This article was downloaded by: [Karolinska Institutet, University Library]On: 03 October 2014, At: 06:16Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Philosophy & GeographyPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cpag20

The familiar and the strange: Westerntravelers' maps of Europe and Asia, ca.1600-1800Jordana Dym aa Department of History , Skidmore College , Saratoga Springs, NY,USAPublished online: 19 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Jordana Dym (2004) The familiar and the strange: Western travelers'maps of Europe and Asia, ca. 1600-1800, Philosophy & Geography, 7:2, 155-191, DOI:10.1080/1090377042000285390

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1090377042000285390

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

PHILOSOPHY & GEOGRAPHY, VOL. 7, NO. 2, AUGUST 2004

ARTICLE

The Familiar and the Strange:

Western Travelers’ Maps of Europe and

Asia, ca. 1600–1800

JORDANA DYMDepartment of History, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA

Abstract Early Modern European travelers sought to gather and disseminate knowledgethrough narratives written for avid publishers and public. Yet not all travelers used the sametools to inform their readers. Despite a shared interest in conveying new knowledge based oneyewitness authority, Grand Tour accounts differed in an important respect from traveloguesabout Asia: they were less likely to include maps until the late eighteenth century. This paperexamines why, using travel accounts published between 1600 and 1800 about Italy and France(Europe) and India and Japan (Asia). It argues that maps of different types—coastlines, cityplans, country topographies—appeared more frequently in accounts of Asian trips in partbecause of Europeans’ more limited geographical knowledge about Asian destinations. Moreimportant, however, was the purpose of travel, the type of information gathered, and theintended audience of accounts. Seventeenth-century authors of Grand Tour experiences focusedon single topics, ignored what seemed to be the familiar countryside they passed through, andshowed little interest in geography. Their counterparts visiting Asia took an opposite tack,covering a wide range of subjects, including space, and cartographic representation was animportant element within the account. Only in the eighteenth century, when the strange localehad become familiar and the familiar European destination became strange with new types oftravel through it, were maps an important part of narrative.

Europeans not only traveled extensively in the early modern period, they also wroteprolifically about their voyages on the familiar Grand Tour circuit to Italy, France, andGermany as well as about excursions to more distant locations in Asia. As numerousjournals, epistles, and narratives of travel attest, elite youths making the Grand Tour raninto friends and acquaintances in the inns and salons of Dover, Paris, and Venice in theseventeenth century, and a hundred years later thousands of high- and mid-rankingleisure travelers annually undertook parts of or the entire trip.1 While the more arduousoverland and sea journeys to Asia remained the preserve of a more limited number ofbusinessmen, adventurers, and government officials in these two centuries, numerous

ISSN 1090-3771 print/ISSN 1472-7242 online/04/020155-37 2004 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1090377042000285390

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

156 J. DYM

travelogues describing Japan and, increasingly, India, also appeared on publisher’s liststhroughout Western Europe.2

One might be tempted to argue that authors writing about European journeyswould acknowledge the repetitive or derivative nature of their familiar content, while thestranger or more exotic destination would produce more original commentary. How-ever, between 1600 and 1800, travelers to both regions consistently argued that theysought to gather and disseminate knowledge through travelogues that publishers andpublic eagerly consumed, and both also relied on previous authors to help shape theform and function of their texts.3 Still, there is a striking difference in the elementsconsidered necessary in a seventeenth-century published travelogue describing Europefrom one covering Asia: Grand Tour accounts were unlikely to include travelers’ mapsor, indeed, maps of any kind, and included little discussion of geography or navigation;almost all accounts describing India and Japan not only included several maps butusually discussed the state of geographic knowledge about places visited and opined onits level of accuracy. By the late eighteenth century, this distinction ended, and travelersto both regions took care to prepare or procure maps depicting everything from politicaldivisions to soil conditions for their accounts, or left them out entirely.

This paper argues that in this period, the convergence emerged not from increasingfamiliarity with distant countries, but from a conscious effort to find, or coax, thestrange from the familiar. Examining over four dozen accounts written by elite andprofessional Britons, Frenchmen, Italians, Swedes, and Germans who traveled to India,Japan, France, and Italy between 1600 and 1800, what becomes clear is that thepurpose of travel accounts describing these different regions influenced the author’srelationship with cartography more than the existence of geographic information. Suchanalysis undermines Henry Ashwood’s poetic distinction between geographers andtravelers inserted at the front of Edward Terry’s seventeenth-century voyages to India,that “Geographers present before men’s eyes/How every Land seated and boundedlies/But the Historian and wise Traveller, Decry what mindes and manners sojournthere.”4 The wise traveler might be as much geographer as historian, with the predilec-tion to take geography into consideration increasing and expanding the more establishedthe genre of travel writing became.

Historiography

Despite the ubiquity of maps in travel narratives—narrative accounts about first-hand,or eyewitness, experiences during a voyage5—and even travelers’ comments about them,the importance of cartography to sail-, carriage-, steam- and rail-age travelers as a meansto create, recreate, personalize and define the countries traveled to in publishedaccounts of their journeys has been a theme rarely touched on in academic studies oftravel narratives or popular science literature, despite a large and growing bibliographyand audience in both areas. In part, this is because more scholars of history andliterature than of cartography or historical geography have chosen the genre of travelnarratives as an area of study. The often workmanlike, seemingly incomplete, andsometimes wildly inaccurate maps produced to accompany travel accounts have notattracted geographers’ attention to the same extent that travelers’ texts and images havebeen adopted into historical analysis, literary criticism, and studies of visual culture.

In part, as James Duncan and Derek Gregory rightly note, this lacuna owes muchto methodology and the “fractured” analysis of different elements of travel narratives bydifferent disciplines with different ends.6 Fields with textual biases—history and literary

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 157

analysis—have traditionally done little analysis of travel narratives’ visual elements.7

Literary scholars who discuss “romantic geographies” or “imaginative geography” oftravel narratives might plausibly be expected to pick up with a more categorical analysisof geographical discussion within text or of actual mapping. However, such authors useterms such as “geography” and “topography” as metaphors; the imaginative geographyis one of words, not pictures or designs.8 Even literary analyst Mary Louise Pratt, whodraws evidence from both text and illustration for a study of travelers in nineteenth-cen-tury Latin America, excludes cartography as an intervention in imperial economic,political, and social projects.9

Yet, assignment of different elements of travel narratives to different scholarly fieldsis not entirely responsible for lack of work on travelers’ cartography, for those that mightbe expected to have discussed it, scholars of visual culture, focus on travelers’ photo-graphs and illustrations rather than their maps.10 This oversight extends to the theoristsas well as the practitioners; Duncan and Gregory assign the study of photographs tohistorians of photography and illustrations to art historians, but do not even list mapsas an element of the travel narrative to be evaluated.11 Inversely, a field that does addressmapping by a category of travelers—British imperial surveyors—situates maps, bothofficial and public, within an extensive scholarship of scientific, imperial, and carto-graphic history, not in the context of the history of travel and its accounts.12 Ironically,just as literary and historical scholarship of the travel narrative has not embraced thevisual representations of travelers, historical geographers have not investigated real travelnarratives as a source of maps contributing to cultural, imperial, and other histories.13

Scholarly fragmentation has also existed in defining narratives to study, as scholarsrarely find it fruitful to simultaneously compare and contrast travel writing across timeand space. As Barbara Korte pointed out in the introduction to her analysis of almosta millennium of British travel writing, “most monographs … [are] confined to accountsof travel to particular regions (Italy, North America or the East) about a particular modeof travel (Grand Tour or voyages of exploration), of specific periods, or by individualauthors. Such studies have the advantage that they can explore their subject in detail andwith a suitable degree of differentiation. They cannot, however, provide an overview ofa genre which is fascinating precisely in its great variance and its several lines ofhistorical development.”14 Korte’s own work is strong temporally. Yet in dealing withonly British travelers and refusing to periodize because of “many parallel lines ofdevelopment” that distinguish “certain kinds of travel,”15 Korte does not see that usingtime and place as simultaneous controls can in fact prove useful in establishingperiodicity. The problems with a narrow temporal lens become evident when looking atNicole Hafid-Martin’s argument that late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuryEuropean travelers pioneered the “voyage d’etude” (defined as a private undertaking toexpand the occidental concept of knowledge). Hafid-Martin fails to see that what theauthor terms a “multiform” curiosity that was the living symbol of the encyclopedicspirit of the century existed in earlier accounts. Yet, as this article shows, seventeenth-century accounts often share this trait with Enlightenment narratives.16

This paper has two purposes. The first is to consider the role of maps andcartography in Early Modern European travel narratives. The second is to attempt ananalysis that meets Korte’s challenge of choosing an extended time period, twocenturies, but includes travelers of many European nationalities, and two different kindsof travel, Grand Tour and Asian, to consider how place and time, when taken together,help explain why some European travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuriesexpressed interest in geographies and cartographies and others did not.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

158 J. DYM

The Seventeenth Century

Geography and cartography had their place in seventeenth-century travelogues writtenby Europeans visiting Asia. In accounts discussing travels within Western Europe, suchsubjects and their pictographic or textual representations—maps, navigational charts,itineraries—were infrequent. While the state of European geographic knowledge abouteach area provides a partial explanation for the difference, and will be discussed furtherbelow, a more fundamental reason for the divergence is in the intent, audience, and styleauthors thought would be interested in their accounts.

Although publisher Jean-Frederic Bernard claimed in 1727 that “[t]ravel accountshave less need of prefaces than other books; a map suffices to make known the situationand bearing of the country a voyager describes; the other specifics he collects on thesubject of religions, mores, customs, commerce &c demand neither introduction orcommentary,”17 he was only partly right. More authors considered that their traveloguesrequired prefaces than maps (although these were frequent), helping the reader toidentify not only the territory visited but also the author’s purpose in voyaging andjustifications for reporting back. Justificatory prefaces grew elaborate as the numbers oftravelers and their published narratives increased, allowing us to understand howauthors hoped to position their works within the crowded field of travel writing. Atheart, the fundamental justifications of why any travel writer chose to direct his relationto a general public were quite similar, regardless of the destination chosen: to add to abody of knowledge.

