Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/218

184 I leave my readers to judge how these tendencies developed themselves during the adventurous days passed in all quarters of the globe. His father, an educated man, did not fail to further consolidate this quickness of intelligence by some serious study–hydrography, physics, and mechanics, with a trifle of botany, medicine, and astronomy thrown in. At the death of the worthy captain, Samuel Ferguson, then twenty-two years old, had already been round the world. He joined a regiment of Bengal Engineers, and distinguished himself on several occasions.

But a soldier's life did not suit him. He did not like his commanding officer, and obedience was irksome, so he obtained his discharge, and, sometimes hunting, sometimes botanising, he made his way towards the North of India, and crossed it from Calcutta to Surat. Just a pleasant walk–nothing more.

From Surat he went to Australia, and in 1845 took part in Captain Stuart's expedition to discover that Caspian Sea which is supposed to exist in the interior of New Holland.

In 1850 Samuel Ferguson returned to England, and more than ever possessed by the desire of discovery, in 1853 he accompanied Captain M'Clure in the expedition that traversed the American Continent from Behring's Strait to Cape Farewell.

Despite hardships and change of climate, Ferguson's constitution remained unimpaired. He lived at ease in the midst of the greatest privations. He was the type of a perfect traveler, whose appetite can be controlled at will, whose limbs can adapt themselves equally to a bed whether it be long or short, who can sleep at any hour of the day, and awake at any hour of the night. So there was nothing very astonishing in finding our indefatigable traveler engaged, during the years 1855 to 1857, in exploring the west of Thibet, in company with the brothers Schlagintweit, whence he brought back many curious ethnographical records.

During these several expeditions Samuel Ferguson was the most active and interesting correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, a penny journal, whose circulation is 140,000 copies a day, and scarcely suffices for millions of readers. Thus the doctor was very well known, although he was not a member of any scientific institution, neither of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or