PREFACE. 



THE following pages have been written during the 

 intervals between arduous professional engagements. 

 Begun on the Atlantic during my voyage home from 

 Central America, the firs.t half relieved the tedium of 

 a long and slow recovery from the effects of an acci- 

 dent occurring on board ship. The middle of the 

 manuscript found me traversing the high passes of the 

 snow-clad Caucasus, where I made acquaintance with 

 the Abkassiaiis, in whose language Mr. Hyde Clarke 

 finds analogies with those of my old friends the Bra- 

 zilian Indians. I now write this brief preface and the 

 last chapter of my book (with " Bradshaw's Conti- 

 nental Guide" as my only book of reference), on my 

 way across the continent to the Urals, and beyond, 

 to the country of the nomad Kirghizes and the far 

 Altai mountains on the borders of Thibet ; and when 

 readers receive my work I shall probably have turned 

 my face homewards again, and for weeks be speed- 

 ing across the frozen Siberian steppes, wrapped in 

 furs, listening to the sleigh bells, and wondering how 

 my book has sped. It is full of theories I trust 

 not unsupported by facts : some thought out on the 

 plains of Southern Australia ; some during many a 