Travel narratives covering the “Grand Tour,” tended to share certain characteris-tics in the seventeenth century. Written by highly educated tutors or young gentlemen,they largely followed an itinerary format, whether presented in epistolary or narrativeform, taking the reader either from the point of origin or arrival on the continentthrough the towns visited and leaving the reader upon the tour’s completion. Thecontent was equally formulaic and often limited to a single subject. Books about Italyfocused almost exclusively on architecture, antiquities or the arts, with most providinglittle information about what later travelers call the “customs and manners” of thecountry, that is, the people and day-to-day experiences of the writer. Some authors,including French Protestant Maximilien Misson (1650?–1722) and British tutor RichardLassels (1603?–68), by the late seventeenth century included information on ceremoniesseen, theatrical events attended, and individual librarians or collections visited whichmight interest a reader.18 However, as a rule and earlier in the century, very few of thesemundane observations appeared. Accounts of France were less intent on antiquity,emphasizing more recent sites to be seen, including castles, gardens, and the country’s“delights.”19 Yet, overall, the pedagogical element pervades the texts, and the “omniumgatherum” style of travel writing—that identified by Barbara Korte as the tendency oftravel writers to include any and every kind of topic in their narratives—was notcommon.20

The contents of most Asian accounts differed from those of the Grand Tour. Inthese, authors also wrote from departure to return, but took the “omnium gatherum”approach to travel writing and included information about travel itself, geography andcartography, human and natural history, politics, religion, customs, commerce, andagriculture. Such broad scope was evident in the full titles listed for works such as thefirst edition of the account of Westphalian scholar and doctor Engelbert Kaempfer(1651–1716) of his late seventeenth-century travels in Japan, The history of Japan: givingan account of the ancient and present state and government of that empire; of its temples,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 159

palaces, castles, and other Buildings; of its minerals, trees, plants, animals, birds and fishes; ofthe chronology and succession of the Emperors, ecclesiastical and secular; of the original descent,religions, customs, and manufactures of the Natives, and of their Trade and Commerce withthe Dutch and Chinese Together with a description of the kingdom of Siam. … Illustrated withmany Copper Plates (London, 1728). Throughout this period, the lengthy title revealingan expansive approach was more common than not.

Much had already been written about both types of destination in the seventeenthcentury, yet what was familiar from printed accounts was not the European destination,but the Asian one. Numerous guidebooks published in situ since the late fifteenthcentury depicted Grand Tour destinations, but abundant ambassadors’ reports andRenaissance-era journals such as Michel de Montaigne’s account of a trip through Italy,Germany, and Switzerland in 1580 were largely available only in manuscript; publishedtravel narratives of those taking the trip seem to have started in the early seventeenthcentury.21 On the other hand, the travel account reporting on far-off destinations had along history. Pilgrimages to the Near East were abundant. And, as travelers themselvesacknowledged, India had been visited and written about since the time of VenetianMarco Polo (1254–1324), who had even provided information on a distant place,Cipangu (Japan), that he had not seen. Subsequent missionaries, merchants, andambassadors like Portuguese Fernao Mendes Pinto (d. 1583), Roman Scipione Amatiand Frenchman Francois Caron (1600–73) not only arrived in Japan, but set upmissionary settlements and trading posts that produced substantial information subse-quently made available to a literate public by the early seventeenth century in manu-script form.22 Subsequently such texts were included in the great compilations of travelnarratives published by Richard Hakluyt (d. 1616) and Samuel Purchas (d. 1626) inEngland23 and Arnoldus Montanus (1625?–83) in the Netherlands.24 Dozens of Eu-ropean travelers’ observations and information contributed both text and cartographicinformation to such works, as well as to the atlases that were increasing in number andinformation.25

Despite awareness of previous works on both destinations, and even a good deal ofrepetition of themes and content among travelogues, in this period there was yet roomfor authors of both genres to claim their presentations were both novel and useful.Briton William Bromley noted in the preface of his 1691 account of travels in Franceand Italy “how many have with good judgment and great accuracy describ’d the GrandeTour, especially the voyage of Italy,” but proudly stated that the focus of his account—transcription of the numerous ancient inscriptions to be found there—was new.26 The1687–88 Italian travels of Misson, companion to the young Count of Arran, claimed the“diversity” of subjects covered (“I’ve tried to profit from all, which is why I’ve informedmyself about everything”) would “not be disagreeable” and provide an antidote to textsfocused on antiquity or painting or architecture or libraries or private collections orchurches and relics. Thus the variety of subjects covered, rather than the specificobservations about any one topic, meant to contribute something new to accounts ofGrand Tour destinations.

The twin justifications of novelty and eyewitness authority were as common totravel accounts of Asia as of Europe. Like their peers on the European Grand Tour,each traveler to Asia also sought to bring back novelty, either through more “reliable”explanation of what was done before or treating a new subject. As early as the 1620s,Thomas Herbert (1606–82) suggested in his preface that “more Authours might I haveused, and rendered myself to some more useful in this way.” However, he preferred torely on his observations of “the situations and present beings of Cities and territories.”27

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

160 J. DYM

John Fryer, in 1698, admitted that he followed the example of the “ingenious” Herbert,and indeed copied not just the narrative format, but presentation of material includingputting inserting images directly into the text rather than appending separate foldouts.Yet Fryer justified publication of his work for the “novelties” it provided, arguing thatthe originality of his contribution derived from his itinerary and length of residence.“[T]hose Travellers before me had few of them been in those parts where I had been,or at least not dwelt so long there,” he wrote, so novelties Fryer presented had been“passed over by them or else not so thoroughly observed.”28 Edward Terry, wrote of the“Novelty” of the material he collected as an “eye-witnesse of much here related” in avoyage of almost four years to India and back (1615–19), including two years’ residenceat the court of the Great Mogol.29 He also emphasized that he hoped his work would“contain matter for instruction and use.”30 The French shared esteem of the eye-wit-ness, and if an author would not report on his power of observation, his editor wellmight. Francois Bernier (1620–88) was praised in his first edition as a paragon amongvoyagers; as editor de Monceaux rhapsodized in 1670, “never a traveler went from homemore capable to observe, nor has written with more knowledge, candour and in-tegrity.”31 That is, to European audiences of the seventeenth century, travelers to Asiareturned not with novelty based on finding exotic lands, but increasingly accurate,reliable, and detailed information about distant peoples, customs, institutions, andplaces derived not from second-hand “Authuors” but on interaction and observation.

Another trait which some accounts, especially those to the Levant, shared with theseventeenth-century Grand Tour accounts was that authors not only were interested asmuch in past monuments, histories, and ideas as present residents, but also thatcuriosity rather than commerce or politics motivated their voyages. Pietro Della Valle(1586–1652), a Roman patrician, was considered by Sir Henry Yule, editor of Hakluyt’sreprint of his narrative, as the “Prince of all … travelers” because Della Valle traveled forcuriosity’s sake alone, and was “the most insatiate in curiosity, the most intelligent inapprehension, the fullest and most accurate in description.”32 Yet this encomiumdescribed not a trip to Western Europe but farther east; between 1614 and 1624, DellaValle traveled to Turkey, India, Persia, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine. His voyage lasted longerthan the Grand Tour which (if titles of travelers’ accounts provide a good indication)tended to last one to three years, but in other respects was quite similar to it inconceptualization and execution.

Yet for all of the similarities in claims of authors for the necessity of their accountsand the authority on which they based them, there was a fundamental difference ofpurpose in accounts that emerged from European and Asian trips in both textualand cartographic content. For the most part, geography in travelogues aboutseventeenth-century Europe appears only to set the stage, as writers begin their entrieswith a date, time, and location, and often the distance between where they wake up inthe morning and where they lay their head at night. Narrators rarely describe scenery orthe countryside. Bishop Gilbert Burnet’s (1643–1715) generic comments on ruralSwitzerland in his epistolary account are more than such accounts usually included. Hewrites, “I will not describe the Valley of Dauphine, all to Chambery, nor entertain youwith a Landscape of the countrey, which deserves a better pencil then mine, and inwhich the height and rudenes of the Mountains that almost push upon it togetherwith the beauty, the evenness and fruitfulnes of the Valley, that is all along well wateredwith the river of Liserre, make such an agreeable mixture that this vast diversity of objectthat do at once fill the Eye, gives it a very entertaining prospect.”33 This generic

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 161

description provides the illusion of observation on the landscape without really provid-ing a compelling or evocative picture.

Only exceptional places or circumstances precipitated overt acknowledgment ofgeographical importance, and even then, only occasionally. Misson, on arriving inVenice said that to give a “true idea” of the city, “I must in the first place describe thosewaters in the midst of which it is seated.” While averring that the “general opinion ofgeographers is that Venice is built in the sea,” he seems to have had no map and relieson being rowed around the city to determine the answer.34 However, for Misson thisexceptional detour to the geographic reflects Venice’s unique properties, not a generalinterest in the topic. Moreover, even this limited reflection on topography was notcommon to his peers’ reports on the same city.

Not only was there little interest describing geography in Grand Tour accounts,none seems to have had a map. The accounts of naturalist John Ray (1673), tutorLassels (1670), Bishop Burnet (1686), and Bromley (1691), had no illustrations of anykind, including maps.35 Even Misson’s text originally lacked a map, although it includedselect illustrations from its first edition and devoted a section to practicalities of travel,proudly stating its intent to be “useful for those who would like to make the samevoyage.” Although wildly popular—appearing in five French editions between 1691 and1743, as well as appearing in English and German versions—it seems that only the 1714English edition eventually provided two maps: a street plan of Venice to illustrate theanecdote and a map of the Pezzuoli region.36

Why did Grand Tour travel accounts have so little room for geographic discussionand representation? An important reason derives not from the accounts’ form but rathertheir purpose. If few Grand Tour narratives had been published at the turn of thecentury, general guides on what a young man ought to attempt while traveling, likethose of Justus Lipsius (1592) and Francis Bacon (1625) already existed, along withitineraries and guidebooks to key cities and their attractions.37 The Grand Tour travelerwas supposed to turn to abundant locally-produced guidebooks and itineraries, whichoften included city plans as well as country maps, atlases, and for some countries,manuscript or printed road maps for cartographic materials.38 France had guidebookswritten by Frenchmen and Englishmen as early as the mid-sixteenth century describingthe whole country or just individual cities like Paris, Versailles, and Lyon.39 Italy, too,boasted books on Rome, Venice, and Naples.40 Some travelers translated these guide-books upon return. Giacomo Barri’s The Painter’s Voyage in Italy (1679) and EdmundWarcupp’s translation of Italy, in its original glory, ruine and revival … (1660) fit thismodel, and both include a map at the beginning of the work.”41 There were even guidesfor the Tour itself.42 John Ogilby’s frequently-reprinted book of British road maps firstappeared in the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth century, those traveling toGermany could turn to a series of twenty folding maps—printed in London and issuedin a pocket—of the different districts of the country (Figures 1–4).43

So travelers’ accounts competed with guidebooks for the reader’s attention, andintended less to provide a comprehensive view or new information to an armchairtraveler but rather useful material to merit selection as one of the texts to accompany theauthor’s countryman on his own trip. Misson itemized travel information on currencyexchange, post roads, and lodging as separate sections in their accounts, making thispurpose clear. Lassels included a section of “instructions concerning travel,” and usedhis five voyages to Italy to describe the “several ways” into Italy, with major stops, sothat not only will the reader know which he prefers “for speed and conveniency” but theothers so “that my young Traveller may know how to steer his course, either in time of

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

162 J. DYM

Fig

ures

1–2

John

Ogi

lby,

Apo

cket

-gui

deto

the

Eng

lish

trav

elle

r,be

ing

aco

mpl

eat

surv

eyan

dad

mea

sure

men

tof

all

the

prin

cipa

lro

ads

and

mos

tco

nsid

erab

lecr

oss-

road

sin

Eng

land

and

Wal

es(L

ondo

n:J.

