Questions of Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early

Nineteenth-Century South America

Author(s): Innes M. Keighren and Charles W. J. Withers
Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers , November 2011, Vol. 101,
No. 6 (November 2011), pp. 1331-1346
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American
Geographers

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41412817

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 Questions of Inscription and Epistemology in British
Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century
South America
Innés M. Keighren* and Charles W. J. Withers^

* Department of Geography, Royal Holloway , University of London

t Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh

This article examines the problems of truth and of trust in travelers' narratives. Following a review of work
on travel writing and the place of printed travel narratives in the making of geographical enquiry, we discuss
how issues of inscription and credibility are intrinsic to the material and epistemic transformation of narratives
from their manuscript beginnings to their printed form. Particular attention is paid to the narratives of travel
in early nineteenth-century South America issued by the London publisher John Murray. By interrogating the
embodied practices of travel writing, this article investigates the ways in which Murray's authors sought to
establish a correspondence between their lived experiences and the textual representations of those experiences.
The article focuses on the epistemological bases to travelers' claims to truth and how they evaluated differently
the significance of direct observation and the oral and textual testimony of third parties in the production of travel
accounts that sought to reveal a newly independent South America to the reading public. In its examination
of the complex connections linking author, publisher, and audience, the work has implications for scholars
interested in the relationship between writing and the printed word in geography. Key Words: South America,
travel accounts, travel writing and inscription, travelers' truth claims, trust and epistemology .

ШШШХ о Ж Ж#, *W^xíiÉSIřlPmi^íntb)RÉůiš|ž,ísiW

шшшттшХо шя: шм, тз, тяямяяй», ш&шш.

En este artículo se examinan los problemas sobre verdad y confi

una revisión del trabajo sobre escritos de viajes y el lugar de las
de la investigación geográfica, discutimos sobre cómo aspectos d
transformación material y epistémica de las narrativas, desde los c
Se le da particular atención a las narrativas de viajes por la Sudam
el publicista londinense John Murray. Al preguntarse sobre las pr
este artículo investiga las maneras como los autores de Murray b
sus propias experiencias y las representaciones textuales de tales e
epistemológicas de lo que los viajeros afirmaban como verdadero
la importancia de la observación directa y de los testimonios ora
de recuentos de viajes que pretendían mostrar al público lecto
En su examen de las complejas conexiones que entrelazan a au
implicaciones para los estudiosos interesados en la relación entre
geografía. Palabras clave: Sudamérica, recuentos de viajes, escritos s
como cierto, confianza y epistemología .

more work in geography that is attentive both to au-

and epistemological bases to truth claims in nar- thors' and publishers' redactive practices in travel writ-
This ratives and article
rativesepistemological
of travel. It doesof so,travel.
in part,examines
to call forIt does bases the so, to inscriptive truth in part, claims to practices call in nar- for ing and to the relationships among author, audience,

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(6) 201 1, pp. 1331-1346 © 201 1 by Association of American Geographers
Initial submission, December 2008; revised submissions, July and September 2009; final acceptance, January 2010
Published by T aylor & Francis, LLC.

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 1332 Keighren and W ithers

and publisher that underpin the that

surprising content of
relatively little travel
consideration has been
texts. Our emphasis is on narrative as practice
given to the epistolary and productiveand - that lie
practices
with illustrative reference to works of travel
within and behind on of
printed works South
travel and explo-
America - in exposing the connections
ration. Most workbetween trav-
in geography either focuses on the
elers' modes of inscription and the
content different
of printed narratives toways inof episto-
the neglect
which the truth and veracity of their written
lary conventions or assumes as accounts
largely unproblematic
was established. Our broader concern is twofold: To the relationship among writers' narratives, their experi-
take further current interest in travel, geography, and ences in the field, and the printed version of their work.
writing and to connect the geographical study of travel But as different studies have shown, publishers did al-
narratives to wider interdisciplinary interest in the com- ter their authors' manuscript narratives to serve differ-
municative power of knowledge in print. ent demands (MacLaren 1994, 2003; Finkelstein 2002).
The discursive and representational practice of Authors themselves also regularly modified their work
travel writing - its complicated practical and epistemic prior to its publication. The move from en route writ-
history - has been subject to scrutiny from a variety ing as one author has it, to the fuller journal, the draft
of disciplinary perspectives (Adams 1962; Blunt 1995; manuscript, and the published version was neither as
Stagi 1995; Duncan and Gregory 1999; Kuehn and smooth nor as linear as this staging suggests (MacLaren
Smethurst 2008). Historians of science stress the im- 1992). Interrogating the embodied practices that fa-
portance of voyages of exploration, and their related cilitated travel writing - "seeing, collecting, recording,
printed narratives, to the making of modern science mapping and narrating" (Driver 2001, 12) - is central
(Iliffe 2003; Liebersohn 2003; Secord 2004). Schol- to any investigation of the ways in which authors sought
ars in historical and cultural geography have con- to establish a correspondence between their lived expe-
sidered these practices of inscription and of reading riences and the textual representation of those experi-
central to the production and circulation of geograph- ences. Because this is so, more remains to be known of
ical knowledge and to the regulation of those insti- the epistemic bases to authors' claims in their narratives
tutions that facilitated travel, exploration, and trade about the truth of their experiences, about narrative as
(Driver 2001; Ogborn 2007). This focus on the pro- a practice, and about how authors and publishers sought
duction and transmission of geographical knowledge to establish a correspondence between what they saw or
in print has been paralleled by studies scrutinizing the were told, and what they wrote about in the published
epistemic practices of geographical writing (Mayhew accounts.

2004; Ogborn 2004; Withers 2004a, 2004b). Histori- Correspondence is a matter of epistolary cu
ans of the book, among others, have illustrated the and an epistemic desideratum: That what is w
value of spatial and visual perspectives in understand- about should correspond in some way to the
ing the making, distribution, and reading of printed thus described. Epistolary practice is vital to na
texts (Johns 1998; Secord 2000; Barnes 2002; Living- dissemination and to the promotion of geogra
stone 2005; Keighren 2006; Mayhew 2007). Literary knowledge, but it is understudied. In epistemolo
scholars have reviewed the connections between nar- terms, correspondence is often presumed: As a q
ratives of travel, empire, "self" and "other," and liter- tion of one's own eyewitnessing or of the testim
ary form (Leask 2002; Fulford, Lee, and Kitson 2004; reliable informants. In both cases, knowledge is
Regard 2009). Taken together, this work shows that on testimony and testimony on trust - in one's s
the study of narratives of travel is an important shared direct encounter, or in others' credibility (Coady
enterprise. Lipton 1998; Fricker 2004). Because publishers
Within geography, study of the material practices alter their authors' words, and authors had to r
of travel writing, and the publication and circulation others' words as well as their own mediated exper
of printed narratives, can usefully complement existing correspondence between the account as written a
work on the discursive qualities of travel texts (Kearns account as published cannot be assumed and so m
1997; Sharp 2002; Guelke and Guelke 2004) and, for tested (Williams 2001).
those interested in the history of geographical knowl- In looking at such questions of inscription and
edge, illuminate the practices that underlie knowledge's temology in travel narratives, this article addres
making, movement, and evaluation in written form claim that "closer attention to the practices, tech
(Latour 1999; Livingstone 2003). This being so, it is and technologies of writing itself can show how

