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to the throwing open of the public service to competition, is the greatest change in the system of the country witnessed in this generation. If people but knew (not to speak of greater things involved in this Volunteer Soldiering) how drill and target-practice once or twice a week sets a man up-if they but knew the felicity of bearing part in an exact wheel into line, or the exhilaration of a skirmishing run at the double, or the calm satisfaction which even an oldish fellow may feel in hearing the clunk of the Enfield-bullet at 600 yards, followed by the sight of the blue flagour Volunteer Army, instead of being only 150,000 men, as it is now, would be a quarter of a million next week, and half a million soon, as it ought to be. But, with all this, Travel may have a gymnastic efficacy of its own, varying in strength and in subtlety according to the scale and the direction. The annual holiday in the north or at the sea-side is not superseded-the climb through the heather, or the musing saunter down the stream. For some constitutions, too, for some conditions of health, there may not be within Britain the precisely fitting medicine of earth and vegetation, of mountain scenery or of meadow scenery, of sunshine, colour, cloud, and air. There must be the long sea-voyage, the visit to Mediterranean lands of the vine and the grey olive, the journey into the climes of tropical heat, or even, reversely, into the latitudes of snow and cold. When we know the Earth and ourselves better, our skill in the practice of this medicine of the Earth's varying character and scenery may attain more exactness than we can now anticipate. As it is, the extraordinary efficacy, in some cases, of exercise and locomotion in higher mountain-altitudes than our own country affords, seems to be a recent discovery. Several of the papers in the present volume illustrate both the keenness of the passion for Alpine travel developed in those who have practised it, and the delights of the pastime; but perhaps the most explicit testimony to its peculiar medical effects, is that of Professor

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Tyndall in his short paper. "For several "weeks," he says, "previous to my re"lease from London, last August, the "state of my health had been a frequent source of uneasiness, if not of alarm. "Mental exertion, unwisely persisted "in, had brought on a curious kind of giddiness, which became more and "more easily excited, until, finally, the "writing of a letter, or the reading of "a newspaper, sufficed to convert my "head into a kind of electric battery, "from which thrills were sent to my 'fingers' ends. I had more than once "been compelled to pause in directing a note, fearful lest the effort required "to complete the address should produce some terrible catastrophe in my brain." He tried Killarney; thought of the Scottish Highlands or the Welsh and Cumbrian hills; but felt at last as if the icy air of the Alps, which he remembered with longing, would alone restore him. And so it proved. The first day or two among the snow-peaks and glaciers did wonders; and he returned from his Swiss expedition "with a stock of health which "five months' constant work of the most "trying character has not sensibly af"fected." Is it only the cold air and the exercise, or is it that mountains and glaciers act, as smaller crystals are said to act, magnetically on the human organism?

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A well-known use of travel consists in the self-reliance, and the shiftiness or general inventiveness, which it develops-under which head may be included expertness in the use of your own tongue, and audacity in the use of any other that comes to hand. Something of this good also may be got by travel at home-as in blowing up cabmen and landlords; and more may be learnt in this way if, as is proposed, there is an Aldershotting of our Volunteers. But the higher and craftier training of the kind belongs to foreign travel. Illustrations may be culled from several of the papers in the volume which Mr. Galton has edited, but, as might be expected, from none more aptly than from Mr. Galton's own paper, describing his visit to Northern Spain at the time of

the Eclipse. From the nature of the case there was no such need for shiftiness and self-reliance in that journey as when this master of the art of travel led his expedition among unknown tribes in Southern Africa. But, if one would see how a real traveller keeps his eyes open, let him read how in this very Eclipse journey Mr. Galton picked up a suggestion which he and others had long been wanting that of the best form of a bivouacking-bed or out-of-doors sleeping-case which ingenuity can devise.

