[ ix. ]
consistent with my reputation as a practical man, an engineer, a magistrate, and a churchwarden, to lend the weight of that reputation (whatever it may be worth) to a work of such a character.
The kind reception given by the public to the "Mexican Mystery" was due (I am persuaded) not merely to its marvels, but to the stamp of veracity imprinted on its every page. It is not too much to say, and I challenge any man to contradict me, that I can vouch for the precise accuracy of every line of that work. Nothing was there set down but what had come, mediately or immediately, and mostly the latter, under my own personal observation. The more was it incumbent upon me to do nothing that might impeach the character for truthfulness thereby gained, nor again to employ that character, the most valuable a man can bear, to mislead those whose confidence I had so happily won.
The result of much cogitation has been that I have determined to give this book to the world, rather,