Ton

son

and

J.W

atts

1719

),T

itle

Pag

e&

Roa

dM

ap,

Cou

rtes

yof

the

Lib

rary

ofC

ongr

ess,

Geo

grap

hyan

dM

aps

Div

isio

n.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 163

Fig

ures

3–4

Atla

spo

rtat

ifd’

Alle

mag

ne:

orth

eG

erm

anpo

cket

atla

s,P

ocke

tan

dM

apof

Hau

tR

hin,

Cou

rtes

yof

the

Lib

rary

ofC

ongr

ess,

Geo

grap

hyan

dM

aps

Div

isio

n

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

164 J. DYM

plague or war.”44 Thus Grand Tour accounts from the seventeenth century tended tobe not only extremely dry and erudite in tone, but small enough to fit in a hand orpocket, and contain almost no illustrations and very few maps.

Another contributing factor to Grand Tour narratives’ maplessness was that Europewas such a familiar destination that travelers could specialize their travelogues and tailorthem to a specific market: the Grand Tour’s next generation who possessed maps andatlases, and the returnee who had collected specialized maps and plans. The GrandTour traveler not only expected to procure his maps from a source other thantravelogues, he presumed that any armchair travelers in his audience would also havemaps. While this assumption was generally implicit, the occasional instruction by authorto reader is revelatory. In 1691, Bromley began his first letter to William Duncombe, therecipient of his letters, stating “I must refer you to your maps, if you will read thisletter.” Even when he hoped to “talk to you of roads and hills that are not to be foundupon record,” the honest writer felt compelled to add, “unless taken notice of in one ofthe vast volumes of Atlases.”45 That is, the implication was that much if not all of theGrand Tour countries had been sufficiently mapped that anyone at home might have ageneral map against which to plot the traveler’s peregrinations and more specializedworks, such as the atlas, for the most specific details. If not, the traveler would be happyto supply them, as Misson did for his correspondent by sending a street-plan of Veniceto prove a point about the ubiquity of canals in that city.46

The two exceptions to the maplessness of European travel cartography prove therule. The first were works emphasizing the living culture of a country rather than GrandTour subjects of a country’s antiquities and past, which tended to include someillustrations and also a map showing the basic political and geographical divisions of acountry under discussion.47 By the 1652 edition of George Sandy’s (1578–1644)“travailes” in Italy, the Turkish Empire, Egypt, and the Holy-Land “begun in A.D.1610,” the publisher proudly claimed to “Illustrate with Fifty Graven Maps andFigures.”48 One map, opposite the title page, was a three-section fold-out image of theentire region visited by the author, starting with the Midland Sea, going around Italy,with the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, on via the Arabian Desert and Red Sea to the Gulfof Persia. Antiquarians visiting European destinations beyond the confines of the GrandTour circuit also might include maps. French physician Jacob Spon (1647–85) wentbeyond the Grand Tour destinations, visiting Greece, Dalmatia, and the Levant, andearly editions his account included several maps and plans, including fold-out maps ofAttica and the island of Delos. At the end of the 1678 second volume, there was alsoa fold-out map of Athens with numbers indicating almost fifty key sites in the city andits environs, and half a dozen named routes to attractions signaling direction with dottedlines. A numbered list of the main attractions, keyed to the sites on the map, followedon the next page (see Figure 5).49 Because of the extension of both authors’ journeysbeyond the familiar Grand Tour confines and even beyond Europe, the author orpublisher wished to provide a cartographic representation of the less familiar itineraryeven if, as in the case of Spon, the subject—antiquities—was the same. While there isno direct evidence that the authors themselves produced the maps, the presence ofcartographic elements tailored for individual texts suggests that authors or publishersexpected to use images to complement text, and would either create or procure themwhen either subject matter or location of European travel left the confines of the GrandTour.

Conversely to the approach taken to Grand Tour writing, most travel accounts ofvisits to the Great Mogul in India included a map of his empire, and occasionally a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ure

5Ja

cob

Spo

n,V

oyag

ed’

Ital

ie,

deD

alm

atie

,de

Gre

ce,

etdu

Lev

ant,

fait

aux

anne

es16

75&

1676

(Lyo

n:A

.C

ellie

rle

fils,

1678

).C

ourt

esy

ofth

eR

are

Boo

ksC

olle

ctio

n,L

indn

erL

ibra

ry,

Sm

ith

Col

lege

.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ure

6S

irT

hom

asH

erbe

rt,

Are

latio

nof

som

eye

ares

trav

aile

,be

gunn

ean

no16

26.

Into

Afr

ique

and

the

grea

ter

Asi

a,es

peci

ally

the

terr

itori

esof

the

Per

sian

mon

arch

ie,

and

som

epa

rts

ofth

eO

rien

tal

Indi

esan

dile

sad

iace

nt.

Lon

don,

1634

,F

lyin

gF

ish

and

Lan

dM

ap.

Cou

rtes

yof

the

Lib

rary

ofC

ongr

ess,

Rar

eB

ooks

Div

isio

n.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 167

“platform” or city view, while accounts to Japan had at a minimum a map of the island,and frequently route maps of land trips to the court at Jedo (Tokyo) and maps of citiesvisited as well. Those who discussed the sea voyage as part of the account might, likeTerry Herbert, include important navigational data, including wind directions andlatitudes of specific locations, drawings of coastlines such as appeared on navigationalcharts, and tables of navigational data (Figure 6). And almost all the authors, regardlessof their professions as doctors, clerics, and embassy secretaries, also observed anddiscussed the lands they traveled through as well as the current state of Europeangeographic and cartographic representation of them.

Why did those accounts discussing Asia not only include maps if at all possible, andintegrate discussion of geography and cartography into the narrative? One importantaspect was the intent of and audience for the reports. Most European voyagers to Indiaand Japan had a different purpose in reporting back in a travel account than a GrandTour reporter. A substantial and ever-increasing body of knowledge discussed Asianpeoples, histories, politics, economics, cultures, and religions, for those traveling to andfrom the Middle East and Asia. However, no independent guidebooks were yetavailable. While Europeans could and did read the itineraries of France prepared byFrenchmen and the catalogues of antiquities authored by Romans, they could not relyon extant Japanese or Indian (Mogul) sources to complement the travel accounts thatWestern voyageurs used as the vehicle to convey their idea of new knowledge to theirfellows.50 Although such sources existed (as travelers readily commented), either nocopies had reached the West, or those that had arrived had not yet been translated.

In addition, the expected audience of an account to Asia tended to be international.Some travelers prefaced their accounts with nationalistic rhetoric, like Fryer whodeclared he had “no other Design than the good of my country, setting before them thetrue state of their trade in East India and Persia … to inform those busy translators, thatthe industry of our own Nation is not fallen beneath that of France, whose Languageand Manners we so servilely affect.”51 However, the intended audience of most Asianaccounts was not just the nationals of the author’s homeland, who would readcomfortably at home or follow his footsteps. Instead, the public was a broader com-munity, including scholars, who would find in the text not just information useful tofollow in the author’s literal, physical footsteps, but sought to wring from the new sourceinformation on scientific, philosophical, historic, or other intellectual fields. It was thereader’s “inquirie” that Thomas Herbert anticipated in 1634.52 Most authors of travel-ogues documenting their experiences in traveling to, engaging with the societies of, andreturning from Japan and India in the seventeenth century succeeded in disseminatingknowledge throughout Europe with the rapid translation of most of these accounts fromthe native English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Swedish into three or fouradditional languages.53

The emphasis on geographic knowledge in accounts to the East also lies partly inthe state of European knowledge about the destination. European knowledge of Eu-ropean geography and topography might have been incomplete, but existing maps didan acceptable job of representing space. The gaps in knowledge regarding the East weremore obvious, even to the amateur. While he praises the cartography of ambassador SirThomas Roe, his employer, Briton Edward Terry (1590–1660), is critical of othergeographers’ published maps of Asia “And here,” he writes, “a great errour in geogra-phers must not escape my notice, who in their globes and maps make East India andChina near Neighbours, when as many large Countries are interposed between them

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

168 J. DYM

which great distance may appear by the long travel of the Indian merchants … in theirjourney and return … two full years from Agra to China.”54 Engelbert Kaempfer, whenarriving “of the country of Kui” in June of 1690, commented on the steep rocky coasts,which “though not unlike the coasts of Sweden” were worthy of mention because of theauthor’s surprise that “there is not the least hint of any such thing in our maps, andindeed I cannot forebear observing in general that most Sea Maps are so ill done, thatI wonder misfortunes don’t happen oftener, there being nothing in the least to bedepended upon their certainty.”55 With such glaring errors in representations of landand sea, it is no wonder that travelers to Asia often assumed the mantle of amateurgeographers.

There were several ways to integrate cartographic data and analysis into theirnarratives. One, the less common, was to rely primarily on textual description ratherthan the insertion of picture-maps. An example of this approach is the popular andoft-translated work of Frenchman Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne (1605–89), whose account of his travels is more in the style of the seventeenth-century GrandTour itineraries covering almost forty years and sixty thousand leagues of land travel (ca.1627–70), in which he saw Persia, Turkey, and “all India,” including “famous DiamondMines where no European had been before me.”56 Because Tavernier waited until theend of his traveling career to publish, the structure of his book differed from that ofother travel accounts. He separated each journey, so while destinations overlapped,routes in general did not, and each discrete journey began with an itinerary-map of thewhole, describing traveling conditions as well as routes and problems to anticipate.