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 Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1333
give shape to the meanings of geographical knowledge"
(Ogborn 2004, 296). Our aim is to urge that scholars
consider inscription and epistolary practice in studying
travel narratives and, more specifically, that they treat
authors and publishers as mediators of, rather than sim-
ple producers of, travel texts. This is not a call to geog-
raphers to be attentive to genre. Although literary form
and convention have, historically, exerted an impor-
tant influence on travelers' actions, observations, and
descriptions, travel writing is more than simply a stylis-
tic question: Its practices and performances are influ-
enced by wider cultural imperatives - moral, aesthetic,
and scientific (Batten 1978; Leask 2002). In drawing
together current geographical and other work on travel
and exploration, writing, and textual production, our
aim is to scrutinize the epistemic bases to authorial
claims as part of revealing what the study of travel narra-
tives as embodied practice can reveal about truth claims
and the authenticity of textual narratives.
To illustrate these concerns, we examine the work
of London-based publisher John Murray and several
of that firm's published accounts of early nineteenth-
century travel in South America. Murray issued more
than 200 travel books during the first half of the nine-
teenth century. These texts, together with their earlier
manuscript incarnations and their authors' correspon-
dence with the firm, provide an important record of how
they were written, how they were edited and adapted
for publication, and how the claims they made about
distant locales were evaluated and assessed. In attend-
ing to the questions of how, where, when, and why
Murray's travelers recorded the details of their jour-
neys, we consider the degree to which form and epis-
tolary style disciplined content and, in turn, influenced
the accounts' and the authors' perceived credibility.
Given that Murray's travelers were, as with all oth-
ers, only ever partial and imperfect witnesses, our con-
cern is to understand how they assured themselves -
and, through the published versions of their work, their
audiences - of the truth, how the epistemological bases
to their claims were differently judged and how these
assessments influenced their narratives. By examining
for South America the "material realities of knowledge
production" (Safier 2008, 9), in terms of inscription,
epistemology, and credibility, we seek to understand
how Murray's travelers addressed the problem of "me-
diating the non-European world to a European public"
(Leask 1998, 165).
The choice of South American travel narratives in
this period is more than simply illustrative. Colonial
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and postcolonial South America has, for historians
of science, exploration, and geography, become an
increasingly significant research focus (Butzer 1992;
Mundy 1996; Cañizares-Esguerra 2001, 2005, 2006;
Bauer 2003; Saldaña 2006; Barrera-Osorio 2008;
Bleichmar et al. 2008; Safier 2008). This work has over-
turned a prevalent view that, in terms of travel narra-
tives, Europeans "invented" South America or, even
more specifically, that the Prussian naturalist Alexan-
der von Humboldt and French botanist Aimé Bonpland
together constructed South America in the Western
imagination as a consequence of their five-year ex-
ploration of tropical America between 1799 and 1804
(Brown 2006; Pratt 2008). The continent that Hum-
boldt encountered at the turn of the nineteenth century
was, in fact, new neither to science nor to the European
imagination but, by uniting Enlightenment empiricism
and Romantic idealism to reveal nature's fundamental
unity, he successfully cast it anew (Dettelbach 1996,
2001; Leask 1998; Godlewska 1999; Walls 2009). In
this respect, he and Bonpland were, perhaps, justified
in (re)presenting South America as a New Continent,
but the written report of their expedition was, in effect,
an exercise in rediscovery, depicting a "virgin territory,
'nature' unmediated by civilisation, awaiting the trans-
formative magic of European reason" (Leask 2002, vii).
Although the revisionist work signaled to earlier
has criticized this interpretation by stressing the sig-
nificance of indigenous natural knowledge within the
South American context, it is also the case that
Humboldt's and Bonpland's imaginative reframing of
South America - which met with a varied reception
in Europe - was concurrent with, and to some extent
implicated in, South America's liberation from colo-
nial rule (Rippy and Brann 1947; Rupke 1999). The
revolutionary movements that brought independence
to the South American colonies between 1810 and
1825 were accompanied by a relaxation of travel re-
strictions, which made it possible for non-Iberian Euro-
peans to realize long-held commercial and exploratory
ambitions (Whitaker 1960). In scientific and politi-
cal terms, South America was opened out in the first
decades of the nineteenth century, and it was this man-
ifestation that motivated British travelers to explore,
commercialize, and write about that emergent conti-
nent. Murray's texts - part, then, of this larger "boom
of travel accounts" that followed an efflorescence of
travel and exploration - came to serve as the basis to
popular understandings of South America, in Britain
at least (Leask 2001, xvi). That they did so, and at a
1334 Keighren and Withers

particular moment, highlights the importance

bringing of continent
a poorly understood plac- to the at
ing textual narrative and its of
critical exegesis
the British in wider
reading public, Murray's South Am
context.
volumes were geographically revelatory. They w
politically opportune, being published at a parti
moment in the postrevolutionary history of th
The Inscription and Mediation ofgion. These texts reflected, then, different aut
intentions but were part of a conscious publ
Geographical Knowledge: John Murray
and Narratives of South America strategy. Murray's South American texts were i
during the culmination of Romanticism - a per
In the first three decades of the nineteenth
whichcen-
travel writing was "next in popularity to
els" (Jarvis
tury, travelers "descended on South America by the2004, 74). Under the guidance of
dozen" (Pratt 2008, 143). These travelers have been
Murray II (1778-1843), the Murray firm helpe
characterized both as "the helpless victimsateof and satisfy an increased popular demand for
an almost
literature,
invincible ignorance about conditions in Latin Amer- perhaps his "greatest contribution to t
ica" (Gregory 1992, 1) and as the "advancevancement
scouts for of knowledge and of human underst
European capital" (Pratt 2008, 143). Theof the world"
opening up (Carpenter 2008, 124). Murray's st
was commercial
of South America motivated travelers to compose nar- rather than philanthropic, how
ratives based on their journeys, several of and
which reflected
served the changing economic circumstan
as the basis for popular understandings of the region
that con- and, in Murray's eyes, his audiences'
paredness
tinent in the postrevolutionary period (Trifilo 1958;to buy and read books on South Am
Jones 1986; Brown 2006; Peñaloza 2008). Much
When as
the failure of a number of British-backed
Humboldt's writings had done, the work ulative
of whatmining
has ventures in the 1830s caused "
thing connected with Spanish America" to fa
been described as a "capitalist vanguard" contributed
disrepute,
to the "reinvention of America" in the Western imag- Murray was disinclined to publish an
ination (Pratt 2008, 143). If it is true that further upon the subject (National Library of S
some British
[hereafter
travelers were "simple migrants and adventurers fromNLS] MS.40945). When the British
humble or middling backgrounds" and "notmat Woodbine
at all" evan- Parish approached Murray in 183
his 99),
gelists of British capital (Brown 2006, 98, account
it is of his long residence in Buenos
the publisher
nonetheless clear that mercantilist imperatives pow- was dismissive: "The subject of
erfully shaped the British sense of SouthAmerica
Americaisinso utterly devoid of Public interest
present
the early nineteenth century (Ferns 1953, 1992; Stonetime, that I do not think that any wor
lating to
1968; Ridings 1985). That is not to say that there was it would have any chance of selling
ciently to
one European imagination at work in constructing defray the expenses of its publication
a sin-
gle South America. In relation to different MS.41910).
influences Although
- Murray eventually did p
Parish's
Romanticist ideology, Humboldtian science, commer- volume, it was the last South Americ
count the firm
cial enterprise - the travelers went about their business issued until 1847. In just fifteen
popular
differently and so wrote their travels in different interest in South America and its ass
ways.
For that reason, South America was a continenttravel accounts
read escalated and, as Murray perceiv
evaporated.
and narrated variously as scientific curiosity and natural
spectacle, site of adventuresome endeavor and Rather than offer an exhaustive analysis of the
commer-
cial possibility. or so travelers who contributed to Murray's
American
Between 1824 and 1839, John Murray issued canon, this articles focuses on four au
almost
whose
a dozen accounts of South American travel background,
(Table 1). training, and observational a
scriptive of
These narratives helped shape readers' perceptions techniques illustrate diversity in addr
South America and simultaneously cement the "the
questions
cul- of writing practice and epistemolo
tural verities of "home"' (Gilroy 2000,reliance on one's sources. They are Maria Gr
1). By tak-
ing the reader "out of his [sic] armchair and into the an established author and lone f
(1785-1842),
traveler;
furthest-flung parts of the world," Murray's Francis Bond Head (1793-1875), the ma
texts col-
of a speculative
lapsed geographical distance while highlighting cultural mining syndicate; and William S
dissimilarities (Carpenter 2008, 125; Seed (1800-1877),
2004). Innaval officer and artist, and his tra

