"In sea-voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed, they omit it."—Bacon.

Travellers cannot be always on the alert, any more than other men. Their hours of weariness and of capricious idleness come, as at home; and there is no security against their occurring at inconvenient times,—just when some characteristic spectacle is to be witnessed, or some long-desired information is in waiting. By a little forethought, the observer may guard against some of the effects of seizures of apathy. If he would rather sleep in the carriage than get out to see a waterfall, he can only feel ashamed, and rouse himself to do his duty: but, by precaution, he may guard himself from passing by some things less beautiful than waterfalls, and to have seen which is less necessary to his reputation as a traveller; but which yet he will be more sorry eventually to have lost.

To keep himself up to his business, and stimulate his flagging attention, he should provide himself, before setting out, with a set of queries, so prepared as to include every great class of facts connected with the condition of a people, and so divided and arranged as that he can turn to the right set at the fitting moment.—These queries are not designed to be thrust into the hand of any one who may have information to give. They should not even be allowed to catch his eye. The traveller who has the air of taking notes in the midst of conversation, is in danger of bringing away information imperfect as far as it goes, and much restricted in quantity in comparison with what it would be if he allowed it to be forgotten that he was a foreigner seeking information. If he permits the conversation to flow on naturally, without checking it by the production of the pencil and tablets, he will, even if his memory be not of the best, have more to set down at night than if he noted on the spot, as evidence, what a companion might be saying to him. But a glance in the morning at his list of queries may suggest inquiries which he might not otherwise remember to make; and they will help him afterwards to arrange the knowledge he has gained. He can be constantly adding to them as he goes along, and as new subjects arise, till he is in possession of a catechism on the facts which indicate morals and manners; which must prevent his researches being so capricious, and his information so vague as his moods and his idleness would otherwise occasionally make them.

The character of these queries must, of course, depend much on where the traveller means to go. A set which would suit one nation would not completely apply to any other. The observer will do wisely to employ his utmost skill in framing them. His cares will be better bestowed on this than even on his travelling appointments, important as these are to his comfort. When he has done his best in the preparation of his lists, he must still keep on the watch to enlarge them, as occasion arises.

Some travellers unite in one the functions of the query list and the journal: having the diary headed and arranged for the reception of classified information. But this seems to be debasing the function of a journal, whose object ought to be to reflect the mind of a traveller, and give back to him hereafter the image of what he thought and felt day by day. This is its primary function;—a most useful one, as every traveller knows who has kept one during a year's wandering in a foreign country. On his return, he laughs at the crudity of the information, and the childishness of the impressions, set down in the opening pages; and traces, with as much wonder as interest, the gradual expansion of his knowledge, education of his perceptions, and maturing of his judgments as to what is before him, as week succeeds to week, and each month mellows the experience of the last.

The subordinate purpose of the journal is to record facts; and the way in which this is done ought not to depend on the stationer's rule, but on the nature of the traveller's mind. No man can write down daily all that he learns in a day's travel. It ought to be a matter of serious consideration with him what he will insert, and what trust to his memory. The simplest method seems to be to set down what is most likely to be let slip, and to trust to the memory what the affections and tastes of the traveller will not allow him to forget. One who especially enjoys intimate domestic intercourse will write, not fireside conversations, but the opinions of statesmen, and the doctrine of parties on great social questions. One whose tastes are religious will note less on the subject of public worship and private religious discourse, than dates, numbers, and facts on subjects of subordinate interest. All should record anecdotes and sayings which illustrate character. These are disjointed, and will escape almost any memory, if not secured in writing. Those who do not draw should also note scenery. A very few descriptive touches will bring back a landscape, with all its human interest, after a lapse of years: while perhaps there is no memory in the world which will present unaided the distinctive character of a succession of scenes. The returned traveller is ashamed to see the extent of his record of his personal feelings. His changes of mood, his sufferings from heat or cold, from hunger or weariness, are the most interesting things to him at the moment; and down they go, in the place of things much better worth recording, and he pays the penalty in many a blush hereafter. His best method will be to record as little as possible about himself; and, of other things, most of what he is pretty sure to forget, and least of what he can hardly help remembering.

Generally speaking, he will find it desirable to defer the work of generalization till he gets home. In the earlier stages of his journey, at least, he will restrict his pen to the record of facts and impressions; or, if his mind should have an unconquerable theorizing tendency, he will be so far cautious as to put down his inferences conjecturally. It is easy to do this; and it may make an eternal difference to the observer's love of truth, and attainment of it, whether he preserves his philosophic thoughts in the form of dogmas or of queries.

