PREFACE 
xi 
ting excitement, of sunlight and air, vast spaces and 
solitude, of all things which seem to me to be so far 
removed from the restricting influences of a complex 
civilization. After so many years of a wild, free life 
I find it difficult to accommodate myself to the stuffi¬ 
ness and constraint of a modern city : I prefer the 
pori (forest) to the imprisonment of streets, the 
twinkling stars to lamps, the sigh of the primeval 
forest to the tramp of thousands of human feet. 
After all, this may be the idiosyncrasy of one 
who has been so long away from civilization that 
he has lost taste for much that appertains to that 
civilization, and in this world, well, chacun a son 
gout. 
