HOLMAN, James (c. 1787-1857), the “Blind Traveller,” was born about 1787. He entered the British navy in 1798 as first-class volunteer, and was appointed lieutenant in April 1807. In 1810 he was invalided by an illness which resulted in the total and hopeless deprivation of sight. In consideration of his helpless circumstances he was in 1812 appointed one of the royal knights of Windsor, but the dulness and seclusion of such a life harmonized so ill with his active habits and his keen interest in the outside world that he requested leave of absence that he might go abroad. This being granted, he in 1819, 1820, and 1821 journeyed through France, Italy, Switzerland, the parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In 1822 he published a narrative of his journey. His enjoyment in his travels was derived from the love of locomotion and the attendant exercise, the varieties of company and of topics of conversation, and the information and descriptions he obtained from eye-witnesses, which constantly supplied him with new materials on which to exercise his imagination. He again set out in 1822 with the design of making the circuit of the world, but after travelling through Russia into Siberia, he was arrested when he had managed to penetrate 1000 miles beyond Smolensk, and after being conducted to the frontiers of Poland, returned home by Austria, Saxony, Prussia, and Hanover. The pretext for arresting him was the suspicion of his being a spy, but the probability is that the authorities wished to prevent him from persevering in what they must have regarded as, to one in his helpless condition, a foolish and hazardous adventure. An account of his journey was published in 1825. Shortly afterwards he again set out to accomplish by a somewhat ...