Together with
exceedingly careful notes as to the price of meals and transportation.
This sort of manual became necessary when travel grew to be the
recreation of men of moderate education who could not read the local
guide-books written in the language of the country they visited.
Compilations such as the Itinerarium Italiae of Schottus, published at
Antwerp in 1600, and issued in eleven editions during the seventeenth
century, had been sufficient for the accomplished traveller of the
Renaissance.[400] France, as the centre of travel, produced the greatest
number of handy manuals,[401] and it was from these, doubtless, that
Richard Lassels drew the idea of composing a similar work in the English
language, which would comprise the exhortation to travel, in the manner
of Turler, with a continental guide to objects of art. The Voyage of
Italy by Lassels, published in Paris in 1670, marks the beginning of
guide-books in English.
Still, in succeeding vade-mecums there are some occasional echoes of the
old injunctions to improve one's time. Misson's A New Voyage to
Italy,[402] maps out some intellectual duties. According to Misson a
voyager ought to carry along with him a cane divided into several
measures, or a piece of pack-thread well twined and waxed, fifty fathom
long and divided into feet by knots, so as to be able to measure the
height of the towers and the bigness of pillars and the dimensions of
everything so far as he is able. This seems sufficiently laborious, but
it makes for an easy life compared to the one prescribed by Count
Leopold Berchtold in his Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of
Patriotic Travellers. He would have one observe the laws and customs of
foreigners with a curiosity that would extend to every department of
social and economic life, beginning with "Causes of the Decrease of
Population and Remedies to prevent them"; proceeding to such matters as
the state of the peasantry; to questions applicable to manuring,
ploughing, and the housing of black cattle; or to an "Inquiry concerning
Charitable Institutions such as one for recovering Drowned and Strangled
Persons"; or to the "Extent of Liberty to Grown-up Young Ladies." In
case the traveller is at a loss how to conduct his investigation, a list
of particular questions on the topics for study is added by the author.
A few random examples of this list are:
"Which are the favourite herbs of the sheep of this country?"
"Are there many instances of people having been bit by mad animals?"
"Is the state of a bachelor aggravated and rendered less desirable? By
what means?"
"How much is paid per day for ploughing with two oxen? With two horses?"
"Which food has been experienced to be most portable and most nourishing
for keeping a distressed ship's crew from starving?"
"What is the value of whales of different sizes?"
In addition to such inquiries Berchtold[403] urges the necessity of
sketching landscapes and costumes, and better yet, the scientific
drawing of engines and complicated machines, and also of acquiring skill
on some musical instrument, to keep one from the gaming table in one's
idle hours, preferably of learning to play on a portable instrument,
such as a German flute. Journals, it goes without saying, must be
written every night before the traveller goes to sleep.
It is not only the fact of their being addressed to persons of small
intelligence which makes the guide-books of the eighteenth century seem
ridiculous; another reason for their ignoble tone is the increased
emphasis they lay on the material convenience of the traveller. Not the
service of one's country or the perfecting of one's character is the
note of Georgian injunctions, but the fear of being cheated and of being
sick. Misson's instructions begin at once with praise of fixed rates in
Holland, where one is spared the exhaustion of wrangling. The exact fare
from Cologne to Maintz is his next subject, and how one can hire a coach
and six horses for three crowns a day; how the best inns at Venice are
The Louvre, The White Lion, and The French Arms; how one can stay at The
Louvre for eight livres a day and pay seven or eight livres for a
gondola by the day, and so forth; with similar useful but uninspired
matter. Next he discusses sea-sickness, and informs us that the best
remedy is to keep always, night and day, a piece of earth under the
nose; for which purpose you should provide a sufficient quantity of
earth and preserve it fresh in a pot of clay; and when you have used a
piece so long that it begins to grow dry, put it again into the pot, and
take out some fresh earth.[404]
Berchtold's suggestions for comfort are even more elaborate. One should
carry everywhere:
"A bottle of vinegar, de quatre voleurs.
Ditto best French Brandy.
Ditto spirit of Salmiac, against fits.
Ditto Hoffman's Drops."
At inns it is advisable to air the room by throwing a little strong
vinegar upon a red hot shovel, and to bring your bed-clothes with you.
As a guard against robbers it is advisable to have your servant sleep in
the same room with you, keep a wax candle burning all night, and look
into the chests and behind the bed before retiring. Pocket door-bolts in
the form of a cross are easily obtainable; if not, put the tables and
chair against the door.
There is something fussy about such a traveller, though robbers
undoubtedly were to be feared, even in the eighteenth century,[405] and
though inns were undoubtedly dirty. A repugnance to dirt and discomfort
is justifiable enough, but there is something especially peevish in the
tone of many Georgian travellers.
