Touring in 1600: A Study in the Development of Travel as a Means of EducationBates, E. S. (Ernest Stuart)
History
Touring in 1600: A Study in the Development of Travel as a Means of Education
Bates, E. S. (Ernest Stuart)
Europe -- Description and travel; Europe -- Social life and customs; Travel -- History
Supposing, however, that all these means failed? The tourist became
a beggar till he found friends. He might try, of course, to raise a
loan, but only on terms which would possibly induce him to prefer
beggary. The "German Ulysses," Karl Nützel of Nuremberg, was robbed at
Alexandria of his capital; at Cairo he persuaded a ship's captain to
lend him four hundred ducats, undertaking to pay him six hundred at
Constantinople. They arrived thither in two months; the interest was
therefore at the rate of three hundred per cent.[142] Sir Henry Wotton,
when an ambassador, paid twenty per cent for a loan at Venice.
In considering loans we have passed away from necessities into the
second half of the subject of cost,—its reasonable possibilities.
These consist of the risks and difficulties to which the traveller was
liable, nowhere summarised so well as in the English Litany, which was
written at this period:—
"From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence and famine; from
battle and murder; and from sudden death,
"Good Lord, deliver us."
Of the eight risks here mentioned, to most of which an Englishman
at least was more liable abroad than at home, all but two have been
minimised since. And if we note how in all other clauses of the Litany,
only those troubles or desires which have affinity with each other are
grouped together, it becomes significant in what company travellers are
prayed for;—
"That it may please thee to preserve all that travel by land or water,
all women labouring of child, all sick persons, and young children;
and to shew thy pity upon all prisoners and captives.
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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