‘It is far easier to travel than to write about it’

As to those literary qualifications which are acquired by habits of writing, and which are so important to an author, my African life has not been favorable to the growth of such accomplishments but quite the reverse; it has made composition irksome and laborious. I think I would rather cross the African continent again than write another book. It is far easier to travel than to write about it.

—from the original Introduction to Missionary Travels in South Africa (1857)