In the introduction, Tavernier emphasized why he needed to provide extensiveguidance, both geographical and practical. He observed first that infrastructure fortravelers was lacking, then, he added, there was the land itself to confront. That is “[a]Man cannot travel in Asia, as they do in Europe; nor at the same Hours, nor with thesame ease. There are no weekly Coaches or Wagons from Town to Town; besides, thatthe Soil of the Countries is of several natures. In Asia you shall meet with severalRegions untill’d and unpeopl’d, …. There are vast Deserts to cross, and very dangerous,both for want of Water and the Robberies that the Arabs daily commit therein. Thereare no certain Stages, or Inns, to entertain Travellers. The best Inns, especially inTurkie, are the Tents which you carry along with you, and your Hosts are your servants,that get ready those victuals which you have bought in good Town.”57 So Tavernier“resolv’d to make an ample exact Description, and I will begin with the several Roadswhich may be taken from Paris into Persia.”58 That is, instead of a map to start thebook, the subsequent and first chapter of his account is essentially an itinerary map ofhis journey, which seems to assume that his audience might be interested in taking thesame trip. Overall, Tavernier saw maps as inspiration rather than guide, “[To] the dailydiscourses, which several Learned men had with my Father upon Geographical sub-jects … I was with much delight attentive; [they] inspir’d me betimes with a design tosee some part of those Countries, which were represented to me in the Maps, fromwhich I never could keep off my eyes.”59

Yet even Tavernier could not resist introducing cartographic representation into hisown travel account. While no country maps appeared in early versions of the book, theoriginal French edition included several “platforms” or city plans that Tavernier and aprobable relative, Daniel Tavernier, apparently contributed, as well as a sketch map ofthe Persian Gulf that included navigational data (depth soundings), indications of whereto find routes inland to Ispahan from the coast, and the location of the caravansarywhere a fellow-traveler was buried (Figure 7).60

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ure

7Je

anB

apti

ste

Tav

erni

er,

Les

six

voya

ges

deJe

anB

aptis

teT

aver

nier

,E

cuye

rB

aron

d’A

ubon

ne,

enT

urqu

ie,

enP

erse

,et

aux

Inde

s(P

aris

1676

),P

lan

Exa

ctde

Gom

ron

….

Cou

rtes

yof

the

Lib

rary

ofC

ongr

ess,

Rar

eB

ooks

Div

isio

n.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

170 J. DYM

Despite Tavernier’s efforts at accuracy, the limitations of an interested, but un-trained, observer are clear. No cartographer would be able to create an accurategeographic representation of the author’s trip based on his language or his sketch maps.While Tavernier occasionally had recourse to distance in leagues between two points(“Merdin is not above two leagues from Cousasar”), he more often observed distancesin varied ways from “about twice Musquet shot from thence” or “a journey of sixhours.”61 With such vague description, subsequent travel accounts dismissed Tavernieras “scarce able to read or write … [and] too superficial in his description even of thosecountries, where he had been and too apt, not only to take things upon trust at firsthand, but afterwards also to confide too much to his memory to be any ways dependedon.” So Tavernier’s potential contribution to geographical knowledge—that his shipsailed around Japan and proved it an island, rather than a peninsula, as geographers likeDe L’isle still postulated—was considered suspect.62

Tavernier’s approach of including few maps was the exception rather than the rulefor travelers to Asia. Where travelers in Europe like Bromley enjoined readers to consulttheir own maps, those journeying to Asia had no illusions that their readers mightalready own relevant cartographic material. In part to demonstrate their own authorityand learning, and in part to attend to reader’s needs, most included several types ofmaps located strategically throughout the text. Thomas Herbert included three maps inhis 1634 first edition of A relation of some yeares travaile in Africa, Asia, and Persia: ofMadagascar, the Caspian Sea, and the bay of Mauritius as well as numerous sketchesof the bays his ship docked in, inserted with no comment. By the second edition of1638, he had added two maps of India as well as a bigger map of the Caspian Sea andthe surrounding territories, so “that you [the reader] may better go along with us, andespecially in that the latest maps of Persia are so erroneous, both in rivers, the situationof places and their true names (for to say truly none of them have five right names), Ihave therefore inserted this of the Persian Empire in which neither the position of placesare false, nor names of towns fictitious or borrowed” (Figure 8).63 Forty years later, thislogic still applied, as Bernier added to his account of travel to the empire of the “GreatMogol” a “map of that country, which I do not put forth as absolutely correct, butmerely as less incorrect than others that I have seen,” in order “that you may the betterunderstand my narrative.”64

Edward Terry’s account of his travels to India indicates in the preface that theaccount will include a map to “express” that “huge Monarchy” which is “furtherdescribed in the following discourse.” He then inserts a list of provinces on the printedpage next to a fold-out page with “the most exact affixed map, first made by the specialobservation and direction of that most able and honourable gentleman, Sir ThomasRo[e], here contracted into a lesser compass, yet large enough to demonstrate, that thisgreat empire is bounded on the east by the Kingdom of Maug, west with Persia, andwith the main ocean Southerly; north with the Mountains Caucasus and Tartaria ….”The map, inserted at a page near the text in the original edition, migrated opposite thetitle page by 1715, remaining otherwise unchanged despite significant advances inknowledge of Indian terrain.65 Why the map had to remain contemporaneous with thetext—and the extent of this phenomenon—is an issue for future exploration. Thatcartography complemented and embellished text, enhancing authenticity, was alreadyclear to Terry.

The voyager to Asia’s rhetorical strategy for justifying inclusion of maps wastwofold. On the one hand, he referred to maps as important resources: the reader wassupposed to refer to them to better understand the progress of the narrative, as Terry

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 171

Figure 8 Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile (1634), Caspian Sea. Courtesy of the Libraryof Congress, Rare Books Division.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

172 J. DYM

Figure 9 Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan (1728), Meinam. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, RareBooks Division.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 173

states.66 On the other hand, as Terry, Kaempfer, and Bernier’s comments attest, mapswere also likely to be inaccurate, and thus the author sought to contribute to theknowledge used to compile them. Thus, regarding the classification of Mauritius,Herbert wrote that “some hold that it is part of America, others of Africa or Asia.” Hehimself (correctly) concludes Africa, suggesting that his opinion on this matter (basedon his status as “an eye-witnesse in part and partly expert in the rest”) might influencefuture geographic representations.67 Even before arriving in Japan, Kaempfer went togreat lengths to map, mentioning that in Bangkok, he will not name certain places in thetext because “I have set them down in a map of this river which I had the opportunityof making at this time in going up, and which I corrected afterwards in several placesas we fell down again.”68 Once in Japan, Kaempfer not only sought to convince hisJapanese interpreters to share geographic information, including Japanese maps hiseditor published with the book, he also sketched his own maps as he traveled using a“large mariner’s compass in order to measure the directions of the roads, mountains andcoasts.” Because such information was not meant to leave the island, Kaempferdissembled, keeping the compass “privately” in a Javanese box which “openly exposed”an inkhorn filled with plants and clothing.69 Some maps accompanying his account bearthe designation “Eng. Kaempfer delin” crediting the author for his sketches, like that ofthe river Meinam (Figure 9); others mention that his information formed the basis ofroute maps or town plans which engravers prepared for publication.70

Yet it was not only by mapping that travelers showed their interest in increasingEuropean geographical knowledge; they also did so by interpreting local knowledge fora European audience and discussing geography with their interlocutors. An example ofthe first strategy is Della Valle, who as he sailed into the “Southern Sea” informed hisreader that the ship had passed the Cape of Arabia, “which the Portugals vulgarly callRosalgate, as it is also set down in the maps, but properly ought to be call’d Ras el Had,which in the Arabian Tongue signifies Capo del Fine, or the Cape of the Confine,because t’is the last of that Country and is further than any other extended into the sea;like that of Galicia in Our Europe, which for the same reason we call Finis Terrae.”71

Della Valle judged the Arabic form of naming more appropriate than the Western,suggesting that geographers and cartographers consider a method of naming whichcarried useful navigational content.

The second tactic is clear in Bernier and Della Valle. Bernier used the arrival of twoEthiopian ambassadors to Delhi (one Muslim, one Christian) to engage in conversationon the source of the Nile. While Bernier doesn’t suggest that the three of them poredover a map in their discussion, he does know European cartography, expressing surprisethat the Mahometan ambassador claims that the source of the Nile should be muchmore “deca” (on one side) of the line represented on European maps that followPtolemy rather than the “dela” (on the other) shown.72 Although the first French edition(1670) provides no map to accompany the text, one appeared in the first Englishedition, and the French publisher copied a 1683 French map into the 1709 edition,presumably more interested in drawing attention to this question than providing themost updated information.73

Even the rare few whose published accounts had no maps, like Della Valle, wereattuned to geography, unlike Grand Tour travelers, and opined on the strengths andweaknesses of the measurers and measurements on which cartography was based. Inparticular, those who sailed were often exposed to the constant act of collectingknowledge for navigation. Della Valle was so impressed with the process that heexplained to their reader how navigational charts were made and who had a role in

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ures

10–11

Joha

nnK

eisl

er’s

Tra

vels

thro

ugh

Ger

man

y,B

ohem

ia,

Hun

gary

,S

witz

erla

nd,

Ital

yan

dL

orra

in.…

(Lon

don,

1756

),T

itle

Pag

e&

Fro

ntis

piec

e,C

laus

en,

apa

ssth

roug

hth

em

ount

ain

ofL

usse

nin

the

Bis

hopr

ick

ofS

alzb

urg.

Cou

rtes

yof

the

New

Yor

kP

ublic

Lib

rary

.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ure

11

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

176 J. DYM

collecting the necessary information. On his way to India, the Roman reported that thecaptain of his vessel had “shew’d me a Chart or Plat-form of the whole Streight ofOrmus, made by himself during that time with the highest exactness, for he had not onlytaken the most just measures and distances of all the adjacent places, but also soundedall the Coast with a plummet to find all the convenient places where great ships, suchas theirs, might ride and cast anchor when occasion should require.”74 In addition, DellaValle provided substantial information on the measurement taken every day of themeridional altitude of the sun, and reported on his latitude and longitude as well as thehabits of captain and pilots who performed their measurements openly each day,inviting “twenty or thirty mariners, masters, boys, young men and of all sorts” to makethe observations alongside them, encouraging alternate measurements in ways thatPortuguese pilots “jealous of their affairs,” would not.”75

In sum, seventeenth-century travel accounts of European nobles in Italy and Indiacould bear a strong family resemblance, with similar elements clear in the accounts ofBromley, Lassels, Tavernier, and Della Valle, particularly when the purpose of travelwas to learn rather than to trade. Yet for the most part the two types of travel narrativediverged in content and purpose, as well as audience. The travel accounts of the GrandTour were more guidebook than account, and the texts from further afield had practicalinformation for a traveler on navigation and the conditions of travel, but were meant toserve as source material that the authors full expected geographers, historians, andothers to cannibalize for creation of maps, drafting of histories, and developing ofscientific theories. While a map was already important as a separate accompaniment oftravelers on the Grand Tour, either their guidebooks or as separate documents,cartography remained a process for travelers to Asia, in which travelers had clearlyconsulted maps as part of their planning or imagining of travel, but tended more tocorrect existing maps as part of the act of traveling than relying on them as sources ofaccurate information. The familiar lands of Europe required no geographic analysis butthe foreign or exotic locales of Asia did.

