From His Work It Is Certain That He Was Endowed
With That Faculty Of Eliciting The Truth From Fabulous, Imperfect,
Or
contradictory evidence, at all times so necessary to a traveller, and
indispensably so at the period when he travelled,
And in most of the
countries where his enquiries and his researches were carried on. His great
and characteristic merit consists in freeing his mind from the opinions
which must have previously occupied it; - in trusting entirely either to
what e himself saw, or to what he learned from the best authority; - always,
however, bringing the information acquired in this latter mode to the test
of his own observation and good sense. It is from the united action and
guidance of these two qualifications - individual observation and experience
gained by most patient and diligent research and enquiry on the spot, and a
high degree of perspicacity, strength of intellect, and good sense,
separating the truth from the fable of all he learnt from the observation
and experience of others, that Herodotus has justly acquired so high degree
of reputation, and that in almost every instance modern travellers find
themselves anticipated by him, even on points in which such a coincidence
was the least likely.
His travels embraced a variety of countries. The Greek colonies in the
Black Sea were visited by him: he measured the extent of that sea, from the
Bosphorus to the mouth of the river Phasis, at the eastern extremity. All
that track of country which lies between the Borysthenes and the Hypanis,
and the shores of the Palus Maeotis, he diligently explored.
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