East of the Jordan, and Other Books of Travel

By Charles G. Leland
Saved Stories

THE topography and archæology of “ the Holy Land” are to Christians the most interesting in the world, and the names of the men who have written On them, from the times of the Talmudists, and Josephus, Abulfeda, and Edrisi, to our own, present such an array of genius that it is no small praise to Mr. Merrill to say that his book1 merits a prominent place in the literature of the subject. It is indeed a matter for congratulation that, as American missionaries have taken the lead in practically reforming the East, Americans like Robinson have also been among the first to solve the problems of scriptural geography. There are now two societies, one English and one American, devoted to exploring Palestine, the former working in the east, which is comparatively well known and easily accessible, while our own is busy with the west, our author having labored for the latter. It has been asserted that this latter division is the least important and least interesting, and if Mr.Merrill had achieved nothing more than refuting this error, as he has most successfully, his work would still be of great value. Those who are not familiar with the works of De Vogué, Wetzstein, Guillaume, and others who have written on this region are generally under the impression that it is a mere desert, with a few decaying tell or mounds marking the site of ancient towers ; when, on the contrary, it abounds with the magnificent remains of what were scores of splendid cities, their circuses, baths, temples, palaces, and triumphal arches being often only half ruined, and presenting perfect studies of architecture from the mysterious primeval Cyclopean, through Phœnician, Greek, Græco-Roman, and Romanesque, to the Saracenic. Following W. H. Waddington, Mr. Merrill observes in this region the manner in which Græco-Syrian architects, with new social or religious needs, employed with grand logic the elements of the GræcoRoman orders, and developed from them the first stage of the Transition. Yet this region has been very rarely visited. Like Arles, “ the best of it lies buried ’neath the ground,” and immense archæological treasures await the excavator. There are the ruins of threescore great cities in the Hauran group, all of them covering, “ as monkish writing covers older text,” the remains of the very ancient cities of Basham “ It is impossible to say how many layers of civilization may exist beneath any one of these towns.”

We regret that our limits will not allow our giving the grounds, topographical and philological, on which Mr. Merrill identifies many of the sites of the Bible. In many cases he convinces, but in as many more this “ identification ” depends so much on fancied and forced resemblance to modern vulgar Arab words, and is conjectured through such an array of Talmudic, Arabic, and Greek substitutions of vowels and “ daring guess-work,” as would hardly hold good in law; so that we are tempted to write of it. “C’est magnifique,mais ce n’est pas la science.” There is certainly much brilliant imagination displayed in proving that many places are the same as those mentioned in the Bible. “ Here would I locate,” “here it is supposed,” and “many think” are great authorities in this work, — as, indeed, with most on Palestine. This is, however, the only manner in which Mr. Merrill displays much imagination. He is usually very dry and straightforward, so much given to the business in hand that once he would not copy a Nabathæan inscription which came in his way, because at the time he was looking for Greek ; reminding us of the colored man who threw the perch back into the river because he was “ arter catties, an’ only follered one perfession at a time.”

Although Mr. Merrill knows the Arabs well, he astonishes us by remarking that he wonders, when an Arab says his prayers, “ if he knows anything of God ; ” from which we should infer either that he is ignorant that the Muslim religion is a pure theism, or else that, like many good folk, he holds that an atheist means “ anybody who differs from us in any way as to religion.” There is also a little inconsistency in pointing out that “ a man can be a good Moslem while nursing angry passions in his heart,” and anon convincing us that these heathen are on the whole far honester than the correspondingly poor in Europe or America. He is not a quick observer of such Oriental ways as would explain the Bible, and he communicates the most worn-out, infant-school information as to the Arabs with an innocence which is amusing. Yet he now and then gives us some good points: as, for instance, when a Jew explains that the general dirtiness of his race in Palestine, both as to their faces, hands, houses, and streets, is owing to the fact that government “ will do nothing for them.” We are also obliged to him for a list, of the names of Arab girls: for example, Misses Fascinating Fly, Sociable Slider, Safe Chatterer, Victorious Camel Driver, Benevolent Old Shoe, Pink Thick Lip, Enough, Diamond Molasses Maker, and Blessed Butter Maker.

It is remarkable that Mr. Merrill, like Captain Warren, seems to be ignorant that excavated objects which crumble and vanish on being touched can always be preserved by simply sprinkling them with a solution of gelatine or glue, which in its turn it is easy to make from bones, parchment, etc. It may be remarked, in conclusion, that the author, in regretting that this Western Holy Land is so little explored, gives unconsciously good reason for it, by telling us that most Europeans or Americans who attempt it soon die. It is indeed one of the most unhealthy countries in the world, and as destructive with its heat as the Arctic regions are with cold.

