In April he was released from his engagement, and he immediately went abroad, alone.

He travelled through Normandy into Brittany, spending two months at a little village called Chanteuil, not far from the Point du Sillon.

Here he wandered about mostly alone, dressed in the roughest possible costume, and allowing his beard to grow.

"At Chanteuil I first learnt how to think, or rather how to converse with myself as I had before done with other persons; I also found for the first time that I did not dislike my own company." In June he went south, sailing from Brest to Bordeaux, and then descending by land into Spain, where he remained till August.

Here he spent a long time in exploring the table-land between the Asturian Mountains and the sea, and then from Burgos visiting Madrid, Toledo, Ciudad, and Seville, and so to Gibraltar.