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 Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1335

Table 1. John Murray's publications on South American travel, 1824-1839

Author Date Full title Volumes

Graham, Maria 1824 Journal of a voyage to Brazil , and a residence there , during part 1
of the years 1821 , 1822, 1823
Graham, Maria 1824 Journal of a residence in Chile , during the year 1822. And a 1
voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1 823
Caldcleugh, Alexander 1825 Travels in South America , during the years 1819-20-21 ; 2
containing an account of the present state of Brazil , Buenos
Ayres, and Chile
Head, Francis Bond 1826 Rough notes taken during some rapid journeys across the 1
Pampas and among the Andes
Andrews, Joseph 1827 Journey from Buenos Ayres , through the provinces of Cordova, 2
Tucuman, and Salta, to Potosi , thence by the deserts of
Caranja to Arica, and subsequently to Santiago de Chili and
Coquimbo, undertaken on behalf of the Chilian and Peruvian
Mining Association, in the years 1825-26
Hamilton, John Potter 1827 Travels through the interior provinces of Columbia 2
Maw, Henry Lister 1829 Journal of a passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, crossing the 1
Andes in the northern provinces of Peru, and descending the
river M arañon, or Amazon
Smyth, William Henry, and 1836 Narrative of a journey from Lima to Para, across the Andes and 1
Frederick Lowe down the Amazon : Undertaken with a view of ascertaining
the practicability of a navigable communication with the
Atlantic, by the rivers Pachitea, ¡J cay ali, and Amazon
Robertson, John Parish, and 1838 Letters on Paraguay: Comprising an account of a four years' 2
William Parish Robertson residence in that republic, under the government of the
dictator Francia
Robertson, John Parish, and 1839 Francia' s reign of terror, being the continuation of Letters on 1
William Parish Robertson Paraguay
Parish, Woodbine 1839 Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: Their 1
present state, trade, and debt: With some account from
original documents of the progress of geographical discovery in
those parts of South America during the last sixty years

companion Frederick Lowe. The motivation for these America as part of a squadron sent to protect the in-
travelers' journeys was distinctive and different. Gra-
terests of British merchants in the newly established
ham was driven by curiosity over South American republics
so- (Marchant 1963). Having already published
ciety and politics. Head traveled to realize commercial
well-received narratives of travels in India and Italy
(Graham 1812, 1820), Graham saw South America as a
objectives. Smyth and Lowe sought to chart a navigable
river route between Peru and the Atlantic. Their narra-
further literary opportunity. Before departing, she wrote
tives are, in consequence, varied in form, style, and
to Murray to ask, "If I live to return & if I bring any
content. For this reason, they demonstrate differentthing worth publishing will you have any thing to do
imaginative conceptions of South America and illus- with it?" (NLS MS.40185, 20 May 1821).
trate the dissimilar forms that travel writing assumed - Graham's experiences in South America resulted in
forms that, when subject to scrutiny, reveal differenttwo travel texts: Journal of a Voyage to Brazil (Graham
epistemological routes to truth. 1824b) and Journal of a Residence in Chile (1824a).
Both embodied a Romantic concern for subjective
Maria Graham and the Regulated Journal experience and an ethnographic attention to social or-
ganization (Mavor 1993; Hahner 1998; Hayward 2003;
Maria Graham's narrative of South American travelPérez-Majía 2004). An explorer of culture as much as
was the first such commissioned by John Murray of II. territory, Graham typifies what Pratt (2008, 141)
In 1821, Graham's husband, a British naval officer, termed
was the "exploratrices sociales." Graham found her-
placed in command of HMS Doris and ordered to South self at the nexus of political transition in both Chile and