There are men who when mad try, like Hamlet, to conceal it by shamming madness, and there are others who when they feel that strong drink is daunting them play the drunkard, and like them there are frivolous authors who affect a light, fantastic tone in a manner meant to convey the impression that, airy as they seem, they are in reality like the diplomatist who was described by the Persian prince as being “one deep lake, always serene at bottom, though he may be rumpled up-stairs with playful waves.” Yet such men may be clever in their way, and Signore de Amicis, though an advanced type of the species, certainly produces books which are at times rather interesting, and occasionally moderately amusing. Heine appears to have been his model, — that is to say, Heine in the French version, and in his weaker parts, — and he gives us, if not the wine of the great German Jew, at least his froth, which is to children the best part of champagne. Perhaps the first test of a mere book of travel is the degree to which it excites a desire to visit the country described; the next being the number of passages in it which impress themselves on the memory. Judged by both standards, Spain and the Spaniards2 is a little better than most works of the kind, although the first is often due to glittering exaggeration, and the second to eccentric trifles. Thus, he weeps beyond reason. His eyes fill with tears on seeing the handwriting of Columbus. In Seville, “ when sitting by one of the noblest creatures whom he has ever known,” the looking at the stars and talking of the Infinite cause him, when the “ noblest creature ” takes his hand, to exclaim, “ It is true! ” while a flood of scalding tears filled his eyes, and he began to cry like a child. What it was that was true does not at all appear, but that is of no consequence; the “ entusymusy ” was there, “all the same.” In the next paragraph Signore de Amicis tells us that a picture of St. Anthony had such an effect on him that he was as weary as if he had seen a great gallery, and was seized with a tremor which lasted as long as he remained in the room. In Granada, in the court-yard, he trembles like a leaf, while two tears are running down his cheeks. This he swears, “ on the heads of his readers.” And after far too many other instances of the too, too utterly ineffable emotional character of his heart he weeps while departing, and in the last line of his book, to think that he shall never see Spain again. It is true that he seems to doubt at times whether this record of such a very rainy season of sentiment will be believed, since, after telling us that when he beheld a masterpiece by Murillo be grasped by the arm one Señor Gonzalo Segoria y Ardizona,— nothing less,—“ one of the most illustrious young men in Seville,” and uttered a cry, he expresses a wish that this gentleman was beside him to testify with his signature to this fact. But if he is an Italian Job Trotter at weeping, he can also be at times a French Sam Weller in cheerfulness ; for, fortunately, he is as easily moved to smiles as tears. Thus, he bursts out laughing when he first sees Cadiz, even as the negro of olden time is said to have guffawed at the sight of Niagara. When a dealer in dagger-knives shows him his wares, he is so appalled at the “ horrible, barbarous-looking weapons” that " he steps backwards every time that one is opened;” and as the merchant exhibited twenty it would seem that the Signore de Amicis must have receded and advanced altogether about one hundred and twenty feet, before he finally bought “ the most enormous navaja in the shop.” A traveler who weeps, faints, runs back, and laughs hysterically, like Signore de Amicis ; who at one time drinks soberly a bottle of Val de Peñas, but who scarcely swallows his first glass of sherry “ before a spark runs through his veins, and his head is heated as if full of sulphur,” is generally susceptible to beauty; and it may be thought an inducement to the wicked to peruse his works when we declare that there are in Spain and the Spaniards many passages which would indicate intense erotomania, were they not all closely imitated from Heine or the Heinites. In the would-be burning address to the long-departed Arab beauty, Itamad, in his chapter on Seville, and in the sudden transition to an unexpected wetting, we have combined the most unmistakable touches of the Reisebilder. The reader will even suspect that the Italian knows his Mark Twain, when he fancies the hair of a poor traveler “ standing on end from fright ” when in Portugal a dinner bill is brought to him for eight hundred reis. There are, however, times when the author’s naiveté is purely unaffected, as, for instance, when he declares that in a mock bull-fight among a few school-boys “seas of blood” were shed. Yet withal he is always in such sympathy with his subjects that he gives many racy touches, not without real value. There is no other work on Spain which depicts so vividly the influence of politics on the Spanish people. “ Even the stranger becomes affected by it. The passions are so strong, the struggle is so fierce, and the future welfare and life of the nation are so evidently at stake in this struggle that it is impossible for any one with Latin blood in bis veins to remain indifferent.” Wherever he went he was cautioned as to his conversation. “ Be careful ! That man is a republican.” “ Hush ! Your neighbor is a Carlist,” and so on. The sketch given in the chapter on Burgos of the thirty political parties in Spain, absolutists, moderates, conservatives, and radicals, is admirable. “If you wish to be accurate you can subdivide these parties again, but it is better to get a clear idea of things as they are.” Our American politicians who believe the Spaniards are an effete race may learn from De Amicis that they manage “ the machine ” with a skill which might excite the envy and admiration of the most practiced “ boss ” in our republic, and have, as a finishing stroke of art, so contrived to interest the entire Spanish population in their factions that among their thirty parties there is not one which aims at overthrowing the professional politicians themselves. As the traveler in Egypt always makes his chapter on the dancing girls the grande pièce de résistance of his banquet, so the Spanish tourist by “ old custom ” reserves his great display for the bull-fight, and it is no small credit to Signore de Amicis that his description of this great national disgrace is equal to any extant. “ When the espoda kills the bull at the first blow, then follow from the audience the words of a lover, wild with delight, and the gestures of madmen : ‘ Come here, angel! God bless you ! ’ They throw kisses, call him, and stretch out their hands as if to embrace him. What a profusion of epithets, bonmots, and proverbs ! How much life ! ” It is worth observing how the writer, in his sympathetic sketehes of such follies, unconsciously reveals the real causes of Spanish national debility. There occur occasionally in his book some good bits, or touches, as when he describes a priest with his school-boys, or tells us of a fellow traveler who was ever earnest in pointing out and describing the scenery, and in crying out, “ ‘ Look ! ’ hitting me on the side where my pocket-book was,” and who eventually picked the traveler’s pocket. We also recognize the faithful reporter in him when he, sworn at by angry Spaniards, instantly writes down their oaths in his note book. It is giving Signore de Amicis far more than his due to speak of him as unrivaled, for he is inferior in most respects to Inglis, George Borrow, the author of the Black Country of Spain, and a dozen others ; neither does he excel, as a dozen reviewers have declared, in wit, brilliancy, poetry, strength, and grace; but he may assuredly be commended as a lively sentimentalist, generally shallow, although occasionally shrewd, whom we often laugh with, but who is more frequently the cause in himself of our laughter.

