Travel Writers

"I sometimes think, sir, that your fences might be in more thorough repair, and your roads in better order, if less time was spent in politics."

"A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess."

"For about ten miles from New-York is a place called Hell-Gate, which being a narrow passage, there runneth a violent stream both upon flood and ebb, and in the middle lieth some Islands of Rocks, which the Current sets so violently upon, that it threatens present shipwrack; and upon the Flood is a large Whirlpool, which continually sends forth a hideous roaring, enough to affright any stranger from passing further, and to wait for some Charon to conduct him thorough; yet to those that are well acquainted little or no danger; yet a place of great defence against any enemy coming in that way, which a small Fortification would absolutely prevent, and necessitate them to come in at the West-end of Long-Island by Sandy Hook, where Nutten-Island doth force them within Command of the Fort at New York, which is one of the best Pieces of Defence in the North-parts of America."

"The Fruits natural to the Island, are Mulberries, Posimons, Grapes great and small, Huckelberries, Cramberries, Plums of several sorts, Rasberries and Strawberries, of which last is such abundance in June, that the Fields and Woods are died red: Which the Countreypeople perceiving, instantly arm themselves with bottles of Wine, Cream, and Sugar, and instead of a Coat of Male, every one takes a Female upon his Horse behind him, and so rushing violently into the fields, never leave till they have disrob’d them of their red colours, and turned them into the old habit."

"Here those which Fortune hath frown’d upon in England, to deny them an inheritance amongst their Brethren, or such as by their utmost labors can scarcely procure a living, I say such may procure here inheritances of land, and possessions, stock themselves with all sorts of Cattel, enjoy the benefit of them whilst they live, and leave them to the benefit of their children when they die."

"... how free are those parts of the world from that pride and oppression, with their miserable effects, which many, nay almost all parts of the world are troubled, with being ignorant of that pomp and bravery which aspiring Humours are servants to, and striving after almost everywhere: where a Waggon or Cart gives as good content as a Coach; and a piece of their home-made Cloth, better then the finest Lawns or richest Silks."

"He was obviously a close and shrewd observer, but with little grace of style, and somewhat devoid of a sense either of humor or of irony as is shown by his remark about the Divine Hand making a way for the English by removing the Indians wherever they came to settle. Yet his very matter of tact statements are hardly less interesting for their inartistic uncouthness."

"I must needs say, that if there be any terrestrial Canaan, 'tis surely here, where the Land floweth with milk and honey. The inhabitants are blest with Peace and plenty, blessed in their Countrey, blessed in their Fields, blessed in the Fruit of their bodies, in the fruit of their grounds, in the increase of their Cattel, Horses and Sheep, blessed in their Basket, and in their Store; In a word, blessed in whatsoever they take in hand, or go about, the Earth yielding plentiful increase to all their painful labours."

"... if there be any terrestrial happiness to be had by people of all ranks, especially of an inferior rank, it must certainly be here: here any one may furnish himself with land, and live rent-free, yea, with such a quantity of land, that he may weary himself with walking over his fields of Corn."

"Let no one who wishes to receive agreeable impressions of American manners, commence their travels in a Mississippi steamboat."

"To say something of the Indians, there is now but few upon the Island, and those few no ways hurtful but rather serviceable to the English, and it is to be admired, how strangely they have decreast by the Hand of God, since the English first setling of those parts; for since my time, where there were six towns, they are reduced to two small Villages, and it hath been generally observed, that where the English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them, by removing or cutting off the Indians, either by Wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal Disease."

"I put my head in my hands and try to get quiet, quieter and quieter, and the thin membrane, the invisible connective tissue around the part of my brain that holds my memory, that allows me to stay focused on the present, begins to slide through - emotion makes it happen easily - and through the thready openings memory begins to come through, healing memory, slowly, in great detail, slowly, there is no rush, it must be firmly built up. From this comes self-healing."

"And as if you were transported on an escalator from one floor to the other, and could not get off, so time unyieldingly transports you away from your husband's death. But the loss of a son or daughter, it pours out the sadness, also on you, no matter how long ago, it's still there, always there."

