PREFACE- 
The travels, of which the following pages contain the narrative, 
were undertaken solely for the purpose of acquiring knowlege : and 
it having been thought possible that the communication of facts ob- 
served during these researches might contribute some small portion 
towards the general stock of information, they are here laid before 
the Public. As they were commenced with a mind free from pre- 
judice, and in the purest spirit of in dependence, so they have been 
conducted, and so they are now concluded. It is not asserted that they 
are exempt from the natural chance of error to which all human 
observations are liable; but that their claim to be, even to the 
minutest particular, regarded as a faithful picture of occurrences and 
observations, stands on a basis never to be shaken ; the confirmation 
of which is readily left to every honest and unprejudiced traveller who 
may hereafter traverse the same ground. The motive, the expense, 
and the accomplishment of these travels having been entirely and 
individually the author's, he has therefore thought proper to adhere 
to the same principle in the present work, both in the scientific and in 
the literary parts of it. As none but those who have personally be- 
held the scenes, and witnessed the facts, can be competent to commu- 
nicate to others the impressions they make on the mind, or to describe 
them with fidelity, the author has judged it more consistent, and 
more conducive to correctness, to reject all assistance whatever ; and, 
although the language of this narrative might have been arranged . in 
smoother periods, and expressed with more fashionable elegance, the 
reader who looks for information more than amusement, will doubt- 