Major Serpa Pinto3 seems to have been raised up, in a generation which had lost all faith in Portuguese energy, to show that the spirit of Vasco de Gama has not departed from his race. And when we remember that his great predecessor, and possible ancestor, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, was labeled, and indeed a little libeled, by Shakespeare as a typical traveling liar, it is with pleasure that we find his follower much less prone to overflowing and coloring than most Southern Europeans. It is indeed appalling to think what we might have been called on to read had a De Amicis passed through unknown countries, peopled, inter alia, with princesses seeking the love of every white traveler, and among such marvels as the major met. In this book the conscions or unconscious foibles and frailties of the author are so charmingly mingled with instances of courage and prompt and wise action in startling emergencies that, before perusing many pages, the reader will perceive that the major himself is the most entertaining object in the book. That he, like Benvenuto Cellini, frequently tells the truth as if he were romancing is due partly to his indulging to a great extent in the weakness of the Cenci family as set forth by Shelley, or “ the trick of self-examination,” and tenderly confiding the results to the reader, and partly to his translator, Mr. Elwes, whose reckless English casts a veil of vulgarity over a probably fair original. Thus we are told that a negro “ went off his head,” meaning that he became insane ; that “ a lot more carriers were got together ; ” while (page 55) “ I had to ” does duty for “ I should have.” Neither is it commendable that through the book the natives are spoken of as “ niggers.” What the explorer practically effected was, however, by no means trifling. Skilled in scientific observation, his discoveries of the affluents of the Zambesi, and of the topography, geology, and resources of Inner Africa, as described by him, are hardly inferior in value to those of any of his predecessors in African travel. He passed through untraveled lands, “and met with men to man ne’er known before,” and describes them well. The strangest of the latter are the Muccassaquere, a race of white Hottentots, hideous beyond belief, like caricatured Mongolians, and evidently lower even than the Fuegians of South America in the scale of humanity. “ In some respects they would seem to be even below the wild denizens of the jungle; for the lion and tiger have at least a den [query, dens ?] in which they seek shelter, while the Muccassequere have neither.” It is gratifying to observe that Major Pinto is bitterly opposed to the slave-trade, and was always ready, like a true knight, to set lance in rest with fiery zeal, and attack the leaders of slave-gangs, vi et armis, and free their captives; albeit, like Don Quixote with his galley-slaves, he is sometimes at a loss to know how to dispose of them. Indeed, on one occasion he found the liberated exactly like the boy Andreas when rescued by the Don, — better satisfied with matters as they went before the war, and anxious to return to the oppressor. He shows as clearly as Thomson has done in the Central African Lakes that as the slave-trade diminishes the blacks rise in civilization, but he believes that slavery will last while polygamy shall endure. His work is full of wild adventure, but, as every reader of African travels, from, the days of Park and Clapperton to the present time, will anticipate, it is principally occupied with the miseries and difficulties attendant on settling down, and the manner in which the savages rob the traveler, or drive him away ; so that on the whole his experiences form a pretty evenly balanced record of camping, scamping, and decamping, happy if scampering be not the parting pace. The author is frequently amusing, chiefly so when least aware of it, and very much so when he contemplates and describes his own virtues. It is indeed to be desired that something could be done to prevent African explorers from giving us so much in detail the saintly manner in which they resisted the temptations of black or tan beauty. It was all very well for Mr. Thomson to tell us how he left a beautiful young Arab girl to the very extreme of misery among savages, unheeding her tears to be rescued, lest people might talk about him. He was playing good boy for the Geographical Society; and Major Pinto appears to have been under a knightly vow of virtue. But unfortunately there are in this world many who are not bound to be good, either to geographical societies or to Mrs. Pintos, and it is to be apprehended that if these Confessions of Pure Souls—fores d'alma — are to be continued, Africa will be over-traveled by the wicked long before the elephant shall have disappeared from that very zoölogical continent. From what we have said it will be apparent that this record of crossing Africa combines the agreeable with the useful to a degree which will render it interesting to the most varied tastes ; it only remains to be added that the work is excellently printed, mapped, and illustrated. In two respects the title-page or the translator does the book great injustice, since it contains not only fifteen maps, but also forty-six ethnological illustrations.

