The purple book was very old had yielded to age and was in two pieces when it reached me. Its title was W.H. Seward's Travels Around the World. It has been published in 1873 and had no author. Further investigation yielded the fact that the scribe was Seward's adopted daughter, Olive, one of his traveling companions. In the manner of Victorian women, she did not put herself forward.

I briefly checked Seward's bio, learning that he was twice elected governor of New York before becoming Lincoln's Secretary of State. That role is the one he is best remembered for, including his purchase of Alaska, an act not universally appreciated at the time he negotiated it. I had totally forgotten that he too was wounded in the plot to assassinate Lincoln. He recovered and went on to serve as Secretary of State under Lincoln's successor.

All that aside, the yellowing volume on my desk is an incredible reflection on what the group of people who traveled with Seward saw and noted during a 14 month trip around the world, a trip that began in his hometown of Auburn, New York, and which headed west to board a steamship in San Francisco.

The almost 800 page book is remarkable for the author's astute reflection and for the amazing etchings of the people and places they saw. The half dozen travelers were both resilient and broad-minded. They always attempted to understand the political and religious natures of the people they were seeing for the first time, from Brigham Young to the Mikado to a dying Jewish woman in Jerusalem. If they didn't have enough knowledge, they withheld judgment.

I was personally intrigued by their visit to Palestine, to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, then part of the Turkish Empire and by their tolerance of the plethora of religious shrines marking every conceivable biblical spot. "How unreasoning is religious intolerance," observed Seward.

Returning home Seward was warmly welcomed back by his neighbors. He used the occasion to explain why he had taken this long and arduous journey. He needed to travel, he said because "I found that at my age and in my condition of health, rest was rust; and nothing remained to prevent rust but to keep in motion. I selected the way that would do the least harm, give the least offense, enable me to acquire the most knowledge, and increase the power, if any remained, to do good."

Now there is food for thought.