Touring in 1600: A Study in the Development of Travel as a Means of Education — John Shaqi
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
First, M. de Montaigne.—When Montaigne found himself feeling old and
ill, in 1580, he made up his mind to try the baths of Germany and
Italy. So he set out; and returned in 1581. And sometimes the baths
did him good and sometimes they made no difference; but the journeying
never failed to do what the baths were meant for. He always, he
says, found forgetfulness of his age and infirmities in travelling.
However restless at night, he was alert in the morning, if the morning
meant starting for somewhere fresh. Compared with Montaigne at home,
Montaigne abroad never got tired or fretful; always in good spirits,
always interested in everything, and ready for a talk with the first
man he met. And when his companions suggested that they would like to
get to the journey's end, and that the longest way round, which he
preferred, had its disadvantages, especially when it was a bye-road
leading back to the place they started from, he would say, that he
never set out for anywhere particular; that he had not gone out of the
way, because his way lay through unfamiliar places, and the only place
he wished to avoid was where he had been before or where he had to
stop. And that he felt as one who was reading some delightful tale and
dreaded to come upon the last page.
So, no doubt, felt Fynes Moryson, for much of his life he spent either
in travelling or in writing the record of it. Starting in 1591, when
he was twenty-five, he passed through Germany, the Low Countries,
Denmark, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, spending his winters
at Leipzig, Leyden, Padua, and Venice, learning the languages so
thoroughly as to be able to disguise his nationality at will. Returning
through France, he was robbed, and consequently reached home so
disreputable-looking that the servant took him for a burglar. He found
his brother planning a journey to Jerusalem. On the 29th of November,
1595, they set out, and on July 10, 1597, he was back in London, in
appearance again so strange that the Dogberry of Aldersgate Street
wrote him down for a Jesuit. But he returned alone: his brother Henry,
twenty-six years old and not strong, fell ill at Aleppo, how ill no
one knew till too late, and near Iskenderún he died in his brother's
arms, while the Turks stood round, jeering and thieving. Fynes buried
him there with stones above him to keep off the jackals, and an epitaph
which a later traveller by chance has preserved.[1]
To thee, deare Henry Morison,
Thy brother Phines, here left alone,
Hath left this fading memorie.
For monuments and all must die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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