The Eighteenth Century

In the eighteenth century, one might expect the initial trends to extend themselves, withcartographic and geographic topics of greater interest to those traveling far afield andseeking to provide new knowledge in their accounts. The popularity of travel narrativesremained high, and at least some remained important sources of information, asevidenced in the new compilations compiled and disseminated by John Harris (d. 1719)of London and Jean-Frederic Bernard (d. 1752) of Amsterdam.76 So one might expectthat the Grand Tour, ever more familiar and the subject of ever more publication as themiddle classes (including women) began to “tour” Europe, would continue to inspirepoorly illustrated accounts meant to accompany voyagers and perhaps serve as a tool ofmemory for those who had traveled previously. The Asian accounts would reflect astabilization of existing geographic knowledge, resulting in less traveler interest in thetopic.

To a certain extent, this expectation was achieved. Although by the eighteenthcentury, the monopoly of the didactic antiquarian or social-polishing account ofEuropean travel had come to an end, Grand Tour accounts of European travelcontinued and, like their seventeenth-century predecessors many did not include maps.Examples include Edward Wright’s heavily illustrated tour of France and Italy in1720–22 and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s (1751–1831) tour of France in 1777.77 Even

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 177

Hester Lynch Piozzi felt no need to include a map in her epistolary account of travelingabroad in 1784–87 with a female companion for shopping, edification and, in writing,the reader’s entertainment.78 The Grand Tour tradition of looking to guidebooks or amap procured on the spot, continued when German tutor Johann Georg Keysler(1693–1743), author of a Grand Tour travel narrative covering the entire route, notedof Turin (Italy) in 1730 that “I have never yet been able to procure a good Plan of thiscity; that published by Bodenehr in Augsburg is full of errors, but his map of theadjacent country is very exact.”79 As had his predecessors a hundred years earlier,Keysler clearly expected to consult a specific and locally-produced map of places hevisited, providing detailed itineraries and stage routes in his itinerary rather than a mapof his own.

Yet, by the time Keysler’s account appeared in English in 1756, a map hadweaseled its way into the volume. In the elaborate frontispiece illustration placed acrossfrom the title page lay an illustration in which Hermes, god of travel, unrolled a wallmap of Italy, entitled, “Keisler’s travels” which contains Keysler’s route throughEurope. Further, an extended passage describing a particularly difficult route across aTyrolean mountain pass appeared opposite a drawing of the pass with its obstacles androutes mapped out and labeled for the reader. Geography was beginning to appear inboth word and image, even in Grand Tour accounts. Why some Grand Tour accountsmoved from considering territory traversed familiar to strange is discussed below.

Equally, in the later eighteenth century, mapping as a concern of travelers to Indiaand Japan was changing. By this period, familiarity with world geography (and Eu-ropean efforts made to express it in maps) could allow accounts of travels to the Far Eastto join those of the Grand Tour in eschewing maps. By the time Swedish doctor KarlPeter Thunberg (1743–1828) wrote up his ten years of travels in Europe, Asia andAfrica (1770–79), which included substantial time in Japan, he contributed only a fewillustrations of people and some curious objects to his volume. Although this voyagerhad covered half of the world in his peregrinations, neither he nor his publisher soughtto include maps to show the journey in the original Swedish (1788–91) or subsequentGerman (1792), English (1793), and French (1794) editions.80 Thunberg’s specializedinterest in natural history produced a separate volume on the plants of Japan, not greatergeographic information.81

Western relations with the Japanese as an independent empire, familiar throughmany years of contact but still a separate entity, perhaps contributed to a shift from aplace of geographic novelty to one of familiarity. However, by the middle of theeighteenth century, India was in the process of becoming a British colony and mappingits interior became part of the British imperial project.82 Civil servants like GeorgeFoster continued to include route maps when taking unusual inland trips, like a 1798trek from Bengal to England via Saint Petersburg (Russia).83 Their audience remainedinternational: Forster’s trip was like those a century ago almost immediately translatedinto French (1798) and German (1800) editions, as well as collected for a British travelcompilation.84 Men like Major James Rennell (1742–1830) were commissioned survey-ors and geographers, contributing to and later putting together a substantial body ofinformation collected by the geographers and surveying pilots the East India Companyemployed to take a mathematical survey “of a tract equal in extent to France andEngland taken together; besides tracing the outline of near 2000 miles of sea coast anda chain of islands in extent 500 miles more.”85 The fruits of Rennell’s labor were madepublic in his 1780 Atlas of Bengal and 1783 Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, whichprovided a large and detailed folding map of India, a complete index of place names tied

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

178 J. DYM

Figure 12 James Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan (London: M Brown, 1785), Plan of Part of theCourse of the Ganges. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Books Division.

to a grid to enable individuals to find specific spots, and a narrative of the process ofselection and observation and sources relied upon to create the end product.86 By the1785 edition of Memoir, additional maps showing inland waterways, a small map ofHindoostan showing principal roads and distances between cities, and part of the flowof the Ganges accompanied the large general map (Figure 12).87

Rennell’s work fits somewhat awkwardly into the category of travel writing, sincehis focus is uniquely on the process of mapping and not of his own travel.88 What isimportant is that this public map marked (if not instigated) an important change intreatment of collective wisdom in cartography that, as we will see, was shared by the endof the century in travel writing focused on European destinations. Rennell’s map was amodern product, for while he admired the amount of “geographical matter” collected byEuropeans until the late seventeenth century, he also dismissed their findings, statingthat “we must not go back much farther back than thirty years [that is, to about 1750]for the basis that forms [my] map.”89 Travelers’ reliability is particularly suspect;Rennell found French geographer M. D’Anville’s maps of Asia and India of 1751/2

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 179

surprisingly good, especially considering “that this excellent Geographer had scarcelyany materials to work on for the inland parts of India, but some vague itineraries andbooks of travels.”90

Rather than being the best sources of accurate geographic information, Rennelldismisses travelers’ accounts and itineraries as questionable; their accuracy is surprisingrather than expected. So the sources Rennell turns to in the construction of his map arethreefold. First come his own observations and results of his survey. Second, he relieson specialists’ reports: Mr. Dalrymple’s collection of sea coast surveys, the itinerary ofGolam Mohamed, a Sepoy officer sent by a British colonel to explore “roads andcountry between Bengal and Deccan,” “M. Buffy’s marches in the Deccan … for fixingthe positions of many capital places there;” and a half dozen British officers and EastIndia company officials “for manuscript maps, sketches and various articles.”91 Finally,Rennell uses recent translations of Indian maps and books, similar to the localguidebooks available to Grand Tour travelers of the seventeenth century, includinginformation from Bogton Rouse, who translated Ayin Acbaree, an Indian account of theprovinces, from Persian, and Major Davy, who translated names on a Persian map ofthe Punjab that provided “names and courses of the five rives as well as the generalgeography of a country that has hitherto been less known to us than any of the Indianprovinces.”92 If earlier cartographers had welcomed travelers’ geographic and topo-graphic information about distant locales, the expectation by the mid-eighteenth centurywas that geographers and specialists should conduct their measurements in person.

As mapping as an acceptable sideline of the commercial, diplomatic or scientificvoyager was replaced with specialists’ cartography in eighteenth-century Far Easternnarratives, the traveler within Europe worked to make the familiar strange and began totake on the role of cartographer eschewed in Grand Tour accounts of the previouscentury. As authors of a greater variety of backgrounds produced more readable andindividualistic accounts injected a more personal tone and greater analysis, bringingwriting about European travels closer to that on Asia by taking on the more general roleof interpreter of peoples, places, customs, nature, and geography as well as that of guideto principal sites. Grand Tour accounts, like that of German Count Friedrich Leopold’saccount of travels in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy might include general maps.93 Insome instances, a famous geographer could lend weight to the map, as when CaptainJohn Northall included a map of “Italy after D’Anville” to illustrate his “omnium-gatherum” relation. Northall drew attention to this innovation in his title, which claimedto be “Illustrated with A Map of Italy, a route of this Tour, and several copperplates,engraved from drawings taken on the spot.”94 Clearly, the distinctions between travel-ogues that required maps to guide readers and those that did not were blurring, and onechange in European accounts was the appearance of generic or guiding maps in bookson traditional Grand Tour subjects.

Moreover, this new generation of authors challenged the idea of Grand TourEurope as familiar territory requiring only reporting rather than exploration, and usedlanguage and image to represent the countries visited foreign or strange, and thusrequiring substantial explanation and interpretation. At this point the map becomes notjust an occasional but a regular element of the European travel account, taking the formof a traditional representation of a politico-geographic territory, a route, or a thematicillustration of an author’s interests. For France, the newly strange or unfamiliar includedthe interior countryside, the island of Corsica and the Alps, which had become adestination on their own as travelers, sought a respite from urban life. For Italy, the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

180 J. DYM

Figures 13–14 Arthur Young, Travels during the years 1787, 1788, and 1789: undertaken more particularly witha view of ascertaining the cultivation, wealth, resources, and national prosperity of the kingdom of France. (Dublin,1794), Climate (Detail), Soil. Courtesy of the New York Public Library/Courtesy of the Library of Congress,

Rare Books Division.

undiscovered or at least less well described area were the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples.Travelers to these territories generally included maps in their publications.95

Arthur Young’s trip to France on the eve of the French Revolution is a clearexample of this new genre of travel literature. Young (1741–1820) more thoroughlyexplored the French countryside than many of his predecessors, moving away from theurban centers and architecture to which previous generations had devoted their time andobservations. A well-known agriculturalist, Young’s tour was motivated by an interest inunderstanding French farming practices, and much of his account analyzed the pro-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 181

duction of French farms and farmers. In the travel account proper, Young consciouslychose to present his daily journal with observations on his travels and the individuals andplaces he encountered, as well as discussions about the impact of the French Revolutionwhich began while his 1789–90 tour was underway. In the two volume set, heconsciously separated his “farming journal” information into a hefty appendix withessays on France’s territorial extension, the produce of different areas, harvest, enclo-sures, farming and other aspects of political economy, and maps representing some ofhis findings. Like the travel accounts describing seventeenth-century Asia, Young’s textswiftly found an international audience. Two London editions (1792, 1794) werefollowed by a Dublin edition in English (1793), a German edition (1794), and a3-volume French edition with “a new map” and a promise to include additional dataprovided by a French scientist (1794).96

With topographic and geographic information largely excised, Young presentedreaders with three versions of a map of French origin. City and province names float inundefined spaces, with no indications of what territory they encompassed; internalpolitical borders were not of interest although France’s separation from its neighborswas clearly shown. Neither were geographical features apparent: the maps show nomountain ranges, suggesting to the uninitiated a flatness that might well apply to someparts of France, but misleads as to the character of the mountainous Jura and Pyreneesregions Young visited. On this rather empty outline map, Young’s first thematic mapclaimed to highlight France’s climate and navigation. The means by which this wasachieved was drawing angled lines to indicate which crops grew in different zones of thecountry: olives, corn, and vines. No actual climactic information accompanies thesetoo-absolute claims (Figure 13). The second map superimposes Young’s route on theempty background, and the third establishes boundaries distinguishing the qualities ofsoils in different regions and includes a legend with a key of the color each type ofsoil should receive for hand coloring (Figure 14). Clearly, France’s geography andtopography were sufficiently familiar for Young to leave them out. However, byaddressing a new type of study of France, that of its agriculture, this eighteenth-centuryBriton succeeded in making the familiar strange, and thus justified the adaptation of notjust one but three maps for his account. The map of Young’s itinerary established hiscredentials as a traveler, and that of the book as a travelogue; the two maps of hisscientific analysis situated the text as one of exploration of a novel topic, if not a novelland, and purveyor of new information.