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1336 Keighren and Withers

Brazil; her texts were "firsthandwhether in her cabin

accounts aboard thehistor-
of those Doris or in vari-
ous domiciles on 2004,
ically important conflicts" (Pérez-Majía land, and77).
journalizing
Gra- thus became
ham met the "principal actors"a "daily, nay, almost hourly"
in Brazilian and activity
Chilean (Graham 1824b,
207; Callcott
political life and members of the Creole 1835,elite
246). The journal was a medium
(Mavor
not simply for recording
1993, xi). Contact with these individuals had an Graham's impressions but also
impor-
tant bearing on Graham's South for reflecting
American on and making sense of them. Regulated
experience
and on the subsequent social andjournalizing
politicalin part focus
functionedofas an entertainment:
her
"a kind ofto
travel account. The epistemic basis substitute
her for reading the new books of the
observations
day," journal
and the stylistic qualities of her since the "uncertainty
related, of the end keeps up the
how-
interest" and
ever, to earlier experience of travel (Graham 1824a, 299). The tone and func-
authorship.
Graham's (1812) Journal of a ofResidence
tion Graham's journals in India
changed, however, following
the illness and
had been compiled from letters sent to a female death of her husband en route between
acquaintance. Given the intimate
Brazil and Chile.and
Her textpersonal
thereafter became "a reg-
ister of
nature of this correspondence, acute suffering;
Graham hadand ...felt
of alternate
it hopes and
fears through
necessary to omit in the published days andof
version nights
her of darkness
workand storms"
(Graham
"such private details ... as could not1824b, 207). Graham
with excluded these grief-
propriety
be obtruded on the world" (Graham 1812,
stricken entries from vi).version
the published In of her work,
Graham's view, transforming these private missives
for fear that in offering "too much of a personal nature"
(which she claimed originally she
not might
todetract
have from the perceived objectivity
intended to of her
text and
publish) into a form suitable for contribute
public to an erroneous conflation of fem-
consumption
ininity and unreason
"lessened its [the volume's] authority (Graham 1824b,
and tasked her iii; Blunt 1995).
self-denial" (Graham 1812, vii). In her subsequentview of one
The admission of this elision was, in the
travel narratives on South America, Graham
critic, evidently "calculatedeschewed
to excite [in the reader] an
emotion presented
the epistolary format and instead of tender interest regulated
in her fate" ( The Edinburgh
Magazine , and
extracts from her written journals. TheLiterary Miscellany
journal - 1824,
the 703). Graham's
"natural extension of the private diary"
grief even rendered (Latshaw
her "unable and willing" to main-
1998, 142) - was, for her, a tain
mode ofinand
her journal space
the month for
following her husband's
inscription that occupied an death (Graham 1824a,
epistemic gap113).between
Her arrival in Chile, and
her first sight of
the public and the private. Although constrainedthe Andes, was sufficient
by encourage-
its chronological framework ment,
as a however,
diurnal"to takeregister
some interest of
in the things
around
events, the travel journal could beme" "bothand to resume
informal her journal and(Graham 1824a,
commodious" - containing as 113).much or as little detail
Graham's travels
as the author felt able or compelled to inprovide
Brazil and Chile were not linear
(Clapp
and "goal-directed"
2004, 63). Despite journalizing's quotidian - as those of the capitalist vanguard
rationale,
there was no expectation among have been characterized - but occurred "in
Romantic-era a centripetal
readers
fashion around places
that a travel journal was an immediate of residence"
and (Pratt 2008, 154).
unmediated
account of events. As Sherman A series of semipermanent
(1996, 181)abodes has (typically
noted,provided
for by Graham's
"The unspecified interval [between elite contacts)
event and offered her both spaces
record]
might allow for retrospectiveofmediation
withdrawal and points of between
departure from whichtheto un-
dertake "circular expeditions"
infinite particularity of the original transaction and of the social, topograph-
the judiciously culled (though ical, and botanicaldate
still novelties that surrounded her (Pratt
structured)
2008, 156). These
narrative." What might be thought of alternating
as the periods of mobility and
"narrative
reposein
teleology" of a travel account is, werethis
an imperative to and facilitative
respect, of Gra-
arrived
at as the result of authorial ham's
orjournal
editorial
writing. She was redaction
conscious, however, of
the implicitly
(Currie 2005, 27). The published subjective natureof
version of the a
form, and of the
travel
fact that the journal's regularity
narrative is, then, "shaped retrospectively, did not equate to its
determined
standardization:
by the results of the voyage, as the writer . . . and/or
editor arranges events to lead up to and conform with
those results" (Currie 2005, 27-28;
There are daysMacLaren 2003).
of hurry and happy occupation, that leave
Graham's approach to journalizingalso a hurry
wasof spirits, that permits but the
further shortest and
struc-
most concise
tured by her desire for periodicity. Sheentries;
wrote others there are, where idleness and
"regularly,"

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 Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1337
the self-importance we all feel, more or less, in writing a
journal, swell the pages with laborious trifling; and some,
again, where a few short sentences tell of a state of mind
that it requires courage indeed to exhibit to another eye.
(Graham 1824a, 145)
The regulated journal as the basis to a travel ac-
count presented a tension, then, between its private and
quotidian composition and its hoped-for public and sys-
tematic expression. The published versions of Graham's
journals were subject to a degree of reformulation and
self-censorship on her return to Britain in an effort to
satisfy "public accessibility and private chastity" (Jones
1986, 78). From her original notes, Graham produced
what she termed a "copied journal" - a "more rational
and careful account" (Graham 1824a, 145). In refrain-
ing her observations thus, Graham's intention was to
suggest that the act of transcription itself "may awaken
associations and lead the writer to other views" not con-
sidered at the time (Graham 1824a, 145-46). Graham
was thus following that redactive tradition in travel
writing in which the author, in the process of revising
a journal for publication, seeks "to mingle the sense
of dates, sequence, continuity, exactitude, and compre-
hensiveness associated with the . . . journal with that
of critical selectivity" (Sherman 1996, 162). Although
Graham's copied journals remained intimate and self-
revelatory, they were also (and explicitly so) mediated
and regulated (Mavor 1993). For reasons variously of
propriety, modesty, credibility, and authority, they were
not the same thing, materially or epistemically, as her
original handwritten notes.
Distance from the field, temporally and geograph-
ically, was seen by Graham to be necessary to the
distillation of reliable and relevant knowledge - her
epistemic claim rested on a certain physical and emo-
tional detachment from her subject. Although she con-
sidered her copied journal to be "true to nature, true
to facts, and true to a better feeling than often dic-
tates the momentary lines of spleen or suffering," she
acknowledged that as a consequence of reinscription,
"some shades of character will be kept under by fear,
some suppressed . . . through modesty" (Graham 1824a,
146). Graham was making explicit, then, the plural-
ity of truth and was essentially instructing her readers
to "take her writings as emotional, not literal, truth"
(Hayward 2003, xvi). She was acknowledging that, in
her view, it was necessary not simply to tell the truth but
also to be seen to be telling the truth: Authorial and
epistemic credibility rested in correct moral decorum
(Shapin 1994; Lipton 1998). As she noted to Murray,
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"of what use is it to tell [the] truth if it looks like a
fib" (NLS MS.40186). Veracity mattered to Graham,
as it did to Murray's other travelers, because she did
not wish to be dismissed as a travel liar (Sell 2006). It
mattered, also, to her audience - whether they read her
work for pleasure or for its potential practical contribu-
tion to then-current questions of international politics
and trade.
Francis Bond Head - Rough Writing
Whereas the form and remit of Graham's journals
emphasized contemplation and reflection, social ex-
ploration, and political analysis, the work of another
of Murray's travelers, Francis Bond Head, was writ-
ten to be sketchy, romantic, and thrilling, and thereby
to satisfy a popular desire for work of adventuresome
travel. Head's text - Rough Notes Taken During Some
Rapid Journeys Across the Pampas and Among the Andes
(1826) - became "Far and away the most popular" of the
"dozen narratives of residence and travel in Argentina
and Chile . . . published in England between about 1825
and 1835" (Haberly 2005, 287-88). Head's represen-
tation of South America, particularly his sympathetic
view of the Gaucho, the nomadic inhabitants of the
pampas, thus exerted a wider influence on the reading
public's conception of South America than did those of
his literary contemporaries (Trifilo 1959). Precisely be-
cause Head's narrative was seen to be "a most agreeable
specimen of the lighter kind of travels" ( The London
Magazine 1826, 232), it is instructive to compare his
approach to travel, observation, and inscription with
that of Graham and others.
Following a military career during the Napoleonic
Wars, Head was invited in 1825 to "take charge of an
Association, the object of which was to work the Gold
and Silver Mines of the Provinces of Rio de la Plata"
(Head 1826, vi; Jackman 1958). In this capacity, Head
led a party of Cornish miners to inspect the prospects for
gold and silver mining in the United Provinces. In com-
pleting his rapid inspection of mines, Head traveled "up-
wards of six thousand miles" on horseback (Head 1826,
ix). The expedition was a costly failure: The provinces
were in political chaos and the franchises promised to
the Association had largely been sold off to rivals (Head
1827). Although the commercial imperative of his jour-
ney was clear, and in the vanguardist mode, Head took
time to make "a few rough notes, describing anything
which interested or amused me" (Head 1826, x).
Head was explicit in describing his writing prac-
tice and in outlining why he chose to compose rough
 1338 Keighren and Withers

