Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Now, The Most Faithful Picture Of Manners Is
That Which Best Displays The Relations Of Men Towards Each Other.
The Character Of Savage Or Civilized Life Is Portrayed Either In
The Obstacles A Traveller Meets With, Or In The Sensations He
Feels.
It is the traveller himself whom we continually desire to
see in contact with the objects which surround him; and his
narration interests us the more, when a local tint is diffused over
the description of a country and its inhabitants.
Such is the
source of the interest excited by the history of those early
navigators, who, impelled by intrepidity rather than by science,
struggled against the elements in their search for the discovery of
a new world. Such is the irresistible charm attached to the fate of
that enterprising traveller (Mungo Park.), who, full of enthusiasm
and energy, penetrated alone into the centre of Africa, to discover
amidst barbarous nations the traces of ancient civilization.
In proportion as travels have been undertaken by persons whose
views have been directed to researches into descriptive natural
history, geography, or political economy, itineraries have partly
lost that unity of composition, and that simplicity which
characterized those of former ages. It is now become scarcely
possible to connect so many different materials with the detail of
other events; and that part of a traveller's narrative which we may
call dramatic gives way to dissertations merely descriptive. The
numerous class of readers who prefer agreeable amusement to solid
instruction, have not gained by the exchange; and I am afraid that
the temptation will not be great to follow the course of travellers
who are incumbered with scientific instruments and collections.
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