It is a most inauspicious omen for the accuracy of a book when its author begins with a quotation which he tells us is from Goethe, “ if his memory serves him aright; ” nor is it a very promising proof of style when the reader is informed that it has always been his aim to write only of the less frequented countries, “ whether or not they offered the most romantic opportunities for picturesque description.” And when we find within the limits of the first three paragraphs of the book before us 4 not only these expressions, but such others as “ prior wanderings,” “ now would I take,” “ perforce be niggard,” and “ boreal travel,” we naturally enough anticipate one of the many invalid works in which debility of thought is varied only by chills of pedantry or fevers of fine writing. The reading world knows by sad experience that to treat of countries little known is no proof of excellence in a book. Even in the Middle Ages it was proclaimed that the gosling which flew over the Rhine returned as a goose, and that the jackass pilgrim to Jerusalem came back a donkey. And when a writer speaks of the happy “ Cockney hunting-ground of Scandinavia ” as if it were remotis terris, far in realms unknown, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Vincent must indeed believe that his work will be read only by the humble folk to whom a trip to Europe is still a marvel. As the learned Lightfoot made himself so much at home in ancient Jerusalem that he forgot the way about his own farm, so Mr. Vincent has been so long astray in Central Asia and far Cathay that he has lost the course of modern geography, and does not know that Scandinavia and Egypt have been annexed to la grande route, and that there is no longer a terra incognita. It is true that he mentions traveling twelve hundred miles by a route seldom attempted, but his brief description of it rivals the country in barrenness. Yet in this discouraging beginning we have nearly all the defects of the book. It is here as with the fore-court to Tieck’s fairy-land, — “ what is repulsive is what first we see;” and one might think, after getting well under way in the current of the work, that Mr. Vincent had followed Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker in endeavoring to make his beginning as unattractive as possible, in order to test the faith of the reader in the writer. From the first chapter he gives a plain, straightforward, and accurate account of all that he sees, and he sees clearly all that is practical and sensible. Indeed, we firmly believe that he speaks from his heart when he tells us that he has withstood the temptation of giving a dramatic, not to say an unnaturally theatrical tinge to his experiences,” but we may be permitted a doubt as to the existence of the temptation. Casta est quam nemo rogavit. He is the antithesis of a Do Amicis, but as such is the more welcome to those who prefer rational writing to delirium scribens. His observations are, however, often shrewd, and if he rarely contemplates man or nature from a really romantic or poetic point, he at least sees them as they are. He is but a second-hand painter, yet he photographs with little blur, and often sketches with tact and vigor. Mines, libraries, museums, roads, reindeer, Lapps, the food and resources of the country, and its industries are all set forth briefly but accurately; nay, he often inadvertently describes with skill beautiful scenery and romantic ruins, showing thereby the extreme to which mere habit may carry a consistent writer, and how truth may be rewarded. But when Mr. Vincent becomes conscious that he has strayed into simile or metaphor he is at once bewildered, as when, describing the Folgefond, he declares that “ a most beautiful sight was the enormous field of ermine, which lay extended before my entranced eyes ; but no, I will not call it ermine, for this specimen of nature’s dazzling integrity was never stained.” It is creditable to Mr. Vincent’s own specimens of dazzling integrity in other places that they also are never stained with such confusion. He is never humorous, although the coolness with which he tells us that if a Cape Cod man had been present at the creation he would probably have suggested some important improvements in the working of the universe, and the naïve manner in which one or two other old jokes are passed as original, is certainly amusing. Many minor observations are of value, as when he says that the enormous jelly-fish near Hammerfest swim beside and after steamboats in search of food thrown overboard. “ But since they have no cerebrum it is difficult to believe they have so much intuition as this act would seem to imply ; that is, supposing it is possible for instinct to exist without brains, a theory which has not yet been proven.” Whether “ proven ” or not, the fact as given is of value to the believers in the theory that the ganglions are all half brains, and that man thinks all over.

