When he had made these preparations, apparently without foreseeing to what use he should apply them, a small inheritance which fell to him put him in possession of two hundred and forty pounds. “The difficulty was,” he observes, “how to employ it. Some of my friends advised me to enjoy the capital, others to purchase an annuity; but, on reflection, I thought the sum too inconsiderable to make any sensible addition to my income, and too great to be dissipated in frivolous expenses. Some fortunate circumstances had habituated me to study; I had acquired a taste, and even a passion, for knowledge; and this accession of fortune appeared to me a fresh means of gratifying my inclination, and opening a new way to improvement. I had read, and frequently heard repeated, that of all the methods of adorning the mind and forming the judgment, travelling is the most efficacious. I determined, therefore, on a plan of travelling; but to what part of the world I should direct my course remained still to be chosen. I wished the scene of my observations to be new, or at least brilliant. My own country and the neighbouring nations seemed to me either too well known or too easy of access; the rising States of America and the savages were not without their temptations; but other considerations determined me in favour of Asia. Syria especially, and Egypt, both with a view of what they once have been, and what they now are, appeared to me a field equally adapted to those political and moral observations with which I wished to occupy my mind.” Foreseeing the fatigues and dangers of such a journey, he occupied a whole year in preparing himself to undertake it, by accustoming his body to the most violent exercises and the most painful privations. At length, all his preparatory arrangements being completed, he commenced his journey on foot, with a knapsack on his back, a musket on his shoulder, and two hundred and forty pounds in gold concealed in his girdle. “When I set out from Marseilles in 1783,” says he, “it was with all my heart; with that alacrity, that confidence in others and in myself which youth inspires. I gayly quitted a country of peace and abundance to live in a country of barbarism and misery, from no other motive than to employ the active and restless moments of youth, to acquire a new kind of knowledge, which might procure for the remainder of my days a certain portion of reputation and honour.”