But, passing this and other uses of travel, let us glance at that which consists in the mere acquisition by the memory of miscellaneous facts, sights, and impressions, on the chance that they may be of value as future matter for the reason and the imagination, though when and in what way cannot be precisely foreseen. It is this indefinite but most important use of travel that is chiefly contemplated in the general belief that it is a good thing to see the world. "The things to be seen and observed in "travel," says Bacon, "are the courts of "princes, especially when they give "audience to ambassadors; the courts "of justice, while they sit and hear 66 causes; and so of consistories ecclesi"astical; the churches and monasteries, "with the monuments which are therein "extant; the walls and fortifications of "cities and towns; and so of havens "and harbours, antiquities and ruins, "libraries, colleges, disputations, and lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of state "and pleasure, near great cities; armo"ries, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, "burses, warehouses, exercises of horse"manship, fencing, training of soldiers, " and the like; comedies, such where"unto the better sort of persons do re"sort; treasures of jewels and robes; "cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, "whatever is memorable in the places "where they go. As for triumphs,

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miscellaneousness commends it. Most of the items are taken, it may be remarked, from artificial or social life-in exploring which there may be a certain active determination of the mind; and the list is most defective in its recognition of those sensations of mere natural scenery, passively received and enjoyed, which we in these days prize so much. But sheer multitudinousness of impressions, be they of what kinds they may-whether from nature or from life, whetheractively or passively acquired-is for the uncalculated intellectual purpose now under view, the real glory of travel. The action of every mind, by day or by night, consists radically of an incessant play and interplay of myriads of hidden photographs and other relics of past sensation that are treasured up in its depths, below all fathom of consciousness. One catches some as they flash up in recollection; but the secret stream is ever flowing; and the texture of the thoughts and fancies that one weaves forth depends, for its richness and variety, on this abundance in the undermind. Who can tell when or with what effect that white turn of the road by the mill-wheel, which one passed long ago, or that distant sight somewhere of a peasant in a red cloak, or that sound of a horn blown in the woods, may recur to the thoughts and make the poem of a moment? For matter of this kind, perhaps Hometravel is the best in its yield for all sound and hearty purpose. There is not, for example, a more delightful paper in the present volume than the one which is devoted to a gossip on and about a Sutherland hillside; and it would not be a bad thing if, over and above volumes continuing the present volume of tours in all places and sundry, we were to have an occasional volume of vacation rambles by this writer and by others, taking us through parts of our own country. But foreign scenes, too, may contribute much-as well to the real richness and strength of the texture of one's thoughts as to the gaudiness of their pattern. It will not be for nothing that one has

passed through a Peruvian town, or has plucked strange fruit in a Japanese orchard, or has stood under the dome of St. Peter's, or has watched a crowd of Turks in Asia turbaned like wall-flowers and tulips. All this, apart from the breaking down of prejudice which follows as a distinct effect from seeing under how many forms life may exist and yet hold together. "What rum fellows these Frenchmen are, Jack," said an English sailor to his comrade in Paris; "why, Jack, they call a cabbage a shoe. Now, Jack, they must know that it's a cabbage." Nothing but travel, and a good deal of that, could take many an Englishman who laughs at this story out of the state of mind of which it is a metaphor.

There is yet another use of travel which this volume, especially through some of its articles, is fitted to illustrate, and which is a variety of that more determinate use of locomotion for speculative ends to which we have hardly referred, though Bacon's words will have suggested it-the aid it gives towards the understanding of contemporary history. The paper on Hungary and Croatia, that on the Slavonic Races (which is rather a compend of informa

tion than a personal narrative), and that on Syria, are of interest in this respect; but the one of greatest contemporary interest, and perhaps of greatest importance all in all, is the opening one by Mr. W. G. Clark, entitled, "Naples and Garibaldi." It is the model of a paper of the kind, and shows with what independence of judgment, and yet with what kindliness of feeling and unruffled good humour, a highly cultivated Englishman may move through scenes of foreign political excitement, and what valuable information, and hints for thought, such a man may brink back with him. There are passages in this paper extremely bold, and opinions about men and things in Italy, and by implication about men and things elsewhere, which one might be disposed to controvert; but the admirable peculiarity of the paper, and that which interprets every part of it, is, that it is written by a man who has a firm political creed, and is able and willing to express it distinctly. "The intelligence. "of a country," he says, "should rule "it, and determine its destinies ;" and this is the key to all his other remarks, both positive and negative.

D. M

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