Men who travel alone may be divided into two classes. There is the man who cannot get a companion, and the man who does not want one. There is also, between these two solitary men, an intermediate solitary man, who travels alone because he cannot find the companion that would exactly suit him. But, whatever may be the cause of his solitude, the man who travels alone is not, I think, to be envied. If he be a studious, thoughtful man, taking delight in museums and houses of assembly, given to chemistry and the variations of European politics, fond of statistics and well-instructed in stuffed vermin, he may be as happy travelling alone as he would be alone in his library; but such a man is exceptional, and I am not now speaking of him. He is a student and not a tourist. He is going to school and not out for a holiday. The man who travels alone, with whom we have to do, is one who goes abroad for a little health, for a good deal of recreation if he can find it, and for the pleasure of looking about him and seeing the world. The improvement in health he may find; but the recreation will be doubtful, unless he be one by nature averse to gregarious habits. When we see such a one,--and such a one is often seen straying along the Rhine or wandering listlessly among the mountains,--we always suppose him to be alone because he cannot help it. We are never kind enough to give him credit for a choice for solitude; and we avoid him sedulously because we have it in our power to give him that one thing that he wants. Such is the human nature of tourists, which in this respect is very like to the human nature of people who stay at home. We like to have at our houses those whom it is difficult to obtain, and do not care to entertain those who are always ready to come to us. It must be admitted that the ill-nature of tourist parties in this respect is justified to a great degree by the experienced results of any exceptional good-nature into which soft-hearted persons may be occasionally betrayed. Who among us that has been thus soft-hearted on an occasion has not repented in sackcloth and ashes? The solitary tourist when once taken up can hardly be dropped; he appears, and reappears, and comes up again till the original friends of the original good-natured sinner become gloomy and sullen and talk of strong measures. Whispers of an enforced separation are murmured about, and Jones, who has picked the man up, and who "found that there was something in him" as they sat next each other in a railway carriage, is made to understand by Smith and Walker, that unless he can contrive to drop Mr. Robinson, he must be dropped himself. It is not so easy to drop Mr. Robinson. The paths of Switzerland, and the roads into Italy, are open to all the world.