PREFACE. 
vii 
at six dollars a dozen, or devoting the remainder of my 
days to mule-driving as a profession, I was unexpect¬ 
edly elevated to the position of post-office agent; and 
went about the country for the purpose of making post¬ 
masters. I only made one-—the post-master of San 
Jose. After that, the Convention called by General 
Riley met at Monterey, and I was appointed to report 
the debates on the formation of the State Constitution. 
For this I received a sum that enabled me to return to 
Washington, and start for the East again. There was 
luck in the third attempt, for, as may be seen, I got 
there at last, having thus visited the four continents, 
and traveled by sea and land asdistance of a hundred 
thousand miles, or more than four times round the 
world, on the scanty earnings of my own head and hands. 
If there be any moral in the book, therefore, it is 
this: that there is no great difficulty in traveling all 
over the world, when one sets about it with a deter¬ 
mination to do it, and keeps trying till he succeeds; 
that there is no position in life disreputable or degrad¬ 
ing while self-respect remains; and nothing impossible 
that has ever been done by man. Let him who thirsts 
for knowledge go out upon the broad face of the earth, 
and he will find that it is not out of books alone that 
he can get it; let him make use of the eyes that God 
has given him, and he will see more in the world’s 
unwritten revelations than the mind of man hath con¬ 
ceived. 
“ Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win 
By fearing to attempt.” 
J. R. B. 
Washington, D. C,, February , 1853. 
