PREFACE 



The introductory chapter sufficiently accounts for the delay in 

 the submission of my MSS. to the press in the first instance, it 

 therefore now only remains for me to explain the reason for so 

 many months having elapsed before the completion of the work. 



The nature of my official duties demanding my presence in the 

 districts for protracted periods, it was not until my return to head- 

 quarters, after gaps of two or three months, that I was in a position 

 to revise proofs and sanction their being finally struck off. Unfor- 

 tunately, at such intervals, it often so happened that the Government 

 Press was over-crowded with other work, or that there was a defi- 

 ciency of the type in which this report is printed : thus, when I was 

 in a position to push on the work, the press was not available ; or 

 vice versa, and so on this see-saw game was maintained, until more 

 than one " reminder" from Government brought forth an order from 

 the Secretariat, that my report was to keep pace with other official 

 publications, which resulted in the completion of the last four 

 chapters within the last six months. 



My inability to do justioe to the valuable materials at my dis- 

 posal, has ever been a source of deep regret to me, and when it is 

 found I am the first European who has trodden portions of the 

 country described, and that many other parts referred to still remain 

 involved in a mystery equally attractive to the traveller and natural- 

 ist ; the most striking feature in this report will unquestionably be 

 the absence of interest it affords, and to no one can this fact be more 

 obvious than it is to myself ; indeed, the scant manner in which I 

 have alluded to the affinities, languages, customs, and faiths of the 

 different tribes met with, makes me wish I had confined myself to 

 the details set forth in the concluding chapter until circumstances 

 permitted of my turning to better account the information I am in 