perhaps, anand
notes rather than a more studied "effort considered
to clear his name" (Leask 2001,
jour-
275). no regular journal, for
nal: "During my journey I kept
the country I visited was eitherIn contrast to Graham's largely sedentary
a boundless plain,inscriptive
or
desert mountains" (Head 1826,practices,
x).Head's
With notes were composed under a variety
topographical
monotony as a disincentive toof circumstances:
regular "sometimes when I was tired,
writing, some-
Head's
account was less constrained times
than when I Graham's
was refreshed, sometimes
by withthe
a bottle di-
of wineform.
urnal regularity of the journal before me, andInsometimes with a cow's-horn
consequence,
his account shifted between filled
thematic discussions and
with dirty brackish water, and a few were writ-
chronological description. Asten onforboard the packet" (Head 1826, however,
Graham, x). In revealing
writing provided Head with the conditions under whichand
distraction he wrote,entertain-
Head sought to
ment. His in-the-field notes explain
were deficiencies
"made or omissions
to in his account and to
amuse my
emphasize the arduous (and
mind under a weight of responsibility tomanly)
which circumstances
it un-had
never been accustomed" (Head der which his notes hadxi).
1826, been composed
The - ansugges-
epistemic
claim that
tion that Head had not written his made"too
a specific appeal to physical endeavor
trifling" notes as
with a view to their publication was,andthen,
a warrant of experience implicit
insight. Any potential fail-
(Head 1826, xi). Such an admission of
ings of the text could modest
be accounted for by theintent
physical
exertion that the
was ubiquitous in travel narratives - journey
a mark necessitated:ofMobility deter-
"episte-
mologica! decorum" in authorship (Shapin 1994,were,
mined rough writing. Elements of Head's account 193-
however, occasionally
242), and many narratives contained so terse as to loseconven-
"highly definition and
precision.
tionalized prefatory remarks" to that One sentence in which Head
effect described his
(Sherman
1996, 180). overnight accommodation was typical: "Our hut - old
man immoveable - Maria or Marequita's figure - little
Several of Murray's South American travelers in-
voked British public and mercantile ignorance of that mongrel boy - three or four other persons" (Head 1826,
continent as justification for seeking the publication 54). Later redaction was not predicated on production
of their accounts. To enter the field with the explicit of a polished draft: Keeping it rough was important
intention of publication implied arrogance: Epistemo- (MacLaren 1992). He made this lack of major retro-
logica! decorum demanded appeals to public edifica- spective revision clear to his readers in highlighting the
tion and authorial effacement. Head's contemporary "rough, unpolished state" of his account as "proof that
and critic, the naval captain Joseph Andrews, similarly I have no other object" (Head 1826, xii). The epis-
emphasized his modesty and patriotic contribution to temic implication of this statement was clear: Head's
the British understanding of South America in his Jour- text represented the simple, unvarnished truth.
ney from Buenos Ayres (Andrews 1827): "To the char- Although much is known of Murray's editorial input
acter of an author he makes no pretence. He is willing in respect of his firm's literary canon (Nicholson 2007),
to contribute his mite to the general stock of infor- little material evidence concerning his South American
mation respecting South America; but he is a sailor, narratives - manuscripts, proofs, or correspondence -
whose course of life, like the contents of the volumes, is extant. For this reason, it is difficult to quantify the
has been desultory" (Vol. 1, xxvii). William Smyth and extent to which Head's texts were mediated by Murray.
Frederick Lowe (see later) were likewise self-effacing in What is clear is that although the original rough writing
the preface to their Narrative of a Journey from Lima to and lack of editorial revision was seen by readers to be
Para (Smyth and Lowe 1836): "We launch our little part of the "rhetorical appeal" of Head's book, he was
book, [and] should anything it contains hereafter prove subject to initial censure by one of Murray's readers
in any degree serviceable to our country, the highest ob- (Leask 2001, 276). In a letter to Murray, Head recalled,
ject of our ambition will have been attained" (iv). For "I was mauled by your adviser for my rough notes, which
Head, the notion of publication only occurred to him though heavily written were yet kindly enough received
when the directors of the mining company for which by the public" (NLS MSS.42278-42279 (466A-C)).
he was emissary "laid the blame" for the failure of the The critical response to Head's text was largely pos-
enterprise on him (Leask 2001, 275). Head's stated rea- itive. The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Jour-
son for the publication of his notes was to counter the nal (1827, 5) remarked, "We have seldom taken up a
general public and political ignorance of conditions in volume of personal narrative more replete than this
South America, which he perceived to have been the with information which ... is of the highest impor-
cause of the syndicate's failure. Publication was thus, tance." Head was described as possessing "an intellect

