Touring in 1600. Bates Ernest Stuart

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      The precautions of Protestant sovereigns were against Roman Catholicism inasmuch as there lay political dangers, but so far as religion was concerned, as much precaution might reasonably have been taken against Mohammedanism. In no European country did ability bring a man to the top so readily as in Turkey, and being a foreigner was in a man's favour; not even at Venice was there such a mixture of nations as at Constantinople; the majority of the Grand Signor's eminent subjects were renegade foreigners. Dallam might refuse the invitation; many accepted it; and a Turk considered it only humane to give an unbeliever at least one definite invitation to salvation. An occasion which many would make use of to turn Turk was during the fortnight preceding the circumcision of the Sultan's heir. One traveller saw two hundred circumcised at such a time, many of them adult, one said to be as old as fifty-three. As a particular instance of an English "Turk" there is the case of the English Consul at Cairo in 1601. He was "taking care" of much belonging to English merchants at the time, in the possession of which the Turks no doubt confirmed him. At the same time there was an exactly similar case of a Venetian, for the same purpose. But besides the causes of the chance to rise in the world, or the attractions of others' property, there was another reason for apostacy, the chief one – mitigating the sufferings of captivity.

      But the renegades came mostly from the lower or the commercial class, and did not come home, so that the fact that a guide was required to be a sectarian, in contradistinction to a Christian, is another comment on the characteristics of the Average Tourist. Sir Walter Ralegh, however, did not make that a qualification, for he chose Ben Jonson to chaperon his son. There is only one anecdote about Ben Jonson in that capacity, the one he told Drummond himself. "This youth" [i. e., Ralegh's son] "being knavishly inclined, caused him to be drunken, and dead drunk, so that he knew not where he was; thereafter laid him on a car, which he made to be drawn through the streets, at every corner showing his governor stretched out and telling them that was a more lively image of the Crucifix than any they had: at which young Ralegh's mother delighted much (saying his father when young was so inclined), though the father abhorred it."

      Another sixteenth-century guide immortalised by another's pen is Jean Bouchet, "Traverseur de Voies Perilleuses" as he called himself. Not that Rabelais, to whom the pen belonged, names him, only he applies this nickname to the guide of Pantagruel and company, Xenomanes (i. e., "mad on foreigners"). No easy task to be an orthodox guide with Friar John at one's elbow; for guide-book etymologies Friar John had no taste; only asked, "What's that to do with me? I wasn't in the country when it was baptised!" A guide to suit Friar John would have been some disciple of Montaigne, who while agreeing with the others that travelling was one of the best forms of education thought that it was not "pour en rapporter seulement, à la mode de nostre noblesse françoise, combien de pas a 'Santa Rotonda,' ou la richesse des calessons de la signora Livia; ou, comme d'aultres, combien le visage de Neron, de quelque vieille ruyne de là, est plus long ou plus large que celuy de quelque pareille medaille, mais pour rapporter principalement les humeurs de ces nations et leur façons, et pour frotter et limer nostre cervelle contre celle d'aultruy."

      Others, too, like Montaigne, without setting out to write guide-books, have guidance to offer as a result of experience of life and travel; sometimes in letters, sometimes in chance remarks. Letters of this kind which have survived are many, but so much alike are they as to suggest that the fathers shrunk from explaining to the sons how they themselves had made the most of their time and fell back on unacknowledged quotations from a Gruberus. Of the few frank ones the two best are by Sir Philip Sidney to his brother, and by the ninth Earl of Northumberland to his son Algernon.22 Although the latter is nearly as encyclopædic as Plotius, it is so merely in the way of suggestion, discussing only motives and ideas and insisting on his son's freedom of choice, in general as well as in detail; with one or two remarks added that would have scandalised the guide-book writer, but leaven the whole of the letter. It is especially interesting as showing how the idea of travel as a factor in life brought out the best of a man who was a failure at home from a day-by-day point of view.

      As for chance remarks: one likens travelling to death in so far as it means separation from friends, letters, moreover, yielding as little satisfaction as prayers; and whereas the wise say that death is the entrance to a happier life, there is the opposite prospect with travel, so that it has all the disadvantages of hell as well as of death. And here may follow a few more remarks of theirs, chosen as suggestive of the characteristics of sixteenth-century travel in so far as it differs from our own, not neglecting proverbs: —

      A traveller has need of a falcon's eye, an ass's ears, a monkey's face, a merchant's words, a camel's back, a hog's mouth, a deer's feet. And the traveller to Rome – the back of an ass, the belly of a hog, and a conscience as broad as the king's highway.

      Line your doublet with taffetie; taffetie is lice-proof.

      Never journey without something to eat in your pocket, if only to throw to dogs when attacked by them.

      Carry a note-book and red crayon (i. e., lead pencils were not in regular use).

      When going by coach, avoid women, especially old women; they always want the best places.

      At sea, remove your spurs; sailors make a point of stealing them from those who are being sea-sick. Keep your distance from them in any case; they are covered with vermin.

      In an inn-bedroom which contains big pictures, look behind the latter to see they do not conceal a secret door, or a window.

      Women should not travel at all and married men not much.

      CHAPTER III

      ON THE WATER

      Chi può venire per mare non è lontano.

Paolo Sarpi, 1608.23

      Hentzner, in his preface, acknowledges that the troubles of a traveller are great and finds only two arguments to countervail them: that man is born unto trouble, and that Abraham had orders to travel direct from God. Abraham, however, did not have to cross the Channel. Otherwise, perhaps, the prospect of sacrificing himself as well as his only son Isaac, would have brought to light a flaw in his obedience. There was, it is true, the chance of crossing from Dover to Calais in four hours, but the experiences of Princess Cecilia, already related, were no less likely. In 1610 two Ambassadors waited at Calais fourteen days before they could make a start, and making a start by no means implied arriving – at least, not at Dover; one gentleman, after a most unhappy night, found himself at Nieuport next morning and had to wait three days before another try could be made. Yet another, who had already sailed from Boulogne after having waited six hours for the tide, accomplished two leagues, been becalmed for nine or ten hours, returned to Boulogne by rowing-boat, and posted to Calais, found no wind to take him across there and had to charter another rowing-boat at sunset on Friday, reaching Dover on Monday between four and five A. M. It was naturally a rare occurrence to go the whole distance by small boat, because of the risk. Lord Herbert of Cherbury was the most noteworthy exception; after he had made three attempts from Brill and covered distances which varied from just outside the harbour to half-way, arriving at Brill again, however, each time, he went by land to Calais, where the sea was so dangerous that no one would venture, no one except one old fisherman, whose boat, he himself owned, was one of the worst in the harbour, but, on the other hand, he did not mind whether he lived or died.

      But finishing the crossing by rowing-boat was a very ordinary experience because of the state of the harbours. Calais was the better of the two, yet it sometimes happened that passengers had to be carried ashore one hundred yards or more because not even boats could approach. In 1576 an ambassador to France complains that Dover harbour is in such utter ruin that he will cross elsewhere in future; in 1580 Sir Walter Ralegh СКАЧАТЬ