At last, long after the chimera, for such it inevitably was, of Corsican independence had vanished, my cherished hopes have been realised,—with what success will appear in the following pages. I will only say for myself, and I believe my fellow-traveller participates the feeling, a more delightful tour I never made.
Corsica had an ugly reputation for _banditisme_, and Sardinia for a deadly _intempérie_; but we did not attach much importance to such rumours. The enthusiastic traveller disregards danger. If told that there is “a lion in his path,” he only goes the more resolutely forward. As for the banditti, we would fraternise with them if they, best knowing the mountain paths, would track the moufflons for us.
The true traveller must “become all things to all men,” if he desires to familiarise himself with the habits and characters of other races. Without forgetting that he is an Englishman, he will cast off that self-conceit and cold exclusiveness which make so many of your countrymen ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners, and, adapting himself to the situation, become, if needs be, a bandit in Corsica, a bonder in Norway, drink sour milk without a wry face in a Caffre's kraal, take snuff with his wives—be any thing except a Turk in Turkey; though even there, when he comes to talk the language, he will adopt the eastern custom of taking his pipe, his coffee, and his repose, not chattering, but sententiously uttering his words between whiffs of smoke, which, meanwhile, he _drinks_, as the Turks well express it.
We envy not the man, the T. G. (travelling gent.) of society, whose principal aim in travelling is to gratify a miserable vanity; to be able to boast of crossing or climbing such a mountain; to have to say, “I have been here, I have been there; I have done Bagdad; I have seen the Nile,” or such and such a place. The true traveller is unselfish. Though to him it is food, breath, a renewal of life, a fresh existence, to travel,—half his pleasure is to carry home from his wanderings, to an English fireside, a tale of other lands. That happy English home is ever present to his mind, and, with all his enthusiasm, he meets with nothing in his rambles he would exchange for its blessings.