As I Had Always Found
That The Art Of Successful Travel Consisted In Taking As Few "Impedimenta"
As Possible, And Not Forgetting To Carry My Wits About Me,
The Outfit Was Rather Spare, And Intended To Be Still More So
When We Should Come To Leave The Canoes.
Some would consider it injudicious
to adopt this plan, but I had a secret conviction that if I did
Not succeed,
it would not be for want of the "knick-knacks" advertised as indispensable
for travelers, but from want of "pluck", or because a large array of baggage
excited the cupidity of the tribes through whose country we wished to pass.
The instruments I carried, though few, were the best of their kind.
A sextant, by the famed makers Troughton and Sims, of Fleet Street;
a chronometer watch, with a stop to the seconds hand -
an admirable contrivance for enabling a person to take
the exact time of observations: it was constructed by Dent,
of the Strand (61), for the Royal Geographical Society,
and selected for the service by the President, Admiral Smythe,
to whose judgment and kindness I am in this and other matters deeply indebted.
It was pronounced by Mr. Maclear to equal most chronometers in performance.
For these excellent instruments I have much pleasure in recording
my obligations to my good friend Colonel Steele, and at the same time
to Mr. Maclear for much of my ability to use them. Besides these,
I had a thermometer by Dollond; a compass from the Cape Observatory,
and a small pocket one in addition; a good small telescope
with a stand capable of being screwed into a tree.
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