Preface 



sudden pursuit of the ponies, the Author had carried away 

 all the pipe-lights. The redoubtable brigand-slayer Harry 

 was exercising his matchless prowess in blank cartridge 

 practice at the end of his cigar, which he succeeded in 

 lighting at the expense of his companion's vivid appre- 

 hensions. This postscript was suppressed from biblio- 

 polical motives, against the Author's better judgment, and 

 the hint that, after all, it might not be really true (vol. i. 

 p. 214, 1st edition), was slipped in afterwards, a sop to 

 conscience, and as bank-notes are sent by surreptitious 

 penitents to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The story 

 of Joshua (p. 177), who had cheated one of the faithful in 

 the sale of a bewitched donkey, is an invention ; though it is 

 true that we found the prison, following a fair daughter of 

 Israel carrying relief to her father. Of course, the Lady 

 Jane in muleteer's costume is an imaginary sketch : it 

 arose from a conversation on the possibility of travelling, as 

 we were doing, in married life. The beggar on assback was 

 a real man, and the Author did earnestly advocate robbing 

 him, but could not persuade his companion to enlist in the 

 undertaking. The only other acknowledged fabrication is 

 the monomaniac planter of onions and lath crosses at Coca. 

 But there are a number of what might seem, to the careless 

 reader, to be narrations, which are, in fact, nothing more 

 than suggestions of what ?night have happened. The extra- 

 vagant buccaneering expedition (p. 165) ; the imaginary 

 imprisonment (p. 203) ; and the theoretical robbery of two 

 British clergymen, all related as what might have happened, 

 are surely not to be quoted against the work as clumsy 

 attempts to deceive, throwing discredit by implication on 

 all the rest of it, which, with the palpable and self-evident 

 exceptions specified, is strictly faithful to the fact. In 

 conclusion, the Author hopes and trusts that, after this 



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