It may in fairness be also remarked that the work improves with every page, until the instances of needlessly perverted words and uselessly inverted sentences become so rare as to entertain rather than annoy; even as a traveler, vexed and impeded with sprawling king-crabs on a New Jersey beach, regards them with growing interest as they disappear. In fine, Norsk, Lapp, and Finn may be cordially commended as a very good book and an excellent traveling companion, full of valuable hints to all who intend to undertake “ boreal travel.”

There are four classes of men who print accounts of their travels. First, wo have the makers of “ tours ” and “ trips,” and “ views ” and “ vacations abroad,” who write to be known as having traveled and as “ authors.” To this great primary division belong young lords fresh from the university, who, before going into “ the House,” hang up their votive tablets of transmarine adventure in the Temple of Fame in the form of Rambles in the Rocky Mountains, and ladies who never dream that there is anything worth knowing which is not in their guide-book. Then we have the regular professional traveler, who, like the “ chanter” or talking man in a show, gets his living by exhibiting the great panorama of the world. He is invariably “a bit of a Barnum,” has existed in all ages, and was provocative among the Greeks of several excellent proverbs which discredit all truth in all tourists. Above these we have the perigrinations of great poets, scholars, or diplomatists ; and finally the scientific traveler, who, with an object in view, from which death itself must not daunt him, pushes on bravely to the end. It may be a question with the cultured as to which of the last two write the most readable books, but with the world a Humboldt is higher as a traveler than a Goethe, and the immense popularity in England of Stanley proves that, on the whole, feeling inclines to adventure allied to solid service. It is high praise, therefore, to say of Joseph Thomson, the writer of the book before us,5 that no one at his age — for he was only twenty when he enlisted with Keith Johnston — ever won his spurs more nobly in the field of African travel and of strictly scientific research. As the conduct of certain members of the Geographical Society of London towards Stanley was most ungenerous, and as it was hoped by some that the very expedition of which this book treats would be the means of discrediting Stanley, it is all the more creditable to Mr. Johnston that, far from sharing such feelings towards the daring American discoverer, he always manifests for him a sincere admiration. That his own work was well done is shown by the public declaration of Sir Rutherford Alcock, “ I do not know that there has ever been a more successful exploration in Central Africa, or one more complete in all its parts;” while the president of the Geographical Section of the British Association of 1880 also described it as “ one of the most successful and brilliant on record.”

