Numerous books were printed describing the laws, the superstitions, the cabins, the repasts, the dresses, the marriages, the funerals of Laplanders and Hottentots, Mohawks and Malays.

The plays and poems of that age are full of allusions to the usages of the black men of Africa and of the red men of America.

The only barbarian about whom there was no wish to have any information was the Highlander.

Five or six years after the Revolution, an indefatigable angler published an account of Scotland.

He boasted that, in the course of his rambles from lake to lake, and from brook to brook, he had left scarcely a nook of the kingdom unexplored.