PREFACE. vii 
the error of judgment which has led me, together 
with those who have here shared my responsibiHty, 
to offer for his perusal pages prepared at first mainly 
for private friends, but which it was afterwards 
thought might possibly prove of interest to a 
somewhat wider circle. 
Further, with reference to the length of time 
which has elapsed between the date of the writer's 
death and the publication of this volume, I can only 
claim in extenuation of this circumstance the fact 
that a considerable period necessarily intervened 
before the traveller's journals and papers reached 
this country, that they required on their arrival 
much care in their disposal, and that the whole 
of the natural history collections had to be gone 
through systematically before being finally placed in 
competent hands for arrangement and classification. 
The delay, then, has enabled me to include in the 
volume the papers in the appendix on the latter 
subject, contributed by such able hands, which I 
believe will add interest to the whole ; and that not 
only in the case of scientific readers, but of all those 
who would realize in a measure what it is which 
makes up the life and experiences of the naturalist 
traveller in his wanderings in distant lands. I may 
add, moreover, that the general state and condition 
of the country of which these pages treat would 
appear, from the accounts of those who have recently 