"During our march the simoom was fearful, and the heat so intense that it was impossible to draw the guncases out of their leather covers, which it was necessary to cut open. All woodwork was warped; ivory knife-handles were split; paper broke when crunched in the hand, and the very marrow seemed to be dried out of the bones. The extreme dryness of the air induced an extraordinary amount of electricity in the hair and in all woollen materials. A Scotch plaid laid upon a blanket for a few hours adhered to it, and upon being withdrawn at night a sheet of flame was produced, accompanied by tolerably loud reports."

"In the great day of punishments and rewards, our Saviour, of all the works which man in this world is expected to do, will not demand an account of any in comparison with those which relate to mercy, and the pious care and protection of the needy. And truly it seems innate in the human heart, and common even to uncivilized nations to have compassion on the afflicted and infirm, and to act towards them as benefactors."

"However healthy a love one may have of civilization and all its fleshpots, the best thrill of the year is when one leaves them all behind, and sets off for the unknown with a lot of lumpy luggage that contains hardly any clothes at all. It is good to feel that one has left one's little niche in the every­day world, where each one of us is assessed and tabulated to a nicety; to slough off one's everyday accepted self, and to loose oneself in the anonymity of a strange country and people, among whom one has to make good solely by the leverage of one's personality and will to win. The thrill increases till the last vestige of civilization is gone and one is at grips with the unknown, when it comes down to earth, and settles into a hard absorbing fight with primitive conditions; with the problems of health and climate and transport, with the daily struggle for food, water and trans­port, and the groping after understanding of the strange and sometimes antagonistic people one is among. All the complexities of life disappear, and one is reduced to the state, mental and physical, of a healthy animal. As long as one's "tummy" is reasonably full, and there is a prospect of somewhere safe and dry to sleep, one is perfectly, almost stupidly happy. The creature comforts of life no longer matter. For the first few days one misses one's bath most terribly, but in a short time, I am ashamed to say, one doesn't mind if one never had a bath again! Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in the wilds it comes a long way after food and sleep, or even a good camel."

"All the sailors swore that they never saw handsomer made women in their lives, and declared they would all to a man live on two thirds allowance rather than lose so fine an opportunity of getting a girl apiece."

"Men zegt, dat bloohartige menschen in ’t gemeyn verraders zijn. Daar zijn verscheyde Natien, die met het Volk van deze Colonie verkeerren, ende Koopmanschap drijven; maar d’eigene Inwoonderen van ’t landt zijn Charibes, ofte Canibalen, die ook wel de meeste in ’t getal zijn van de genen die deze Landen bewoonen; ende die hebben haar selven verspreyt meest in alle Eylanden daar omtrent, ende op het vaste land langs de Riviere van d’Amazones aan, tot aan die van Oronoque."

"Dit dansen duurt tot aan den dag, wanneer ieder zijne hangmat gaat ophangen, en een poos slapen. Ondertusschen bevond ik hier het spreekwoord waarachtig, dat een dronke Vrouw een opene deur is: want niet zo haast waren de herssenen door den drank beneveld, en den avond gevallen, of alle schuilhoeken wierden paarhokken; waar na ze zich stilletjes weder aan den dans voegden, even of ’er niets was omgegaan."

"Kakkebaretje [Shit Hat]"

"When a tree takes a notion to grow in California nothing in heaven or on earth will stop it."

"I know something about the monkey tribes, but I cannot say that at this moment I remember any particular habit of which we might avail ourselves."

"To sleep at your post! shame on you! Had you been a sentinel in time of war that nod would have cost you your life, supposing you to have been caught in the act."

"If I go to sleep and the fires die down, who knows but wild beasts may come upon us and kill us before we can seize our arms."

"Oh no! not at all; perfectly well—never was better in my life,” he said, becoming all at once preternaturally grave."

