PREFACE. 
The task of the Editor of these volumes has 
been principally one of arrangement and com- 
pression. The late lamented Mr. James Richard- 
son left behind him a copious journal, comprised 
in eight small but closely -written volumes, be- 
sides a vast heap of despatches and scattered 
memoranda ; and, at first sight, it seemed to 
me that it would be necessary to melt the whole 
down into a narrative in the third person. On 
attentively studying the materials before me, 
however, I perceived that Mr. Richardson had 
written in most places with a view to pub- 
hcation ; and that, had he lived, he would soon 
have brought what, on a cursory examination, 
appeared a mere chaotic mass, into a shape 
that would have accorded with his own idea 
of a book of travels. Such being the case, I 
thought it best — in order to leave the stamp of 
