VI PREFACE. 



In the belief that the average reader is more interested in facts 

 of a general nature than in minutiae, I have avoided going into nat- 

 ural history details, but have endeavored instead to indicate the 

 most striking featiu'es of the countries visited, and the more note- 

 worthy animals and men encountered in their homes. 



As the pages which follow wiU presently reveal, this is in eveiy 

 sense a personal — I might even say a ILrst-personal — narrative, in 

 which the reader is taken as a friend into the author's confidence 

 while they make the trip together. The Avriter addresses, not the 

 public, in general, but The Reader, individually. To him I would 

 say, confidentially of course, that as a duty to him, in the prepara- 

 tion of these pages I have labored earnestly to avoid all forms of 

 exaggeration, and to represent everything with photographic accu- 

 racy as to facts and figm-es. It is easy to overestimate and color 

 too highly, and I have fought hard to keep out of my story every 

 elej)hant and monkey who had no right to a place in it. 



I consider it the highest duty of a traveller to avoid carelessness 

 in the statement of facts. A narrative of a journey is not a novel, 

 in which the writer may put down as seen any thing that " might 

 have been seen." 



To a great many kind friends in the East Indies my thanks are 

 due for aid, comfort, and advice ; but I will not consign their names 

 and the acknowledgment of my gratitude to the obscui'ity of a 

 preface, and each will be found in its own place in the story. But 

 for the fi'iends I made as I went along, and the kindly interest they 

 manifested in my welfare and happiness, I would have felt hke a 

 rogue elephant — solitary, uncared for, and even spurned by the 

 other members of the social herd. 



Cm-iously enough, nearly all my East Indian friends were Eng- 

 lish, and to my American reader I would say, when you meet an 

 Enghsh traveller treat him kindly for my sake. 



W. T. K 



Washington, D. C. 