"From the facts I have adduced in the course of this paper I must come to the conclusion that the theory which makes all the languages of Europe and Asia, from Bengal to the British Islands, however different in appearance, to have sprung from the same stock, and hence, all the people speaking them, black, swarthy, and fair, to be of one and the same race of man, is utterly groundless, and the mere dream of learned men, and perhaps even more imaginative than learned. I can by no means, then, agree with a very learned professor of Oxford, that the same blood ran in the veins of the soldiers of Alexander and Clive as in those of the Hindus whom, at the interval of two-and-twenty ages, they both scattered with the same facility. I am not prepared, like him, to believe that an English jury, unless it were a packed one of learned Orientalists, with the ingenious professor him- self for its foreman, would, "After examining the hoary documents of language," admit "the claim of a common descent between Hindu, Greek, and Teuton," for that would amount to allowing that there was no difference in the faculties of the people that produced Homer and Shakespear, and those that have produced nothing better than the authors of the Mahabharat and Ramayana; no difference between the home-keeping Hindus, who never made a foreign conquest of any kind, and the nations who discovered, conquered, and peopled a new world."

"And yet those five volumes may be called the Prose Epic of the modern English nation. They contain the heroic tales of the exploits of the great men in whom the new era was inaugurated; not mythic, like the Iliads and the Eddas, but plain broad narratives of substantial facts, which rival legend in interest and grandeur. What the old epics were to the royally or nobly born, this modern epic is to the common people."

"The two editions of Hakluyt's Principall Navigtions, in 1589 and 1598–1600 respectively, embodied twenty years of concerted effort to build a tradition of maritime enterprise and achievement. This again was based in medieval record and legend and so showed the multiple initiatives of Tudor times in perspective, implying a national destiny. Moreover Hakluyt brought together the minds of those concerned, from ordinary seamen to lord admirals, from tourists in the Middle East to City magnates and royal favourites, and he engaged the support of those most committed to expansion, notably Richard Staper, Anthony Jenkinson and Michael Lok, all merchant pioneers, Sir John Hawkins, Ralegh and, above all, Walsingham. Thus Hakluyt did more than anyone to integrate and organize the disparate personalities, experiences and aspirations into a movement with a common consciousness and harnessed the horses of nationalism to the chariot of empire."

"To harpe no longer upon this string, & to speake a word of that just commendation which our nation doe indeed deserve: it can not be denied, but as in all former ages, they have bene men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the speciall assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth."

"The sea-war in general and privateering in particular did much to associate English nationalism with militant maritime expansion. In attitudes at least the war marked a turning point, signalized by the publication of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations in the year after the Armada and of its extended edition in 1598–1600. Hakluyt's message of oceanic imperialism conquered the reading public with such triumphant ease because the public mind was now ready to accept it."

"It is rare to find a man so representative of his period as was Peter Mundy. In an age when curiosity was the outstanding characteristic of intelligent Englishmen, curiosity was the ruling passion of this life. ... His insatiable appetite for information, his eye for detail, his desire for accuracy, would have made him in modern times a first-rate scientist. ... True to his period, also, was his heartlessness ... he was more interested in the appearances of things than their implications in the lives of human beings. ... But if he was unfeeling, he was by no means insensitive; each strange item in the surprising world he had inherited is described with a spontaneous brilliance seldom to be found in modern writing."

"From Buckever hither were above 200 Munaries' [mīnār, pillar], with heads mortered and plaistered in, leaveinge out nothing but their verie face, some 30, some 40, some more some lesse. This was Abdula Ckauns exploit (whoe is now Governour of Puttana), by the kings Order. For this way was soe pestered with Rebbells and Theeves, that there was noe passinge; soe that the Kinge sent Abdulla Ckaun, with 12,000 horse and 20,000 foote to suppresse them, whoe destroyed all their Townes', tooke all their goods, their wives and children for slaves, and the cheifest of their men, causeing their heads to bee cutt of and to be immortered as before [depicted]."

"... I Doe allsoe conffesse thatt Many things are Misplaced, as some First that should bee last, and soe to the Contrary; allsoe some things therin mought bee better lefftt outt and others omitted Were better in there place. Thus For Matter and phrase. All this allsoe I could Mend, and When I had Don, even begin againe, butt, as I said, the phrase is sutable to the Matter. Yett, however, lett this one thing breed some better liking off itt, Thatt I have endeavoured to com as Near the truth off the Matters Discribed as possibly I could attain unto by my owne experience or the Most probablest Relation off others."

