Even for travellers' tales we have a use, we can apply to them Dr.
Tylor's 'Test of Recurrences.'
'If two independent visitors to different countries, say a mediaeval
Mahommedan in Tartary and a modern Englishman in Dahomey, or a Jesuit
missionary in Brazil and a Wesley an in the Fiji Islands, agree in
describing some analogous art, or rite, or myth among the people they
have visited, it becomes difficult or impossible to set down such
correspondence to accident or wilful fraud. A story by a bushranger
in Australia may perhaps be objected to as a mistake or an invention,
but did a Methodist minister in Guinea conspire with him to cheat the
public by telling the same story there?'
The whole passage should be read: it was anticipated by Professor Millar
in his Origin of Rank, and has been restated by myself. {101a} Thus I
wrote (in 1887) 'it is to be regretted that Mr. Max Muller entirely omits
to mention . . . the corroboration which is derived from the undesigned
coincidence of independent testimony.'
In 1891-1892 he still entirely omits to mention, to his Glasgow audience,
the strength of his opponents' case. He would serve us better if he
would criticise the test of recurrences, and show us its weak points.