It is true that the last part of his work was to correct or verify what had already been discovered and described by Burton, Livingstone, Stanley, and Cameron, but this correction was of itself of the greatest importance. What was done, and what the book most admirably sets forth in a vigorous and manly but never gushing style, amounts to this : that an immense area of country about and between Lake Tanganyika and the sea was traversed for the first time ; the explorer being the first to reach Lake Nyassa from the north, to journey between Nyassa and Tanganyika, and to pass for sixty miles down the new-born, but already dying, mysterious river Lukuga. Mr. Thomson was also the first who ever burst into that silent sea, Lake Leopold. His merit appears from the fact that he was at first only a subordinate in the expedition, and that when its commander, Keith Johnston, one of the most skilled of geographers and able leaders, died, at the outset, young Thomson might with propriety have returned, as it was “ strictly” his duty to do. That he, under appalling disadvantages, a mere boy, could make up his mind at once to go on was wonderful. He tells us simply that it was the first time in his life he had seen any one die, and that he felt himself alone in the great responsibility of leading what appeared to be a very forlorn hope. He was ill with fever, but “ with my foot on the threshold of the unknown, I felt I must go forward, whatever might be my destiny. Was I not the countryman of Bruce, Park, Clapperton, Grant, Livingstone, and Cameron ? Though the mantle of Mr. Johnston’s knowledge could not descend upon me, yet, Elijah-like, he left behind him his enthusiasm for geographical research, and I resolved to carry out his designs as far as lay in my power.” So he achieved what he had resolved to do, suffering terribly at times from illness, or from mutinous men and rascally native chiefs, but always displaying in his dealings a moderation and gentleness which could hardly have been expected in any but a Quaker. It is very creditable to the young captain that he managed his resources with the utmost wisdom, so as to get full value to the last out of every pound expended, and took such care of his men that he brought back, in good condition, to Zanzibar all but one of the one hundred and fifty men with whom he set out. Mr. Thomson congratulates himself that he never was obliged, like Stanley, to kill any natives; but those who read, in chapter three of the second volume, of the insults and robbery which he meekly endured from the Wama, and what he bore from his own servants, will admit that his patience is of that kind which passes praise, and which is probably not to be found in any American. Perhaps the outcry which had been raised in England against Stanley for defending himself bravely when in extremes had something to do with this excessive humility; but, though Mr. Johnston’s blood did not boil, that of the reader must, in realizing what he suffered. Meekness was the chief virtue of the first explorer, Moses, and as meekness was exactly what the Geographical Society desired of Mr. Thomson, it is not for us to find fault.

The reader will also be pleased to observe that, notwithstanding his trials by native insolence, he firmly believes in the “ improvability ” of the blacks, and it cannot be denied that he adduces many striking facts to prove his faith. The most remarkable ethnographical observations in the book are those which show that as the rivers and the very soil

of inland Africa change miraculously in short spaces of time, so whole nations in a single generation change their characteristics from good to bad, and vice versa. Tribes which were in Burton’s time, or less than thirty years ago, fiendish in savageness and rapacity, are now mild and generous, owing to the cessation of the slave-trade ; while, otherwise, one which was among the cowardly, has, during the same time, owing to a mere assumption of the dress of a warlike people, become ferocious conquerors. The hill-folk, unlike those of Europe, are the most timid and degraded, for they have been driven up from the fertile plains into starvation and misery.

We have nothing but praise for the style and tone of the book, though the somewhat naïvely English use of certain words, as when the writer speaks of nasty hills and nasty rivers, is amusing. Perhaps the highest praise which we can give the work is that it has tempted two thorough perusals. The typographical execution and style of the book, with its two portraits of Johnston and Thomson, are admirable.

Charles G. Leland.

  1. East of the Jordan: A Record of Travel and Observation in the Countries of Monk, Gilead, and Bashan, during the years 1875-1877. By SELAH MERRILL. With Illustrations and a Map. With an Introduction by PHOF. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D. D. President of Union Theological Seminary, New York. New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1881.↩
  2. Spain and the Spaniards. By EDMONDO DE AMICIS. Translated from the Italian by WILHELMINA. W. CADY. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1881.↩
  3. How I Crossed Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. By MAJOR SERPA PINTO. Translated from the author’s manuscript by ALFRED ELWES. In two volumes containing fifteen. Maps and Illustrations. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. 1881.↩
  4. Norsk, Lapp, and Finn; or, Travel-Tracings from the far North of Europe. By FRANK VINCENT, JR. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1881.↩
  5. To the Central African Lakes and Back: The Narrative of the Royal Geographical Society’s Last Central African Expedition, 1878-1880. by JOSEPH THOMSON, F. R. G. S. With a short biographical notice of the late Mr. Keith Johnston. Portraits and a Map. In two volumes. Second edition. Boston: Houghton, Miiffin & Co.; The Riverside Press. 1881.↩