Another Englishman who contributed to the new travel account of unfamiliarEurope was Henry Swinburne (1743–1803). This Briton spent three years (1777–80) inthe company of several travel companions exploring “the two Sicilies” on horseback,with sketchbook in hand.97 His epistolary account was in the style of the romantics ofthe day, containing more of personal impressions and human interactions than descrip-tion of antiquities. However, Swinburne also presented much information that would beuseful to fellow-travelers, including engaging stories of people he met, chasms hecrossed, food he ate, fleas he escaped, tarantulas encountered and interviews conducted.In each of his letters, Swinburne made the present of the trip the most importantelement, not the discovery of the past, while continuing the tradition of referring toclassic Roman authors to describe and understand modern Sicily.

Swinburne presented himself as an artist, commissioning engravers to turn a fewdozen of his sketches into elaborate illustrations for the large (and presumably expens-ive) text he produced for armchair travelers to savor his journey. Like other Grand Tournarrators of his period, he placed a map across from the title page of Volume 1 that

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

182 J. DYM

provided basic information about Italy’s geography and the location of its cities, lakes,and mountain chains, along with a key to the distances in the map available in modernItalian, ancient Roman, French, and English distance measurements (Figure 15). Asimilar map of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, “from the most approved foreignmaps and charts” began Volume 2. By choosing an Italian destination relatively distantfrom that of Grand Tour voyagers, Swinburne meant to cast himself in unfamiliarterritory, reporting back findings and observations meant to be savored rather thanemulated, and thus situates his audience with maps. In addition, several of Swinburne’ssketches contained geographical qualities, intending to direct the reader’s understandingof the image by naming key buildings and landscape features, much like the seven-teenth-century “platform” or cityscape, like one of the seaport of Bari (Figure 16).

This cartographic trope was paralleled in the text as the author described the act oftravel as something filled with surprise despite the plethora of information on itinerariesavailable. For, he noted, the “route given me at Naples having made no mention ofCarigliano as a sleeping change” so he had not prepared himself with a letter ofintroduction to procure lodging at one of the duke’s residences and lodged as a result“at the house of a dealer in oil.”98 All pointed to the unfamiliarity of the region visited,or at least Swinburne’s emphasis on its strangeness.

Although not a surveyor or cartographer, even the text of this educated, curiousauthor showed substantial geographical awareness. His discussion of geography, top-ography, and cartography recalled the skeptical approach of travelers to seventeenthcentury Asia. Instead of assuming that existing maps were accurate, Swinburnequestioned the accuracy of various parts of the science. When situating the mountainranges of Naples, Swinburne found that “in this point, as well as in many othersconcerning these provinces, I have had opportunities of discovering errors in the bestmaps.”99 Regarding navigation, when the ship he was traveling in passed the island ofElba, the captain told Swinburne that compasses were of no use in the island’s vicinity“as the needle veered about continually with great irregularity.” The traveler not onlyinformed his reader that some disputed this finding, but presented his own observationto resolve the question. “Without attempting to argue the point, I shall content myselfwith mentioning, that I perceived the utmost confusion and variation in the needle mostpart of the day, though we constantly kept at the distance of a league from Elba.”100 Inthese instances (and many others), the traveler questioned the foundations of hiscartographic sources and geographers’ methods in the same way that those who havetraveled to the East Indies had for over a century.

What is new in Swinburne is the same mindset that informs Rennell’s regarding theneed to have geographers travel and make their own observations and to compare themwith those already made. Swinburne is quick to criticize existing maps not because ofthe lack of skill of geographers, but their sources. For example, he finds that the“four-sheet map” of Naples by astronomer Giovanni Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni (1736–1814) assembled in Paris “as it was put together from memory, the combination ofdifferent observations, and old maps, it is not surprising that it should not be exemptfrom errors.”101 In a footnote, the author reinforces the point of the need for geogra-phers to create their own surveys, adding that “Zannoni has lately been prevailed uponto come to Naples, and is actually employed in surveying the domain. We may thereforeexpect a better map of the two Sicilies.”102 For Swinburne, sedentary geographerslistened to the wrong sources—inaccurate travelers rather than erudite ancients likeVirgil, who accurately described a “low” terrain with hills, rather than the mountainousone appearing on many maps.103 Eighteenth-century French geography’s turn to favor-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ures

15–16

Hen

ryS

win

burn

e’s

Tra

vels

inth

etw

oS

icili

esin

the

year

s17

77,

1778

,17

79,

and

1780

(Lon

don

1783

–85)

,M

apof

Ital

y&

his

own

“ske

tch

map

”of

Bar

i.C

ourt

esy

ofth

eL

ibra

ryof

Con

gres

s,R

are

Boo

ksD

ivis

ion.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Fig

ure

16

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 185

ing on-site surveying rather than collection of unverified information identified byscholar Anne Marie Claire Godlewska may well have been a more general move todemand expertise of the eyewitness.104

By the close of the eighteenth century, what had been familiar had become strange:Europe required geographic consideration by travelers. At the same time, consistent andextensive mapping of India and failure to further penetrate or trade with Japan hadcontributed to a shift in travelers’ interest in cartography in these regions. Specialistsbegan to take over the work of improving geography and travelers’ accounts lost theirappeal as sources of new and accurate information. The strange was becoming familiaras methods and interests changed.

Conclusion

The merits of a broad and comparative approach to analyzing the content of earlymodern Western European travelers’ observations of lands near and far, rather thanvoyagers of a single nation to a single destination, seem to have borne fruit. Such a studycannot hope to—and does not intend to—provide a complete analysis of the ways inwhich individual travelers mapped, nor a complete view of the relationship betweentravel and mapping, the publishing of travelers’ maps, the impact of political, social, andscientific revolutions on the role of travel and cartography in this period, nor even thefull range of ways in which travelers interacted with maps before, during, and after theirjourneys. However, there are some preliminary conclusions to be reached that suggestthat those traveling from the region of Western Europe shared certain assumptions intheir approach to travels and travel writing and developed specific reasons to include orexclude geography and cartography in their accounts that depended more on their owninterests than on specific geographic knowledge.

Europeans traveled extensively in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, com-menting and reporting copiously on what they saw. In some ways, destination had littleinfluence on the form and approach of the travelogues they produced and travelers likeDella Valle in the seventeenth century and Thunberg in the eighteenth wrote lengthyaccounts of their experiences in Europe, Asia, and even Africa, in order to provide areport on the whole. However, the two kinds of destination largely produced narrativeswith distinct agendas in the seventeenth century. Travelers to European Grand Tourdestinations emphasized investigation of past and sometimes present high materialculture in largely urban environments while most travelers to distant places focused onall aspects of life—from history to politics to religion to commerce, reflecting a broadinterest in “strange” places and customs. It was not until the eighteenth century thatboth near and far locations could be seen as equally distinct from home societies andthus open for a broader range of investigation. As familiar became strange, and strangesometimes familiar, the cartography of travel narratives reflected the overall shift.Seventeenth-century European travel accounts were small books of useful informationdesigned to be used on-the-spot in studies of antiquities and alongside locally-procuredmaps and guidebooks, and so left maps out. In the same era, travel narratives focusedon less well-known areas—from the Greece visited by Jacob Spons but more regularlyon Asian countries including India and Japan, whose treatment in European carto-graphic matter was more easily found wanting and where no local productions could becounted on to fill in missing information—not only provided maps. In addition, authors’discussion of geography, topography, and navigation were de rigueur.

Yet by the mid-eighteenth century, the writing of the “lumieres” travelers suc-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

186 J. DYM

ceeded in making all destinations unfamiliar and thus demanding the more “omnium-gatherum” treatment of information and the inclusion of maps as well as discussion ofgeography in accounts to covering both Europe and Asia. Grand Tour countries wereno longer seen uniquely as places to investigate the past and elite social interactions inmetropolitan centers, but as places for scientific investigation of soils and rural retreatsin the Alps or Sicily. India proved fertile ground for new expert surveyors to createdetailed maps and civil servants to explore new routes of travel. Swinburne and Rennell,artist and scientist, both felt that on-the-spot information was the best sort for mapping,and expected geographers to be the experts taking measurements and making theobservations. While the surveyor might disdain the amateur traveler’s observations—andYoung’s maps of French climate might reinforce such disdain—there was a clearconvergence in believing that all land and landscapes had sufficient “unfamiliar”qualities to merit cartographic consideration.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the generous support of the National Endowment forthe Humanities, whose 2003–04 fellowship made the research for this paper possible.Additional thanks are owed to Dr. James Akerman of the Newberry Library and Dr.Matthew Edney of the University of Southern Maine for encouraging development ofthe project, “They Also Mapped: Travelers’ Cartography, 1750–1950,” of which thispaper is part. The librarians of the Rare Books and Geography and Maps Divisions ofthe Library of Congress and of the New York Public Library have been invaluable pointsof reference. Finally, thanks to Skidmore College’s Office of the Dean of Faculty forgranting a leave year to undertake this research and computer resources to support it.

Notes

1. Brian Dolan, Exploring European Frontiers: British Travellers in the Age of Enlightenment (London: PalgraveMacmillan, 2000), 12. See also Barbara Korte, English Travel Writing from Pilgrimages to PostcolonialExplorations, trans. C. Matthias (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Katherine Turner, British TravelWriters in Europe 1750–1850: Authorship, Gender and National Identity (Aldershot (UK): Ashgate Press,2001); Jeremy Black, The British and the Grand Tour (Beckenham: Croom Helm Ltd., 1985); Paul F.Kirby, The Grand Tour in Italy (1700–1800) (New York: S.F. Vanni, 1952); and Nicole Hafid-Martin,Voyage et connaissance au tournant des Lumieres (1780–1820) (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1995).

