"UPON my return t to the United States a few months ago after the extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere of which an account is given in the following pages accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond Va. who felt deep interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited and who were constantly urging it upon me as a duty to give my narrative to the public. I had several reasons however for declining to do so some of which were of a nature altogether private and concern no person but myself; others not so much so."