands in his dish."[97] Many an eager tourist lay down with
small-pox before he had seen anything of the world worth mentioning, or
if he gained home, brought a broken constitution with him. The third
Lord North was ill for life because of the immoderate quantities of hot
treacle he consumed in Italy, to avoid the plague.[98]

But it was not really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain
ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan. Such considerations
were beneath his heroical temper. Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the
piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: "And for that it should not be said an
Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe,
I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe."[99] It was the
sort of danger that weakened character which made people doubt the
benefits of travel. So far we have not mentioned in our description of
the books addressed to travellers any of the reminders of the trials of
Ulysses, and dark warnings against the "Siren-songs of Italy." Since
they were written at the same time with the glowing orations in praise
of travel, it might be well to consider them before we go farther.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

SOME CYNICAL ASPERSIONS UPON THE BENEFITS OF TRAVEL

The traveller newly