NEWSPAPER TRAVELLERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4205, 11 September 1874, Page 3

NEWSPAPER TRAVELLERS.

(Fx-om the New York Herald.) In all ages books of travel have held a high place in literature. Herodotus, the father of history, xvas a great ti-avellex-, and had he lived in our day he would have been a distinguished journalist, Xenophon xvas as gx-eat as a xvar correspondent as he xvas active and skilful in conducting the x-etx-eat of the ten thousand. Julius Caesar proved by his “ Commentaries” that ho xvas as efficient at the front as xvould be required by the most exacting nexvspapex-. These ai-e perhaps the best examples in the ancient xvorld of men possessing the true journalistic instinct. Had there been nexx-s----papers in their day their letters xvould have first appeared in nexx-spapers or else the correspondents xvould have anticipated them, both in the daily journals and in book narratix-es. Noxvadays soldiers seldom xvrite the stories of their campaigns because the army cox-respon-dent does it so much better. Indeed, there is no ovex--estimating the influence of the modem nexvspaper upon the literature of travel and events. This is xvell illustrated by three books, which have just appealed from the press in England and this country, by three ■ correspondents of tho Herald. These are the xvorks of Mr. Stanley on the campaign* of the English in Abyssinia and Ashantee, Mr. MacGahan’s “ Campaigning on the Oxus ” and Mr. O’Kelly’s “ Mambie Land.” Three mox-e interesting or valuable books have not been published this season, and each of them represents a different quax--ter of the globe. What Mi-. MacGahan says in his preface, “ X travelled through a strange country under strange circumstances,” is tine of both the others. King Theodoras and King Koffee gave Mr. Staixloy themes that xvere unique in interest, and their efforts at resisting the English xvill long continue among the episodes of history. Mx-. O’Kelly penetrated xvhat for a number of years had been a terra incognita, and in revealing the condition of the Cuban insurgents gave the xvox-ld a story of one of those determined struggles for independence xvhich form the most brilliant pages in the histox-y of civilisation. These narratives are necessarily an account, to some extent, of the personal adventures of each of the correspondents, for the missions upon xvhich the Herald sent them x-equired intrepid courage as well as acute observation and graphic descriptive poxvers. And each of them has supplemented his journalistic labors xx-ith a book, which is even a more striking testimonial to the gx-eatness of modern journalism than to his literary ability. These books are typical of recent progress, Herodotus and Xenophon and Cxesar being turned from the traveller and xvarrior into journalists and war correspondents ; the news necessities of the hour affording the opportunities for xx-orks that xvixl last long enough to celebrate the necessities xx-hich brought them into existence. Let us glance for a moment at the xx-ork accomplished by these young writers. The English resolved to make xvar upon the King of Abyssinia, and Mr. Stanley xvas directed to represent the Herald throughout the straggle. So thoroughly xvas this service performed that he had full accounts of everything that happened in Dr. Johnson’s “ Happy Yalley,” from the landing of the English tiU the fall of Magdala. But the influence of jovu-nalism upon the important events of the century xvas not yet sufficiently recognised to call for the reproduction of Mr Stanley’s account of the Abyssinian xvar. The strides of the Herald xvere so rapid, however, that xvhen he was entx-usted xvith a second mission—the discovery of Livingstone—a book became a necessity, and after his third expedition—that with Sir Garnet "Wblseley—there xvas a Hterary demand for the story of Magdala as well as of Ashantee. Mr. MacGahan made the journey into Central Asia with the Russian forces, and was the only correspondent present at the fall of Khiva. All this the readers of the Herald well knoxv, for they had the pleasure of perusing his letters detailing his adventures and the progress of the Russian army as they came to us full of interest and fresh xvith intelligence. He indeed travelled through a strange country under strange circumstances, and his descriptions of the manners, customs, and feelings of the almost unknown people among whom his journalistic duties sent him are among the highest contributions ever made to the American press. It is xvell knoxvn that Mr. O’Kelly took his life in his hand when he undertook to bring us news of the Cuban insurrection. But he proved himself a brave man and an able correspondent, and xve find the press of the country speaking in kindly terms of the value of the information his book contains. These' three books represent only three of the more striking feats of the Herald, and they are only part of the wox-k of a single year. But at the same time they represent the vast field of journalistic enterprise, and show what a vast poxver the Press has become, both in the gathering of news and the writing of history. In all the history of literatux-e there is nothing more marked than the fact that the news necessities and the news facilities of one nexvspaper in one year shoxdd have called out three such books as these.