"To the Munares of dead mens heads made bv Abdulla Ckaun [’Abdull’ah Khān] are added since our comeinge this way by Furzand Ckaun [Farzand Khān] about 60 more with 35 or 40 heads a peece, lately killed."

"Neere Etaya [Etāwa] there was a new Munare a makeinge with a great heape of heads lyeing by them, ready to bee immortered."

"Here is a Hindooe Dewra ruinated, it seems by Moores envieing its beautie, adorned on the outside with the best Carved worke that I have seene in India, verie spacious and high, yett not a handbreadth from the foote to the topp but was Curiously wrought with the figures of men and weomen etts. their fabulous stories. Now the said Edifice is defaced by the throwing downe the Copulaes, Arches and pillars thereof, breaking the Armes, Leggs and Noses of the said images…"

"Of all the regions of the Earth (India is) the only Public theatre of Justice and Tenderness to Brutes and all living creatures." He also found that, because of their diet, the Hindus kept a comely and proportionate body and lived a long life. The simple and meatless food made their thoughts 'quick and nimble,' their 'comprehension of things' easier and developed in them a spirit of fearlessness."

"Purchas his Pilgrimes … the Second Part (1625)"

"The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles (1632)"

"The Gushing Teares of Godly Sorrow (1640)"

"As for the science Practique, it doth first imbrace the Morall that some divide in three, to wit, Ethique, that doth forme the manners of one man, Secondly in Ecoenomick, that doth dispose the actions domesticke: The third in Politicque, that comprehend the actions Civill; concerning the government of Common-wealths, which containeth under it the whole science of right civilitie. And with Practique, is also placed Dialectique, the Art of memory, the Grammar, the Rhetorique, to which also may be joyned the Art Poetique, and of Histories. But for their particular divisions I am not prolixious, as inutile to my designe in hand; divers dedicate themselves to the knowledge of these sciences, not knowing that they forget the most necessary, to wit, the science of the world.... This science is onely acquisted by conversation, and haunting the company of the most experimented: by divers discourses, reports, by writs, or by a lively voyce, in communicating with strangers; and in the judicious consideration of the fashion of the living one with another. And above all, and principally by Travellers, and Voyagers in divers Regions, and remote places, whose experience confirmeth the true Science thereof; and can best draw the anatomy of humane condition."

"The Pilgrimes Farewell, to his Native Country of Scotland (1618)"

"A Most Delectable and True Discourse, of an Admired and Painefull Peregrination (1614, reissued 1616; new, expanded edition, 1623)"

"May not the scelerate hands of foure blood-shedding wolves facily devoure, and shake a peeces, one silly stragling lambe?"

"And loe here is mine Effigie affixed with my Turkish habit, my walking staffe, & my Turban upon my head, even as I travelled in the bounds of Troy, and so through all Turkey: Before my face on the right hand standeth the Easterne and sole gate of that sometimes noble City, with a piece of a high wall, as yet undecayed: And without this Port runneth the River Simois (inclosing the old Grecian Campe) downe to the Marine, where it imbraceth the Sea Propontis: A little below, are bunches of grapes, denoting the vineyards of this fructiferous place; adjoyning neare to the fragments and ruynes of Priams Pallace, surnamed Ilium: And next to it a ravenous Eagle, for so this part of Phrigia is full of them: So beneath my feet ly the two Tombes of Priamus & Hecuba his Queene: And under them the incircling hills of Ida, at the West South west end of this once Regall Towne; & at my left hand, the delicious and pleasant fields of Olives and Figge-trees, wherewith the bowells of this famous soyle are interlarded."

"What we generally fall to realize is that in talking today to the IndIans we are face to face with the direct descendants, as often as not, of people who were contemporaries of Ancient Egypt, and whose present culture, in most of its mam essentials, is nearly the same as It was then, and is in any event directly descended from that age, and even possibly before it."

"A lot of the feelings of isolation, lack of belonging, and exclusion Muna feels are real and raw for me."

"Many personal experiences were sprinkled throughout the book."

"Brittany was the most challenging character for me because, as the author, we don’t share the same values, but she is completely valid."

"The trauma she had endured often manifested itself as quiet tears once she was locked in her room, staring at her graveyard of photos."