PREFACE.
This volume is not published in its present form for public sale, but designed as a souvenir to personal friends who have expressed a desire to have copies of these “Letters” for preservation; and I have endeavored to enhance its value by sketches and photographs of scenery and costumes in the countries through which I passed. The “letter press,” I regret to say, is not what it should be, as it was printed before my return from the forms as originally published in the Daily Leader, and abounds in errors resulting from hasty proof-reading, unavoidable in a morning paper. The annexed Errata will rectify some of these most glaring mistakes, but the minor errors in orthography and punctuation are left to the intelligence of the reader to correct for himself.
I was not ordered abroad “by the doctors,” but started in perfect health, which I retained through all the vicissitudes of climate, and was so fortunate as not to meet with any serious mishap to mar the pleasure of the journey. Only once, during that eventful night of the typhoon on the Chinese coast, did I question my prudence in being there, without the excuse of ill-health or business. My motive was not merely the pursuit of pleasure, but the desire to gratify a long-cherished passion to see once in my lifetime the strange and curious nations of the Orient, books of travel among whom have always had for me a strange fascination.
In these sketches I have confined my descriptions, in a great measure, to what passed under my own observation; and have endeavored to paint the curious and novel scenes in Japan, China, and India, as they appeared to a fresh traveler, without any attempt at fine writing, or high-flown description. The unexpected courtesy and kindness everywhere met from both foreigners and natives, and the many chance acquaintances which have ripened into friendships that will endure for a lifetime, are among the pleasantest souvenirs of my journey.
This first volume does not complete the circuit “round the world.” Perhaps another may follow giving the incidents of travel from Egypt through the Holy Land, over the Lebanon to Baalbec and Damascus, to Smyrna and the site of Ephesus, to Greece and Constantinople, up the Black Sea and the Danube, through Hungary and Austria, Germany and France to England, thence home across the Atlantic. A portion of the latter series of letters has been published over the signature of “Nebula” in the Daily Herald.
With this explanation of the anomalous form of the present volume, I solicit the kindness and indulgence of the reader to overlook the many faults and imperfections of these hastily-written sketches.
Cleveland, May, 1872.
