TO 
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
THE EARL BATHURST, 
AND 
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
THE LORD VISCOUNT MELVILLE, 
&C. &C. &C. 
My Lords, 
We beg leave to submit to your inspection our account of 
the Proceedings of the Expedition to which we had the honour of 
being appointed by your Lordships ; and to express our best thanks 
for the flattering encouragement which it receives from the sanction 
of your Lordships’ names. 
A book of travels in countries so interesting as those to which 
our researches have been directed, would once have been considered, 
however indifferently it might be written, as a tribute of more than 
ordinary value to its patrons. Put so much has been effected, during 
your Lordships’ administration, for the advancement of science and 
general knowledge, that a traveller of our own times appears before 
the public, unassisted by the presence of that little cloud of mystery 
through which he would formerly have been seen to so much advan- 
tage ; and his work must no longer depend for its attractions upon 