2. For early modern travelers to Japan, see Marc Cooper (ed.), They Came to Japan: An Anthology ofEuropean Reports on Japan, 1543–1640 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965), and BeatriceM. Bodart-Bailey and Derek Massarella (eds), The Furthest Goal: Englebert Kaempfer’s Encounter withTokugawa Japan (Sandgate: Japan Library, 1995); for India, see Joao-Pau Rubies, Travel and Ethnologyin the Renaissance. South India through European Eyes, 1250–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2000); N. Bhattacharya, Reading the Splendid Body: Eighteenth-Century British Writing on India(Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1978); Ramacandra Prasada, Early English Travellers in India: AStudy in the Travel Literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods with Particular Reference to India(Delhi: Motilal Banarsi Dass, 1965).

3. Of the few studies of the consumption of popular literature, some argue that the sheer volume of travelaccounts and compilations published bespeak an eager public. See John Brewer, Pleasures of theImagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997), Chapters 1–4 fora case study of Bristol, England’s library lending patterns that show travelogues among the most populargenres.

4. Henry Ashwood in Edward Terry, A Voyage to East India (London: J. Martin and J. Allfrye, 1655), nopagination.

5. For a working definition of the travel narrative, see Korte, English Travel Writing, 1. For the importanceof the eyewitness, see Rolena Adorno, “The Discursive Encounter of Spain and America; The Authority

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 187

of Eyewitness Testimony in the Writing of History,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 49, no. 2(1992): 210–28.

6. In the useful introduction to an interdisciplinary edited volume, Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing,the co-editors note how the study of travel narratives is fractured, with historians and literary scholarsexamining textual artifacts, art historians examining pictures, and historians of photography studyingtravelers’ photographs. Striking in its absence in this list of travelers’ production are the historicalgeographer and study of maps. James Duncan and Derek Gregory (eds), “Introduction,” in Writes ofPassage: Reading Travel Writing (New York: Routledge, 1999).

7. See, for example, Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York:Routledge, 1992); Patrick Brantlinger, “Victorians & Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the DarkContinent,” Critical Inquiry, 12, no. 1 (1985): 166–88; Christopher Mulvey, Anglo-American Landscapes:A Study of Nineteenth Century Anglo-American Travel Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1983); and Hafid-Martin, Voyage et connaissance.

8. See for example, Amanda Gilroy, “Introduction” W. M. Verhoeven, “Land-jobbing in the WesternTerritories: Radicalism, Transatlantic Emigration, and the 1790s American Travel Narrative” and N.Leask, “Francis Wilford and the Colonial Construction of Hindu Geography, 1799–1822,” in RomanticGeographies: Discourses of Travel 1775–1844, ed. Amanda Gilroy (Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 2000), i–xii, 185–222. See also the introduction to Chloe Chard, Pleasure and Guilt on the GrandTour: Travel Writing and Imaginative Geography 1600–1830 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999).

9. Pratt, Imperial Eyes.10. For studies of illustrations, see Michael Jacobs, The Painted Voyage: Art, Travel and Exploration,

1564–1875 (London: British Hydromechanics Association, 1995), and Barbara M. Stafford, Voyage intoSubstance: Art, Science, Nature and the Illustrated Travel Account, 1760–1840 (Cambridge: MIT Press,1984). For analysis of photography as part of empire-building, see James R. Ryan, Picturing Empire:Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).Regarding photography as an act of travelers, see J. M. Schwartz, “The Geography Lesson: photographsand the construction of imaginative geographies,” Journal of Historical Geography, 22, no. 1 (1996):16–45.

11. See Note 6.12. David G. Burnett, Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2000); John Keay, The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India WasMapped and Everest Was Named (New York: HarperCollins, 2000); Matthew Edney, Mapping an Empire:The Geographical Construction of British India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). Such worksometimes discusses ways in which changing goals of travel influence image content. For an unusualarticle that considers a map as an important travel construct, see Richard Phillips, “Writing Travel andMapping Sexuality: Richard Burton’s Sotadic Zone,” in Writes of Passage, 70–91.

13. The invisibility of travelers’ maps to scholarship is such that a geographer has written a fascinating bookon how maps in adventure stories, or fictional travels, undermine the ideals of empire, without thinkingto consider maps in real travelogues. Richard Phillips, Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography ofAdventure (New York: Routledge, 1997).

14. Korte, English Travel Writing, 2.15. Korte, English Travel Writing, 17.16. Hafid-Martin, Voyage et connaissance, 4–6.17. Jean-Frederic Bernard (ed.), Recueil des Voyages au Nord, 8 vols. (Amsterdam: Chez Jean-Frederic

Bernard, 1727), 8, Preface.18. Maximilien Misson, A New Voyage to Italy, 2 vols. (London: R. Bonwicke, 1714), 204. The first French

edition appeared in the Hague in 1691; the first English in London, 1695. For a study of the CatholicLassels’ exile in Europe and contributions to travel writing see Edward Chaney, The Grand Tour and theGreat Rebellion: Richard Lassels and “The Voyage of Italy” in the Seventeenth Century (Geneva: Slatkine,1985).

19. Francois-Savinien Alquie, Les delices de la France … (Amsterdam: Chez G. Commelin, 1670); PeterHeylyn, The Voyage of France, or, A Compleat Journey through France … (London: William Leake, 1673);the first edition appeared in 1656.

20. Korte, English Travel Writing, 4.21. Michel de Montaigne’s late sixteenth-century travels apparently first appeared in print in 1774. See

Michel de Montaigne, Journal du voyage … en Italie, par la Suisse & l’Allemagne, en 1580 & 1581(Rome/Paris: Chez le Jay …, 1774). Edmond Bonnaffe’s study of Renaissance travelers, Voyages etVoyageurs de la Renaissance (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970 [Paris 1895]) relies almost entirely oneighteenth- and nineteenth-century publications of manuscript accounts.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

188 J. DYM

22. Francois Caron, A True Description of the Mighty Kingdoms of Japan and Siam (London 1653); FernaoMendes Pinto, Peregrinacam (Lisbon: P. Crasbeek, 1614); Scipione Amati, Historia del regno di Voxv delGiapone, … Fatta per il dottor Scipione Amati Romano, interprete, & historico dell’ ambasciata (Rome: G.Mascardi, 1615).

23. Richard Hakluyt’s first edition appeared in 1589, and was republished in 1598, The principall navigations,voyages, and discoveries of the English Nation, made by sea or ouer land, to the most remote and farthest distantquarters of the earty at any time within the compasse of these 1500 … (London: Bishop and R. Newberie,1589). The first edition of Purchas’ Pilgrims appeared in 1613. Samuel Purchas, Pvrchas his Pilgrimage.Or, Relations of the world and the religions observed in all ages and places discouered, from the creation untothis present. … (London: H. Fetherstone, 1613). By 1672, there was a French compilation of Hakluyt,Purchas’ and other texts, Relations de divers voyages curieux: qui n’ont point este publiees; ou qui ont estetraduites de’Hacluyt, de Purchas, & d’autres voyageurs anglois, hollandois, portugais, allemands, espagnols(Paris: Jacques Langlois, et al., 1672).

24. Montanus’ compilation of the Dutch company’s embassies to Japan in the 1630s went from a smallDutch edition (1654) to elaborately illustrated and mapped German (1669), English (1670), and French(1680) editions. The English edition was tellingly called Atlas Japanensis.

25. For a recent history of early atlases, see Paul Binding, Imagined Corners: Exploring the World’s First Atlas(London: Review, 2003).

26. William Bromley, Remarks in the Grand Tour of France and Italy … (London: John Nutt, 1705), Preface,iv–v.

27. Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile, begunne anno 1626. Into Afrique and the greater Asia,especially the territories of the Persian monarchie, and some parts of the Oriental Indies and iles adiacent(London: William Stansby and Jacob Bloome, 1634), 2.

28. John Fryer, A new account of East-India and Persia, in eight Letters. Being Nine years travels, Begun 1671and Finished 1681 (London: RR for R.I. Chiswell, et al., 1683), Preface.

29. In 1625, about forty pages of Terry’s account appeared in Samuel Purchas, Purchas’ Pilgrimes (London:Printed by W. Stansby for H. Fetherstone, 1625), Vol., 2, Book 9, 1463–82; the first edition, EdwardTerry, A Voyage to East India, in 1655. Additional editions appeared in Leyden (1707, 1727) andLondon in the 1770s and early 1800s.

30. Terry, A Voyage to East India, 2–4.31. Francois Bernier, The History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol, 2nd ed. (Paris: C.

Barbin, 1676), Preface. The text was published originally in 1671 in French, and in 1693 in Parma inItalian.

32. Pietro Della Valle, The Travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, a Noble Roman, into East-India and Arabia Deserta(London: Printed by J. Macock, 1665), Preface.

33. Bishop Gilbert Burnet, Some Letters Containing, An account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland,Italy & c. (Rotterdam: Printed by Abraham Acher, 1686), original spelling. Additional English editionsappeared in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in 1687, 1688, 1689, and in London in the eighteenth century.The first German edition appeared in 1688, and the French in 1718.

34. Misson, A new voyage, 1: 228–29, Letter 16, 20 January, 1688.35. Richard Lassels, Gentleman, The voyage of Italy, or, A compleat journey through Italy in two parts … with

instructions concerning travel (Paris: [s.n.], 1670); John Ray, Observations Made in a Journey through Italy(London: John Martin, 1673); and Burnet, Letters. Burnet’s accounts appeared in several editions intothe eighteenth century in English, French, and German; Lassels’ in English and French.

36. The first English edition of Misson’s A new voyage was published in London in 1695; the French inAmsterdam in 1691. I have not been able to consult all editions; however bibliographic entries suggestno maps in the seventeenth-century texts.

37. Justus Lipsius, A Direction for travailers (London: R. Blower, 1592); Francis Bacon “Of Travel,” in Theessayes or covnsels, civill and morall (London: John Haviland, 1625); Leandro Alberti, Descrittione di tvttaItalia (Bologna: A. Giacarelli, 1550); Gilles Corrozet, Les antiqvitez histoires et singvlaritez excellentes de laVille, Cite, & Vniversite de Paris, capitale du Royaume de France (Paris: … boutique de Gilles Corrozet,1550); Robert Dallington, A method for trauell: The View of France, as it stoode in the yeare of our Lord 1598(London: Thomas Creede, 1605). For the German market, see Martin Zeiller, Itinerarii Galliae etMagnae Britanniae (Strasbourg: Lazari Zetzners s. Erben, 1634) and Itinerarium Italiae nov-antiqua(Frankfurt: Matthaei Merians, 1640).

38. For example, Francois Desrues, et al., Description contenant toutes les singularitez de pius celebres villes etplaces remarquables du Royaume de France: … reueu, corrige, et augmemente du sommaire de lestat, cartes des

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 189

provinces (Rouen: Chez David Geuffroy, 1620). This included eight woodcut bird’s-eye views of over adozen French cities and six full-page woodcuts, including a map of France, and regional maps.

39. Charles Estienne, La guide des chemins de France (Paris: C. Estienne, 1553); N. G. D, Baron, Legentilhomme etranger voyageant en France; les melieures routes qu’il faut prendre … (Leiden: B. Vander,1699).

