Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/178

174 Writing of student days at King's College where, or at the home of Professor Partridge, he came in contact with such men as Dasent, Daniell, Todd, Smee and Wheatstone he says:

The impression from his first work in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1840 are worth quoting for those interested in education,

It is perhaps fortunate that in 1840 Galton found his knowledge of chemistry and German hardly sufficiently advanced for him to profit by Liebig's teaching in Giessen, for the spirit of travel was strong within him and he "determined to throw that plan over, to make a dash and go as far as my money allowed." This dash carried him from Giessen to Linz, thence by rowboat to Vienna, by steamer down the Danube, overland to the Black Sea, to Constantinople, Smyrna, Syra, Trieste and home by way of northern Italy and Switzerland. "This little expedition proved to be an important factor in moulding my after-life. It vastly widened my views of humanity and civilization, and confirmed aspirations for travel which were afterwards indulged."

The next lesson in travel was a journey up the Nile, where by good fortune one Arnaud Bey urged him not to be content with the attainments of ordinary tourists but to strike overland by camel in the caravan of the Sheikh of the Bisbari Desert to Berber.

Prom Berber a boat was hired to work up to Khartum and from thence a short excursion was made up the White Nile. Later his path