On Concluding the journey.
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ON CONCLUDING THE JOURNEY.
Complete your Collections.-When your journey draws near its close, resist restless feelings ; make every effort before it is too late to supplement deficiencies in your various collections; take stock of what you have gathered together, and think how the things will serve in England to illustrate your journey or your book. Keep whatever is pretty in itself, or is illustrative of your every-day life, or that of the savages, in the way of arms, utensils, and dresses. Make careful drawings of your encampment, your retinue, and whatever else you may in indolence have omitted to sketch, that will possess an after-interest. Look over your vocabularies for the last time, and complete them as far as possible. Make presents of all your travelling gear and old guns to your native attendants, for they will be mere litter in England, costly to house and attractive to moth and rust ; while in the country where you have been travelling, they are of acknowledged value, and would be additionally acceptable as keepsakes.
Memoranda, to arrange.-Paste all loose slips of MSS. into the pages of a blank book ; and stitch your memoranda books where they are torn ; give them to a bookbinder, at the first opportunity, to re-bind and page them, adding an abundance of blank leaves. Write an index to the whole of your MSS. ; put plenty of cross-references, insert necessary explanations, and supplement imperfect descriptions, while your memory of the events remains fresh. It appears impossible to a traveller, at the close of his journey, to believe he will ever forget its events, however trivial; for after long brooding on few facts, they will seem to be fairly branded into his memory. But this is not the case; for the crowds of new impressions, during a few months or years of civilised life, will efface the sharpness of the old ones. I have conversed with men of low mental power, servants and others, the greater part of whose experiences in savagedom had passed out of their memories like the events of a dream.
Alphabetical Lists,-Every explorer has frequent occasion to draw up long catalogues in alphabetical order, whether of
