PREFACE xi 



of the climate, and the dangers of crossing the seas 

 in a small schooner, that many times it was only by 

 a hair's-breadth that he escaped from losing his life. 

 He might have stirred the emotions of the reader 

 by a dramatic description of such scenes as his 

 shipwreck, when the wild breakers of the turbulent 

 Pacific tossed and rolled him about helpless in the 

 surf, now sucking him down head first, now throwing 

 him over like a log, and literally smashing his boat 

 to splinters, or his flight from the camp of death 

 in the mountains of Dutch New Guinea, when he 

 lost several of his boys and was himself so ill that 

 he wrote what he thought to be his last instructions, 

 fully believing that he would not reach the coast 

 alive. Such and similar experiences, however, Meek 

 recounts in simple language without any attempt at 

 adornment, and we think that the reader will like 

 the traveller the better for it. 



Before the book is in the hands of the public 

 A. S. Meek will again be in the field, continuing his 

 explorations in countries he has not yet visited, and 

 in mountain ranges which are still virgin ground. At 

 the Tring Museum we hope heartily that his intrepidity 

 will carry our traveller safely through all the ad- 

 ventures which may await him on his new expeditions. 



WALTER ROTHSCHILD. 



Tring, February 1913. 



