The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
After this we find him a prisoner in the hands of the Americans and
French at Yorktown, Virginia. As on the former occasion, he was treated
with all imaginable kindness; and, being released on parole, returned to
Europe early in 1782, and proceeded by way of Cork, Dublin, and Greenock
to Edinburgh, where he abode for a short time. Thence he started for
London: and, desirous of testing the best way of sustaining physical
strength during long marches, and urged perhaps also by economical
considerations, he resolved to make the journey on foot. His West Indian
and American experience had taught him that spare diet consisted best
with pedestrian efficiency, and it was accordingly his practice, during
this long walk, to abstain from animal food until the close of day, nor
often then to partake of it. He would walk some fourteen miles before
breakfast--a meal of tea and bread; rest then for an hour or an hour and
a half; then pace on until bedtime--a salad, a tart, or sometimes tea
and bread, forming his usual evening fare. He found that on this diet he
arose every morning at dawn with alacrity, and could prosecute without
inconvenience his laborious undertaking. By way of experiment he twice
or thrice varied his plan--dining on the road off beefsteaks, and having
a draught of porter in the course of the afternoon; but the result
justified his anticipations. The stimulus of the beer soon passing off,
lassitude succeeded the temporary strength it had lent him; and, worse
than all, his disposition to early rising sensibly diminished.
His stay in London, which he reached in this primitive fashion, was not
long. His kind friend Dr. Stuart, who had exchanged into the Royal
Horse-Guards, gave him the shelter of his roof; but so poor was Mr.
Jackson, that, although ardently desirous of improving himself in his
profession, he was unable to attend any one of the medical schools with
which London abounds.
The peace of 1783 having opened the continent to the curiosity of the
British traveller, Jackson curtly announced to his friends, that "he was
going to take a walk." His poverty allowed him no other mode of
locomotion; so off he set on the grand tour, carrying with him a map of
France, a bundle of clothes, and a scanty supply of money. Crossing the
Channel, he reached Calais, a place which Horace Walpole, writing from
Rome, declared had astonished him more than any thing he had elsewhere
seen, but in which our adventurer found nothing more astonishing than a
superb Swiss regiment. He proceeded to Paris, and thence through
Switzerland, by Geneva and Berne, into Germany, at a town of which--Günz
in Suabia--he met with a comical enough adventure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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