A Lesson from the Blind Traveller

#Explorers expand boundaries, reject the #statusquo and #challenge nature, expectations and the odds. James Holman (1786 –1857) did it all; circumnavigating the earth West to East, fighting the slave trade and influencing Charles Darwin. He was blind.

This frontispiece of his European travels shows one hand resting on a blanked globe. Soon after its publication he travelled through #Russia, getting as far as #Irkutsk. Then, suspected of "spying", he was forcibly returned to Poland.

Back in England his #reputation had been attacked by a former friend, John Dundas Cochrane, who ridiculed “observations” made by a blind man. Cochrane's “Narrative of a Pedestrian through Siberia” was already on sale and Holman's book hotly anticipated.

A critic described Cochrane's account as, “an ever-rolling stream of statistics and proposals for the betterment of everyone". Cochrane's perspective was narcissistic detailing his stylish clothes and golden curls, but other people were described only collectively.

Paradoxically, Holman’s vivid detail and deep fascination with #humanity was received, not only as an engrossing #expedition, but as a contribution to #knowledge by the Royal Society

Holman believed "Each and every person is a discoverer."