It
Owes Its Origin, Partly To The Strong Wilfulness Of The English
Gentleman (Which Not Being Backed By Any Visible
Authority, either
civil or military, seems perfectly superhuman to the soft Asiatic),
but partly too to the magic of the
Banking system, by force of
which the wealthy traveller will make all his journeys without
carrying a handful of coin, and yet when he arrives at a city will
rain down showers of gold. The theory is, that the English
traveller has committed some sin against God and his conscience,
and that for this the evil spirit has hold of him, and drives him
from his home like a victim of the old Grecian furies, and forces
him to travel over countries far and strange, and most chiefly over
deserts and desolate places, and to stand upon the sites of cities
that once were and are now no more, and to grope among the tombs of
dead men. Often enough there is something of truth in this notion;
often enough the wandering Englishman is guilty (if guilt it be) of
some pride or ambition, big or small, imperial or parochial, which
being offended has made the lone place more tolerable than
ballrooms to him, a sinner.
I can understand the sort of amazement of the Orientals at the
scantiness of the retinue with which an Englishman passes the
Desert, for I was somewhat struck myself when I saw one of my
countrymen making his way across the wilderness in this simple
style.
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