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.
