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Fallow Years, 1844-1849   205


for bringing a boat from Jaffa and with his permission navigating the Dead Sea, as Costagan bad done, but poor fellow he had died in the act. On returning to Jerusalem I found letters urging me to return home principally on account of some trust business for my sister Adele. I went, hardly thinking it was a final parting with Syria, but so it was and the next year Lynch the American came, subsidized my Sheikh, surveyed the Joz`dan and Dead Sea very thoroughly and published the results in a big and valuable book, which by the way does not contain a word of allusion to myself, his predecessor.

FRANCIS GALTON.

A perusal of this sketch of Galton's tours in Egypt and Syria will indicate to the reader that the Wanderlust, however keen, had not yet ripened into the desire for scientific travel. Galton was still touring for the boyish fun of movement and of new scenes. He had not yet thoughts of the language, habits or archaeology of the people he mingled with. It was, as far as we can judge, still possible for him to settle down as a sporting country gentleman after finishing the somewhat extended "grand tour" of the day. The significant incidents of the Egyptian and Syrian tour, which seem most markedly to have weighed with him in after life, were the meeting with Arnaud-of which he wrote that his words were " a division of the ways in my subsequent life "-the incident with the Sheikh on the same day', and the death of the faithful Ali. Galton reached England in November, 1846. One longs for the graphic letters of the earlier tours, or still better for a sample of such as came later from Africa, but none have survived. The following letter addressed to Beyrout shows that Galton must have been in continuous correspondence with some of his

Cambridge friends

WILTON CRESCENT, June 24, 1846.

MY DEAR GALTON,-Your letter was such an enormous time reaching me that if this be similarly long in arriving at its destination, I entertain serious doubts as to your getting it, particularly as I have been lazy and have put off writing till the day before I start for Ostend, amidst the infinite hurries of packing. I own I ought to have written or brickbatted earlier but Kay positively told me that it was useless as you never acknowledged his, and that he did not know where to direct. Your letter is a great work of art, worthy to be ranked with the most ingenious productions of modern times; of course I don't believe it, and am inclined to think you have been all the time in 105 Park St concealed, and examining the map of Africa. If I really could put my

' " The cabin reeked with the smells of the recent carouse, when the door opened and there stood the tall Sheikh marked with sand on his forehead that indicated recent prostration in prayer. The pure moonlight flooded the Bacchanalian cabin, and the clear cool desert air poured in. I felt swinish in the presence of his Moslem purity and imposing mien." Memwmies, p. 88.


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