d, a history of its
literature from the earliest times to the present day.

As to whether the acquisition of knowledge by this method would not turn
us all into journalists, however, is another matter.

With the first heading in our list shall be included several others,
namely (2) Africa; (5) Australasia; (55) Travels and Explorations (which
heading includes every land under the sun not specially mentioned in our
list), and (56) Voyages and Shipwrecks; in short, all those subjects
which concern 'foreign parts.' They are subjects which are most likely to
engage the attentions of collectors who have been seafaring in their
time, though, as has been shown in Chapter II., it is not every traveller
who has been far afield.

Books on Arctic and Antarctic exploration, as well as whaling voyages,
comprise much reading that is as interesting to the landsman as to the
sailor. Most of its literature is within easy reach of the collector of
modest means, though the earlier volumes are naturally increasing
gradually in price. One of the hardest to obtain is William Scoresby's
'Account of the Arctic Regions,' which was published in two octavo
volumes at Edinburgh in 1820. You will be lucky if you find a clean sound
copy of it with the plates unspotted. It is now getting very scarce, as
is Weddell's 'Voyage towards the South Pole in 1822-24' (octavo, London,
1825).

Each of these headings can be subdivided according to your requirements.
Africa you may divide conveniently into West, South, East, and Central;
North Africa being best classified under the various countries which it
contains, namely, Algiers, Morocco, Tripoli, and Tunis. Egypt, of course,
has a vast literature of its own. Similarly books on Australasia may be
divided into those which deal with Polynesia, New Guinea, Australia
(again divided into its states), Tasmania, and New Zealand; though,
properly speaking, the first of these should be classified under the
heading 'Voyages.'

There is little doubt that those collectors who have devoted their
energies during the past twenty-five years to the collecting of books on
Africa, especially the South, will prove at no very distant date to have
been wise in their purchases. Just as early Americana are so eagerly
bought by our neighbours across the Atlantic at immense prices, far and
away out of all proportion to their intrinsic worth as literature or
history, so will the day come when those of our kin whose fathers sought