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 Inscription and Epistemologa in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1339
of considerable grasp, as well as accurateness." The ex-
citement of Head's book was sufficient that "the reader
is fairly instigated to stop and take breath, as if he had
been bodily accompanying the author." In this respect,
Head's text provided a model of travel writing:
This is the kind of talent it is desirable to recognize in
the writer of a book of travels, which proposes to give
the peculiarities of manners, and of country; to afford
real information rather than ingenious theories; and it is
valuable in proportion to its rarity. We have an abundance
of "picturesque tourists," and clever speculators; but here
is a man who visits a part of the world, differing from our
own . . . and yet we venture to assert, that no individual
with an average portion of intelligence will rise from the
perusal of this book, without having acquired a vivid and
ineffaceable idea of the interesting region it delineates.
(The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal 1827, 5)
Precisely because Head's text was "hasty" and "not
particularly smooth," The London Magazine (1826, 232)
felt its style and content particularly suited its purpose:
"In a small volume we cannot have, neither do we want,
much scientific or statistical detail - nor much political
or historical discussion: we are glad to find lively de-
scriptions of manners, scenery, costume, and in short
the general appearances of man and of nature." For this
reviewer, the conditions under which Head wrote his
rough notes became almost tangible in print: "Head did
not ride so fast as to prevent him from taking notes on
the back of his horse . . . [although] we fancy we can per-
ceive the motion." The very fact that the circumstances
of Head's composition presented a physical challenge
had the consequence of rendering his text more imme-
diate and thrilling than otherwise might be the case
(Thompson 2007). Rough Notes was enjoyable (and be-
lievable) precisely because it was "loose, sketchy, and
irregular in its manner" (La Belle Assemblée 1826, 173).
Smyth and Lowe and the Regimens of Instrumental
Narrative
Being "free from pretence or affection of any kind"
was a quality that commended the narrative of William
Smyth and Frederick Lowe to critics (The Eclectic Re-
view 1836, 212). Smyth and Lowe arrived in South
America as naval officers aboard HMS Samarang but
developed an independent plan to identify and survey
a navigable route between Peru and the Brazilian At-
lantic coast by means of the Amazon and its tributaries.
The expedition was privately conceived, financed by
subscription from British residents in Lima, and sup-
ported by the Peruvian government. The commercial
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desirability of a transcontinental trade route was, for
Smyth, clear - as was the "honourable distinction of
courageously achieving a useful discovery" which might
follow its description (The Edinburgh Review 1836, 396).
Smyth, the expedition's leader and narrative's princi-
pal author, had previously served on HMS Blossom ,
one of five British ships dispatched during the 1820s
to discover the Northwest Passage (Paine 2000). That
voyage, and British naval training, instilled in Smyth
the disciplines of regularly maintaining a log, collect-
ing meteorological data, and conducting astronomical
observations to determine the ship's location and also
provided the opportunity to contribute to the publica-
tion of that expedition's account - Narrative of a Voyage
to the Pacific and Behring's Strait (Beechey 1831) As has
been shown of polar voyaging in this period, credibil-
ity in reportage was associated with instrumental skill
and qualities of personal endurance in the field (Cavell
2008).
Smyth and Lowe make no explicit reference in their
published text to the production of a diary or journal
but, given the quotidian regularity of their account, it is
likely that one (perhaps both) of them maintained a log
of their journey between Lima and Pará. The diurnal
character of their narrative is broken, however, by peri-
ods of extended residence when inclement weather or
lack of supplies prevented the authors from continuing
their journey. On such occasions, Smyth and Lowe -
as Graham and Head had done - digressed from their
focus on the practicalities of the journey to a more gen-
eral discussion of social organization, economic condi-
tions, agriculture, and natural phenomena. It is clear,
too, that Smyth and Lowe's log was altered, or at least
supplemented, after their return to Britain.
Smyth and Lowe were ultimately unsuccessful in
achieving the object of their expedition but were keen
to communicate their findings so that errors on then-
current maps of South America might be corrected
(Smyth 1836). The fact that the authors failed in
their original intention did not, in the opinion of
critics, diminish their authority. The Edinburgh Re-
view (1836, 417) thought the expedition's object "ob-
viously impracticable" and embarked on "without the
least calculation," yet considered Smyth's regular as-
tronomical observations and their contribution to cor-
recting the map of South America commendable: "On
Lieutenant Smyth's observations we place the fullest
reliance. Those who know his professional abilities will
not refuse him their confidence; those who do not, will
presume every thing in his favour from the unaffected,
manly, modest, and perspicuous style of his narrative"
 1 340 Keighren and W ithers

( The Edinburgh Review 1836, Smyth

417).andThe implication
Lowe satisfied of
a demand for unprepossessing
proseSmyth's
the Review's statement was clear: (The Quarterlyauthority
Review 1836). was
secured through the demonstration Graham'sof comparative moralizing approach to the
his surveying
description ofand
abilities and through the unassuming Brazilian and Chilean
manly societies owed a
qual-
debt regulated
ities of his prose. It was through to her education observation
in Enlightenment Edinburgh,
and correct narrative style that Smyth
where and
she had earlier Lowe
found made
her "taste for literature grat-
their epistemic claim. ified, and a love for science awakened" (Gotch 1937,
84). If, then, Graham's observational approach drew
on "the 'rational-reformist' literary background of the
female moralist" (Leask 2002, 208), her engagement
Epistemology and Credibility: Inscribing
with South America was not simply one of an assumed
South America cultural and moral superiority. Although Graham had
close associations with the political, military, and mer-
The truth claims of travel narratives depend on estab- cantile elite in Brazil and Chile, her social exploration
lishing the legitimacy of the author's experiences and ranged across classes. A vociferous opponent of slav-
an assumption, rooted in trust, that that experience - ery, Graham was quick to find fault in the slave-owning
either the author's or that of credible informants - classes. As she reported of the situation in Brazil, the
corresponds in reliable ways to what is written (Shapin "negroes are far superior in industry to the Portuguese
1994; Lipton 1998). Authors make different specific and Brazilians" (Graham 1824b, 197). In part, Graham's
appeals to truthfulness and, as we have shown, employ censure related to the fact that "Brazil lacked ... [a]
different inscriptive and redactive practices to estab- conception of the moral value of work" (Degler 1971,
lish reliability and credibility. Although the inscriptive 246). Graham felt, however, that the degree of civiliza-
techniques of Graham, Head, and Smyth and Lowe were tion in Chile - which she equated with, among other
materially distinct, the form of their written accounts indicators, the free conduct of trade and agricultural
was, in epistemic terms, similar: Each negotiated "the efficiency - was severely retarded by systemic failures
overlapping borders of public and private discourse" on the part both of the former colonial administrators
(Gannett 1992, 192). The public display of private writ- and the then-current directorship. In this respect, her
ing was a complicated proposition. Unlike Head, Gra- analysis of Chilean and Brazilian society (which, again,
ham felt it necessary to revise substantially her original was "anchored ... in comparisons with English customs
journal, eliminating elements she considered too per- and behaviour") echoed Humboldt's discursive con-
sonal, and supplementing her text with appendices and struction of South American nature - something in-
prefatory material to compensate for the inevitable in- fant, imminent, and ripe for transformation (Hahner
completeness of her chronological account. Head was, 1998,3).
by contrast, less concerned by the lack of omniscience Part of the explanation for this attitude is that
that the "disconcerting jolts, silences and ellipses" in Graham read Humboldt to inform her own travels.
his account revealed (Thompson 2007, 122). The ap- In preparing for her South American journey, she
peal and authority of his account came precisely from had familiarized herself with what she took to be the
its immediacy and thrill. appropriate textual authorities - the initial volumes
The inscriptive basis to (and the published form of Humboldt's Personal Narrative (von Humboldt and
of) Graham's, Head's, and Smyth and Lowe's accounts Bonpland 1814-1829), as well as Robert Southey's His-
made and depended on different epistemic claims. As tory of Brazil ( 1810). If it was Graham's initial intention
the critical response to their narratives demonstrates, to use Humboldt as a guide to the correct approach to
their authority was evaluated and attributed in differ- travel and observation, as at least one contemporary
ent ways. Graham's text was praised for "picturesque critic suggested (The Quarterly Review 1821), this aim
delineation, sagacity of observation, and liberality of was soon modified. En route to Brazil, the Doris had
sentiment" - qualities that contributed to rather than made land at Tenerife and Graham explored that is-
diminished her perceived credibility ( The Monthly Re- land with reference to Humboldt's account. Although
view, or Literary Journal 1825, 180). The appeal of she considered Humboldt to be "a wonderful traveller
Head's text lay in its "vivacity and good-humour" and & wonderfully gifted & qualified," she found his obser-
in the fact his "mere sketches" produced "all the effect vations "too fine & philosophical" (NLS MS.40185, 22
of a finished picture" (The Quarterly Review 1827, 117). September 1821 ). As she noted to Murray, "I saw many

