ong in a locality, their work may be invaluable from the scientific
standpoint. The work of the archaeologists among the immeasurably
ancient ruins of the low-land forests and the Andean plateaux is of
this kind. What Agassiz did for the fishes of the Amazon and what
Hudson did for the birds of the Argentine are other instances of the
work that can thus be done. Burton's writings on the interior of
Brazil offer an excellent instance of the value of a sojourn or trip
of this type, even without any especial scientific object.

Of course travellers of this kind need to remember that their
experiences in themselves do not qualify them to speak as wilderness
explorers. Exactly as a good archaeologist may not be competent to
speak of current social or political problems, so a man who has done
capital work as a tourist observer in little-visited cities and along
remote highways must beware of regarding himself as being thereby
rendered fit for genuine wilderness work or competent to pass judgment
on the men who do such work. To cross the Andes on mule-back along the
regular routes is a feat comparable to the feats of the energetic
tourists who by thousands traverse the mule trails in out-of-the-way
nooks of Switzerland. An ordinary trip on the highway portions of the
Amazon, Paraguay, or Orinoco in itself no more qualifies a man to
speak of or to take part in exploring unknown South American rivers
than a trip on the lower Saint Lawrence qualifies a man to regard
himself as an expert in a canoe voyage across Labrador or the Barren
Grounds west of Hudson Bay.

A hundred years ago, even seventy or eighty years ago, before the age
of steamboats and railroads, it was more difficult than at present to
define the limits between this class and the next; and, moreover, in
defining these limits I emphatically disclaim any intention of thereby
attempting to establish a single standard of value for books of
travel. Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" is to me the best book of the
kind ever written; it is one of those classics which decline to go
into artificial categories, and which stand by themselves; and yet
Darwin, with his usual modesty, spoke of it as in effect a yachting
voyage. Humboldt's work had a profound effect on the thought of the
civilized world; his trip was one of adventure and danger; and yet it
can hardly be called exploration proper. He visited places which had
been settled and inhabited for centuries and traversed place