40. Sabellico, De situ urbis Venetae; De viris illustribus ([Venice: Damianus de Gorgonzola,] 1494); GirolamoFrancisi’s Le cose maravigliose dell’alma citta di Roma …: con la guida romana, che insegna facilmentea’forastieri di ritrovare le cose piu notabili di Roma (Rome: Giacamo Mascardi, 1621) was in print from thesixteenth through eighteenth centuries (first edition, 1566) in French and English.

41. Warcupp’s preface stated, “You have here the Itinerary of Italy, a Guide to all that travel thither, amemorial after their return.” Edmund Warcupp, Italy, in its original glory, ruine and revival … (London:S. Griffin, 1660), iv.

42. See, for example, Jacques Signot. La totale et vraie descriptio de to[us] les passaiges, lieux & destroictz: parlesqlz on peut passer & entrer des Gaules es Ytalies … (Paris: [Toussani Denys], 1518).

43. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, John Ogilby, A pocket-guide to the English traveller,being a compleat survey and admeasurement of all the principal roads and most considerable cross-roads inEngland and Wales … (London: J. Tonson and J. Watts, 1719); and Atlas portatif d’Allemagne, or theGerman pocket atlas … (London: R. Sayers, 17xx). The first comprised one hundred small folding mapsof England and Wales, and the second twenty maps of German districts, folded up into a portablepalm-sized container.

44. Lassels, An Italian Voyage (1698), 22–23.45. Bromley, Remarks, 2.46. Misson, A new voyage, 2: 484–85, Letter 24, Rome, 27 March 1688.47. William Winstanley (attrib.), Poor Robins Character of France, or, France Painted to the Life (London:

[s.n.], 1666).48. George Sandys, Sandys Travailes … Turkish Empire … Egypt … Holy-Land … Italy (London: Richard

Cotes, 1652). This original English edition (1627) also had maps; the 1652 edition later appeared inGerman (1669) and Dutch (1665).

49. Jacob Spon, Curieuse Reise durch Italien, Dalmatien, Greichenund Morgenland (Nurmberg: Johan Hoffman,1686). After a first edition appeared in Lyon in 1678, Spon was in print until the mid-eighteenth centuryin German, Italian, Dutch, English, and French editions.

50. Such sources existed for Japan, which travelers noticed had an extensive system to help them move onthe island. Among works brought out of Japan by Engelbert Kaempfer in 1692 were “several roadbooksfor the use of travellers, giving an acct of the distances of places, the price of victuals, and carriage, andthe like with many figures of the buildings, and other remarkable things to be seen on the road ….”Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan (London: Printed for the Publisher, 1728), 1.

51. Fryer, A new account of East-India, Introduction.52. Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile (London: R[ichard] B[ish]op, 1638), 300. Herbert

points out “I hold it the best way to direct your eyes in finding out such exotique places of East Indyaand the adjacent Iles as I intend to speake of, in two Mappes … that thereby our Travell may be the lessedifficult to your inquirie.”

53. This paper includes several prominent examples, including the works of Kaempfer, Tavernier, Bernier,and Herbert.

54. Terry, A Voyage to East India, 86.55. Kaempfer, The History of Japan, 1: 13.56. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, The six voyages of Jean Baptiste Tavernier … through Turkey into Persia, and the

East Indies, finished in the year 1670 (London: R.L. and M.P., 1678), preface. This book, originallypublished in French (1676) was quickly translated to English (1678), published in French in Amsterdam(1678), and then German (1681), Italian (1682), and Dutch (1682).

57. Tavernier, The six voyages, Chapter 1.58. Tavernier, The six voyages, Preface.59. Tavernier, The six voyages, Preface.60. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Les six voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier, … 2 vols. (Paris: G. Clouzier,

1676–77), 1: 692.61. Tavernier, The six voyages, 67–68, Chapter 4.62. Translator’s Introduction, Kaempfer, The History of Japan, Preface, xix–xx.63. Herbert, A relation (1638), 149.64. Bernier, History, Preface.65. Terry, A Voyage to East India (1715 re-print of 1655 edition), 85 (map), 86 (text).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

190 J. DYM

66. I use the masculine pronoun advisedly. In terms of printed sources, almost no women’s travel narrativesappeared until the cusp of the eighteenth century. In this period, published writers were men.

67. Herbert, A relation (1638), 342.68. Kaempfer, The History of Japan, 1: 14.69. Kaempfer, The History of Japan, 1: xxi; 2: 399. The editor commented that while Japanese cartography

was not as accurate as European efforts, for lesser knowledge of mathematics and physics, they wereextensive and detailed, so he used one of “several” maps which “were brought out of the country by Dr.Kaempfer himself, which I have follow’d in the map annex’d to this history.”

70. Kaempfer, The History of Japan, 3: opp. 43, Table 7, Mappa Meinam Fluvij Ad orig eng kempfer delinigs. C Moore Sculpt.

71. Della Valle, Travels, 6.72. Francois Bernier, Histoire de la derniere revolution (Paris: C. Barbin, 1670), 13: 266.73. Bernier, Histoire, 2: 137; Francois Bernier, The history of the late revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol,

trans. Henry Oldenburg (London: Moses Pitt, 1671–72). The full title of both editions also indicatesthat the book contains a letter to Colbert on the extent of Hindustan.

74. Della Valle, Travels, 8–9.75. Della Valle, Travels, 6–8.76. John Harris, Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca: or, A compleat collection of voyages and travels: in

the English, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German or Dutch tongues … 2 vols. (London: T.Bennet, 1705); Bernard, Recueil de voyages au Nord.

77. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, A tour through the Western, Southern and interior Provinces of France (London:Charles Dilly, 1784); Wraxall had previously authored a travel account with one map, A tour throughsome of the northern parts of Europe, particularly Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Petersburgh (London: T.Cadell, 1775) and a historical guidebook to France with no map, Memoirs of the kings of France, … Towhich is added, A tour through the western, southern, and interior (Dublin and London: Edward and CharlesDilly/Messrs. S. Price, W. Watson, et al., 1777); Edward Wright, Esq., Some observations made intravelling through France, Italy, &c. in the years 1720, 1721, and 1722 (London: T. Ward and E.Wickseed, 1730; A. Millar, 1764).

78. Hester Lynch Piozzi, Observations and reflections made in the course of a Journey through France, Italy andGermany (London and Dublin: Messrs. Chamberlain, 1789).

79. John George Keysler, Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lor-rain. … carefully translated from the 2nd Edition of the German … 3rd edn, 4 vols in 2. (London: G. Kety,A. Linde, 1756), 1: 262.

80. Karl Peter Thunberg, Resa uti Europa, Africa, Asia, fœrrættad aren 1770–1779 (Upsala: J. Edman,1788–91). The Swedish was quickly followed by editions in German (Berlin, 1792), English (London,1793), and French (Paris, 1794).

81. Karl Peter Thunberg, Flora Japonica: sistens plantas insularum Japonicarum (Lipsiae: In Bibliopolio I.G.Mulleriano, 1784).

82. See Edney, Mapping an Empire.83. George Foster, A journey from Bengal to England, through the northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan,

and Persia, and into Russia, by the Caspian Sea (London: R. Faulder, 1798).84. French editions appeared in 1798 (Basle) and 1802 (Paris), and a German edition by 1800. “Extracts

from Forster’s travels, concerning the northern parts of Persia,” appeared in A general collection of the bestand most interesting voyages and travels … (London, 1808–14), Vol. 9 (1811), 279–319.

85. James Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan (London: M. Brown printed for the author, 1783), ii. In1764, at the tender age of twenty-one, Rennell was hired by the East India Company to survey Bengal,a task which occupied him until 1777. For more on Rennell and his work, see Sir Clements Markham,Major James Rennell and the Rise of Modern English Geography (London: Cassels/MacMillan, 1895).

86. James Rennell, A Bengal Atlas ([London], 1780).87. Rennell, Memoir of a Map (1785).88. For an analysis of Rennell’s maps as part of the history of travel, see Michael T. Bravo, “Precision and

Curiosity in Scientific Travel: James Rennell and the Orientalist Geography of the New Imperial Age(1760–1830),” in Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel, eds Jas Elsner and Joan-PauRubies (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 162–83. Bravo considers the Memoir a “ cartographic memoir”and a travel account.

89. Rennell, Memoir of a Map (1783), ii.90. Rennell, Memoir of a Map, vii–viii.91. Rennell, Memoir of a Map, viii–ix.92. Rennell, Memoir of a Map, v–vi.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE 191

93. Graf Friedrich Leopold Stolberg, Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Sicily (London: G.G.and J. Robinson, 1796). English translation of German original.

94. Captain John Northall, Travels through Italy containing new and curious observations on that country(London: S. Hooper, S. Bladon, 1766).

95. In addition to the two examples discussed, see three works by Albanis Beaumont on the Alps for a“mapping” account of this region. Travels through the Rhætian Alps, from Italy to Germany, through Tyrol(London: C. Clarke, 1792); Travels through the Maritime Alps, from Italy to Lyons (London: T. Bensley,1795); Travels from France to Italy, through the Lepontine Alps (London: S. Hamilton …, 1800).

96. The first London edition included all three maps. The map or maps included in the 1794 French editionwere missing from the volume I consulted at the New York Public Library. However, the title pageclaimed the book had been published “[a]vec des corrections considerables et une nouvelle carte.” Theeditor also intended to publish an addition by Charles Casaux whose illness prevented publication.Arthur Young, Travels during the years 1787, 1788, and 1789 (London: J. Rackham …, 1792); Voyages(Paris: Buisson, 1794); Reisen (Munster: Osnabruck, 1794).

97. Henry Swinburne, Travels in the two Sicilies, in the years 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780 (London: P. Elmsly,1783–85; Dublin: Price, 1793); Voyages. … (Paris, 1785); Reisen (Hainburg, 1785).

98. Swinburne, Travels, 2: 299.99. Swinburne, Travels, 2: 152.100. Swinburne, Travels, 1: 40.101. Swinburne, Travels, 2: 151–52.102. Swinburne, Travels, 2: 151–52.103. Swinburne, Travels, 2: 211–12.104. Anne Marie Claire Godlewska, Geography Unbound: French Geographic Science from Cassini to Humboldt

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

Notes on contributor

Jordana Dym is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Skidmore College. She is working on aproject on the cartography of Western travel writers from the Enlightenment to the age of air travel, withfunding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has published articles and edited volumes ontopics ranging from travelers representations, and maps of nineteenth-century Central America to politicalideas and institutions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Central America, with emphasis on the role of themunicipality on nation-state formation.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kar

olin

ska

Inst

itute

t, U

nive

rsity

Lib

rary

] at

06:

16 0

3 O

ctob

er 2

014