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 Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1341
things . . . that he has thought beneath him [including
details of domestic and social organization] & I strained
my eyes after many another that has I presumed changed
places since he was there" (NLS MS.40185, 22 Septem-
ber 1821). Although Graham might have proceeded in
Humboldt's spirit, determined to emulate his careful
observation of natural phenomena, she did not treat his
textual account as an unflawed manual of correct travel.
Much of Graham's knowledge came from witnessing
directly the natural and cultural features of the countries
she visited: Observation had a primacy in securing truth
(Withers 2004a). Truth came from firsthand witnessing,
only secondly and as corroboration from reliable oth-
ers. Her close association with elite and political figures
allowed her to "write down from their verbal account
the main particulars" of the political and military situ-
ation and thus to offer what one critic termed "strictly
original testimony" and a "record of the evidence of
living witnesses" - a mode of testimonial writing that
came to characterize women writers' accounts of South
America ( The Monthly Review , or Literary Journal 1825,
190; Maier and Dulfano 2004). Reliability and truth-
fulness were issues that Graham addressed as a question
of method, and through adherence to a "strict set of
rules" (Mavor 1993, xii). If Graham had not personally
been witness to the events she sought to describe in
her travel accounts, she "took care to interview living
people who had, besides consulting documents of every
kind" (Mavor 1993, xii). As she understood it, truth
was "the moral and intellectual perceptions by which
our judgements, and actions, and motives, are directed"
(Graham 1824b, 158). Truth in her view was not a mat-
ter of abstract fact but a personal and individual imper-
ative vested in observation and credible interlocutors
more than the written words of authoritative others.
Graham's efforts to describe South America's var-
ied landscapes nevertheless depended, like her ethno-
graphic gaze, on a Eurocentric frame of reference. This
meant that, on occasion, her comparative method of
description was insufficient without recourse to estab-
lished referents. The extremes of topography afforded
"a peculiarity to the landscape . . . which distinguishes
it... from any I have seen before" (Graham 1824a,
185). Attempting to portray the landscape between the
Chilean coast and the inland settlement of Quillota,
Graham faltered: "The near view is like some of the
finest parts of Devonshire; but the hills of Quillota, over
which the volcano of Aconcagua . . . towers, render it
unlike any thing in England, I might say in Europe"
(Graham 1824a, 185). Although Graham felt a partic-
ular affinity with the "pastoral and picturesque" agricul-
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tural landscapes of Chile - the "grassy hills, and small
shaded streams, and groups of cattle" were reminiscent
of Devonshire - she was not awestruck, in the pejora-
tive sense of that term, by the Andes (Graham 1824a,
193). She was moved by the beauty and the sublimely
visceral nature of the mountains that, "capped with
snow, shooting into the heavens, with masses of clouds
rolling in their dark valleys, presented to me a scene
I had never beheld equalled" (Graham 1824a, 197).
Graham's representation of the landscape had no pre-
tension to objectivity. Her subjective immediacy and
inherent partiality - which Graham did not attempt
to conceal (indeed they conformed to conventional
expectations of female writers) - were the means by
which her veracity was secured. Strangeness prompted
uncertainty, not recourse to precision. Her subjective
aesthetic response was part of a culture of sensibil-
ity that "prized attention to, and display of, feeling
as a sign of natural virtue" (Dettelbach 2005, 53).
Unlike those travelers who, "obsessed with Humbold-
tian biodistribution," celebrated "landscapes of 'empty'
lands" (Cañizares-Esguerra 2006, 6), Graham's aes-
thetic and ethnographic preference was for peopled
vistas.
Smyth's and Lowe's engagement with South Amer-
ica was also marked by an aesthetic sensibility but
one differently realized: Smyth, a trained artist, supple-
mented his account with numerous illustrations. Their
principal and constant concern was the correct deter-
mination of location, altitude, and distance traversed.
As trained naval officers, the authors used a pocket
compass to take bearings and to survey the road from
Lima, "marking every town and village . . . with such
notes as might prove useful to persons making the same
journey" (Smyth and Lowe 1836, 16). There was a dif-
ficulty, however, in estimating the distances traveled.
The authors' description of the process illustrates the
problems of securing reliable knowledge and attribut-
ing authority to their different informants:
The distances from one town to another have never been
measured, but are estimated according to the ideas of the
muleteers, who generally differ. We adopted those ob-
tained from Dr. Valdizan (who, having frequently trav-
elled the road, was likely to give us an account nearest the
truth), correcting them, as far as we could, by our own ob-
servation of the time spent in their performance. (Smyth
and Lowe 1836, 16)
For Smyth and Lowe, the problem of evaluating
third-party testimony in relation to nonstandard indige-
nous metrology was a persistent problem: "opportunities
1342 Keighren and W ithers