Though it is commonly spoken of as a settled thing that the journal should be written at night, there are many who do not agree to this. There are some whose memory fails when the body is tired, and who find themselves clear-headed about many things in the morning which were but imperfectly remembered before they had the refreshment of sleep. The early morning is probably the best time for the greater number; but it is a safe general rule that the journal should be written in the interval when the task is pleasantest. Whether the regularity be pleasant or not, (and to the most conscientious travellers it is the most agreeable,) the entries ought to be made daily, if possible. The loss incurred by delay is manifest to any one who has tried. The shortest entries are always those which have been deferred. The delay of a single day is found to reduce the matter unaccountably. In the midst of his weariness and unwillingness to take out his pen, the traveller may comfort himself by remembering that he will reap the reward of diligence in satisfaction when he gets home. He may assure himself that no lines that he can write can ever be more valuable than those in which he hives his treasures of travel. If he turns away from the task, he will have uneasy feelings connected with his journey as often as he looks back upon it;—feelings of remorse for his idleness, and of regret for irretrievable loss. If, on the other hand, he perseveres in the daily duty, he will go forward each morning with a disburthened mind, and will find, in future years, that he loves the very blots and weather-stains on the pages which are so many remembrancers of his satisfactory labours and profitable pleasures.

Besides the journal, the traveller should have a note-book,—always at hand,—not to be pulled out before people's eyes, for the entry of facts related, but to be used for securing the transient appearances which, though revealing so much to an observing mind, cannot be recalled with entire precision. In all the countries of the world, groups by the wayside are the most eloquent of pictures. The traveller who lets himself be whirled past them, unobservant or unrecording, loses more than any devices of inquiry at his inn can repair. If he can sketch, he should rarely allow a characteristic group of persons, or nook of scenery, to escape his pencil. If he cannot use the pencil, a few written words will do. Two lines may preserve for him an exemplification which may be of great future value.—The farmers' wives of New England, talking over the snake-fence at sunset, are in themselves an illustration of many things: so is the stern Indian in his blanket-cloak, standing on a mound on the prairie; so is the chamois hunter on his pinnacle, and the pedestrian student in the valleys of the Hartz, and the pine-cutters on the steeps of Norway, and the travelling merchant on the dyke in Holland, and the vine-dressers in Alsace, and the beggars in the streets of Spanish cities, and all the children of all countries at their play. The traveller does not dream of passing unnoticed the cross in the wilderness, beneath which some brother pilgrim lies murdered; or the group of brigands seen in the shadow of the wood; or a company of Sisters of Charity, going forth to their deeds of mercy; or a pair of inquisitors, busy on the errands of the Holy Office; or anything else which strongly appeals to his imagination or his personal feelings. These pictures, thus engraved in his memory, he may safely leave to be entered in his journal, night or morning: but groups and scenes which ought to be quite as interesting, because they reveal the thoughts and ways of men, (the more familiarly the more faithfully,) should be as earnestly observed; and, to give them a chance of equal preservation, they should be noted on the instant. If a foreigner opens his eyes after a nap in travelling an Irish road, would it not be wise to note at once what he sees that he could not see elsewhere? He perceives that the green lanes which branch off from the road are more crowded with foliage, and less definite in their windings, than any other green lanes he has seen near high roads. The road itself is sui generis, with its border of rank grass, with tufts of straggling briers, and its rough stone walls, fringed with weeds, and gay with wild flowers. A beggarly wretch is astride on the top, singing the Doxology to the tune of Paudeen O'Rafferty, and keeping time with his heels: and, some way off, an old man crouches in the grass, playing cards,—the right hand against the left,—reviling the winner, and tenderly consoling the loser. Presently the stranger passes a roofless hut, where he sees, either a party of boys and girls throwing turf for a handful of meal, or a beggar-woman and her children resting in the shade of the walls to eat their cold potatoes. Such scenes could be beheld nowhere but in Ireland: but there is no country in the world where groups and pictures as characteristic do not present themselves to the observing eye, and in such quick succession that they are liable to be confused and lost, if not secured at the moment by brief touches of pencil or pen. The note-book should be the repository of such.

Mechanical methods are nothing but in proportion to the power which uses them; as the intellectual accomplishments of the traveller avail him little, and may even bring him back less wise than he went out,—a wanderer from truth, as well as from home,—unless he sees by a light from his heart shining through the eyes of his mind. He may see, and hear, and record, and infer, and conclude for ever; and he will still not understand if his heart be idle,—if he have not sympathy. Sympathy by itself may do much: with fit intellectual and mechanical aids, it cannot but make the traveller a wise man. His journey may be but for a brief year, or even month; but if, by his own sympathy, he grasps and brings home to himself the life of a fresh portion of his race, he gains a wisdom for which he will be the better for ever.