unknown which has grown up within me. The great pleasure in writing is to feel that it is possible, by this means, to reach such men ; to feel that I can speak to them just as they, by their books and by their works, have spoken to me, and that I may, in some slight degree, be passing on to others about to start on careers of adventure, the same keen love of travel and of Nature which I have received from those who have gone before.
There are others, too, whom I hope my book may reach—some few among those thousands and thousands who stay at home in England. Amongst these there are numbers who have that longing to go out and see the world which is the characteristic of Englishmen. It is not natural to an Englishman to sit at an office desk, or spend his whole existence amid such tame excitement as life in London, and shooting partridges and pheasants afford. Many consider themselves tied down to home ; but they often tie themselves down. And if a man has indeed the spirit of travel in him, nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of his doing as he wishes. And one of the hopes I have as I write this book is, that it may tempt some few among the stay-at-homes to go out and breathe a little of the pure fresh air of Nature, and inhale into their beings some of the revivifying force and heightened power of enjoyment of all that is on this earth which it can give.
My book cannot claim to be scientific, nor to be written in any correct literary style, but I have endeavoured to speak out, as clearly and impressively as I can, what I saw, what I did, and what I felt in the little-known, and sometimes unknown, regions which I have visited, and to give the impressions which formed themselves in my mind of the various peoples whom I met. Some portion of this will, I hope, prove of value to others besides the general reader ; but it has been a ceaseless cause of regret to me that I had never
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