were not so numerous as could to

be his investigations
wished were (The Mo
for of procur-
ing accounts that could be relied 152). on" (Smyth 1836, 13).
On one occasion, they obtainedAudiences whatalso condition
they truth claims.
took to be The New
reliable information from a pair Monthly
of Magazine
Spanish and Literary
travelers Journalonsaw Head's text
the run after murdering a priest: as a model for thrilling and informative travel writ-
ing precisely because of its rough state. For the same
From one of them, who was a very reason,intelligent
The Monthly Reviewperson, wequite the oppo-
concluded
got a good deal of information site:
respecting the towns and
"Such a style of writing as that in which Captain
countries which he passed through in his flight. The map
Head has indulged, if it were adopted to any extent in
which we sketched from his dictation of the course of the
England, would soon contribute to make the very name
Caciquiari . . . will, perhaps, be the best mode of giving
of our country detested throughout the world" (The
the information which we obtained from him, and which,
Monthly
in all cases of doubt, was corrected by Review 1826, 153). As
reference tothese
two differing critical
other persons resident at Barra. (Smyth and Lowe 1836, value of textual
responses make clear, opinion as to the
294-95) immediacy was not shared and universal. The standards
by which Head's credibility and veracity were assessed
There seems to have been nowere moraleven particular
quandary to individual readers. Charles Dar-
about
accepting information from someone win read Head'swhoaccount
had while aboard HMS Beagle and
commit-
thought
ted murder: The fact that he was anit "a most perfect & spirited
intelligent infor- outline of their
[the population
mant (and a European) functioned as the of warrant
the Provinces of
of thehis
Rio de la Plata]
manners Epistemic
credibility. Truth was contingent: & customs" (Keynes 2001, 207) even as his
necessity
overcame moral judgment. What own worldview
matteredwas being altered
was utterly
the in-by experiences
herent value of the geographical data - whether from 2009).
in South America (Desmond and Moore
the authors' astronomical observations or from mur-
derous third parties whose information was routinely
compared against more thanConclusion
one source to assure its
reliability (Licoppe 2002). For Smyth and Lowe, their
technical observational expertiseThis was
article uppermost
has shown that examining
in as-travel writ-
ing's material
suring the utility and trustworthiness oftransformation from manuscript to print
their narrative:
Verbal testimony was requiredis only
important asandcorroboration
that more work needs toof be done on
instrumental exactitude. the ways in which travelers' accounts were mediated by
their publishers
In contrast, Head's self-confessed and on how they were
benightedness with shaped to con-
form to "particular cultural
respect to scientific and ethnographic travel simultane- values and perceived tastes
ously underlined and undermined in contemporary
the simple readers" (Finkelstein
and un- 2002, 152). As
the writing,
varnished quality of his account. publication, and reception
In affecting the role history of Mur-
ray's occasions
of guileless witness, there were South American whentravel texts Headdemonstrates, au-
hardly believed what he was seeing, such as the fact(as with
thors' inscriptive and observational practices
of "women of all ages, without theirclothes
professionalof qualifications
any sort and social
or standing)
had an important
kind, . . . bathing in great numbers in the bearing on perceptions
stream which of their credi-
literally bounds the promenade"bilityin
and the
trustworthiness.
city of Authors
Mendozasought authenticity
and correspondence
(Head 1826, 69). His less-than-rigorous observational with their world in multiple, even
paradoxical,of
technique was, however, the subject ways. For Graham, For
censure. it was the
one considered
and contextualized
critic, Head was unsophisticated: "Whatever nature of her journal
does not that marked
instantly correspond with his out its value and
English validity. Head,
notions on by these
contrast, saw the
unmediated irregular
subjects [customs and religion], he sets down as absurd,quality of his narrative to be a
warrant of its Review
corrupt, and impious" ( The Monthly honesty, straightforwardness,
1826, 152). and authen-
ticity. to
In part, these criticisms related Smyth and Lowe's
the credibility of
brevity restedhis
in their prior
observations, for he "galloped authority
through, as navalrather
officers, in than
their recourse
vis-to instru-
ited" the South American towns ments he in thesought
field, and into
audiences' reception of their
describe
(The Monthly Review 1826, 152).claims to be guided"intelligence,
Head's by them. Despite these different
conceptions were
education, and professional ability" of literary legitimacy,
not Murray's travelers
in ques-
tion, but the ways in whichwere heunited
choseby thetoaffectation
apply of authorial
them modesty.

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 Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers' Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America 1343
Rather than emphasize their observational abilities or
professional training as Smyth and Lowe had done, the
majority of Murray's travel writers chose to affect in-
genuousness as a means to ensure epistemological deco-
rum. In part, this modesty reflected their reluctance to
assume the role of author. Graham, Head, and others
appealed to public edification as justification for the
publication of their narratives. In contributing, thus,
to British popular and political understanding of South
America, Murray's travelers could - regardless of the
factors that originally motivated their travel - be seen
to have performed a patriotic and selfless duty.
This evidence has wider significance. The journeys
untaken by Graham, Head, and Smyth and Lowe illus-
trate the diversity of British travelers' engagements with
postrevolutionary South America. The observational
approach of Murray's travelers naturally depended on
a Eurocentric frame of reference, and their assessment
of the social and natural conditions of South America
was mediated through British moral and aesthetic pre-
cepts. Personal observation and audience expectation
were, thus, central to the claims these authors made.
But each also depended on third-party informants from
different social and ethnic groups. This difference in
social status either certified others' evidence because of
who they were (for Graham) or corroborated it despite
who they were (in Smyth's and Lowe's case). The ways
in which Murray's authors evaluated the testimony of
their informants as truthful mattered to how their own
accounts were, in turn, assessed by critics and by the
reading public. The narrative accounts these travelers
produced were not united by a discursive tendency to
represent South America as "backward and neglected,"
primed for European enlightened intervention (Rojas
2002, 8). There was not one European imaginary at
work. Few of Murray's South American travelers had
formal scientific training. They were not Humboldt's
disciples. Whereas some carried his printed narrative as
a mobile informant, others traveled to test him, or to
see for themselves. The different moral, aesthetic, and
scientific perspectives through which Murray's travelers
viewed that continent meant that each represented it
in importantly different ways. The fact that this process
of geographical revelation resulted in the literary con-
struction of not one South America but many demon-
strates the importance of attending to the processes of
authorial inscription and narration that underpinned
the production of travel texts and not alone to their
content as an unmediated "truth claim" about others'
geographies.
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What was taking place there and with these au-
thors was more common than might be supposed: Dar-
win modified his written reports on South America
and on much else for fear of offending his wife and
peers; African travelers regulated their published work
for fear of audience reproof; polar explorers commonly
redacted their narratives between the field and the study
(Withers 2004a; Cavell 2008; Richter 2009). Because
this is so, the way in which travelers chose to write their
accounts matters as a subject of scholarly attention, as
does the relationship between narrative as practice and
audiences' and publishers' perceptions of texts' value
and credibility. To understand what travel and explo-
ration narratives meant to different reading publics, it is
necessary to attend to the different subjective positions
of exploratory narrators and to their inscriptive prac-
tices. The particularities of observation and inscription,
redaction and mediation, and the questions of trust and
correspondence on which they depended might then
be seen to be central to the production and commu-
nication of geographical knowledge in print and to its
reception and evaluation. The study of writing as craft
and process constitutes an imminent but important fo-
cus for scholars concerned with knowledge making and
circulation, trust and credibility. This is not to suggest
that geographers' study of travel writing cease to focus
on the representation of place or on the practicalities of
travel. It is to suggest that by examining the materiali-
ties of writing and narrating it is possible to understand
more fully the epistemic bases to travel and observa-
tion and so to understand better the representational
techniques that frame and condition those textual de-
pictions central to current intellectual concerns in the
history of the book, the history of science, and the study
of geography in and of print.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Arts and Hu-
manities Research Council, whose funding (AHRC
AH/F009364/1) permitted the research on which this
article is based. Our particular thanks go to David Mc-
Clay and Rachel Beattie at the National Library of
Scotland, who offered much useful assistance in our in-
vestigation of the John Murray Archive. We are grateful
also to Audrey Kobayashi, and the anonymous review-
ers of this article, who did much to focus our thoughts
on travelers' inscriptive practices and their epistemic
implications.
 1 344 Keighren and W ithers

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Correspondence: Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University

mail: innes.keighren@rhul.ac.uk (Keighren); Institute of Geography, Unive
C.W.J.Withers@ed.ac.uk (Withers).

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