onious Inquisitors--Comforts
of a Beard--Castor-Oil for burning--Rio Preta--Passports--Entrance to
the Mine Country--Examination of Baggage--Attention without Politeness
--The Green-eyed Monster, "An old Man would be wooing"

CHAP. XV.

Advantages of Early Travelling--Funelle--"A Traveller stopped at a
Widow's Gate"--Bright Eyes and Breakfast--Smiles and Sighs--The Fish
River--Cold Lodgings--Fowl Massacre--Bad Ways--Gigantic Ant-hills--
The Campos--Insect Warriors--Insinuating Visitors (Tick)--The
Simpleton--Bertioga--A Drunkard--Cold Shoulders--Mud Church--Feasting
and Fasting; or, the Fate of Tantalus--Method in a Slow March--Gentlemen
Hungry and Angry--No "Accommodation for Man or Horse"--A Practical
Bull--Curtomi--Hospitable Treatment at Grandie--Horse Dealer--A "Chance"
Purchase--Bivouac--Mule Kneeling--Sagacious Animal--Quilos--A Mist--
Gold-washing--Ora Branca--Hazardous Ascent of the Serra D'Ora Branca--
Topaz District--A Colonel the Host--Capoa--Jigger-hunters--Mineralogical
Specimens--Mortality of Animals--Pasturage--Account of Ora Preta--Gold
Essayed--Halt--Journey resumed--Arrival at Congo Soco

TRAVELS,

ETC. ETC.

CHAP. I.

Passion for Travelling--Author's peculiar situation--Motives for going
Abroad--Resources for the Blind--Embark in the Eden, Capt. Owen, for
Sierra Leone--Lord High Admiral at Plymouth--Cape Finisteire--Arrival
at Madeira--Town of Funchal--Wines of Madeira--Cultiwition of the
Grape--Table of Exports--Seizure of Gin--Fruits and Vegetables--Climate
--Coffee, Tea, and Sugar Cultivation--Palanquin Travelling--Departure
from Madeira

The passion for travelling is, I believe, instinctive in some natures.
We have seen men persevere in their enterprises against the most
formidable obstacles; and, without means or friends, and even ignorant
of the languages of the various countries through which they passed,
pursue their perilous journeys into remote places, until, like the
knight in the Arabian tale, they succeeded in snatching a memorial
from every shrine they visited. For my own part, I have been conscious
from my earliest youth of the existence of this desire to explore
distant regions, to trace the varieties exhibited by mankind under the
different influences of different climates, customs, and laws, and to
investigate with unwearied solicitude the moral and physical
distinctions that separate and diversify the various nations of the
earth.

I am bound to believe