But to this end I must possess myself of a considerable sum of
money: neither do I know how to get it, except by interesting the public
in my story, and inducing the charitable to come forward and assist me.
With this hope I now publish my adventures; but I do so with great
reluctance, for I fear that my story will be doubted unless I tell the
whole of it; and yet I dare not do so, lest others with more means than
mine should get the start of me. I prefer the risk of being doubted to
that of being anticipated, and have therefore concealed my destination on
leaving England, as also the point from which I began my more serious and
difficult journey.
My chief consolation lies in the fact that truth bears its own impress,
and that my story will carry conviction by reason of the internal
evidences for its accuracy. No one who is himself honest will doubt my
being so.
I reached my destination in one of the last months of 1868, but I dare
not mention the season, lest the reader should gather in which hemisphere
I was. The colony was one which had not been opened up even to the most
adventurous settlers for more than eight or nine years, having been
previously uninhabited, save by a few tribes of savages who frequented
the seaboard.
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