INTRODUCTION. The evening before leaving for one of my periodical excursions, I was putting in order my guns, my insect-cases, and all my travelling necessaries, when my eldest son, a lad nine years old, came running to me in that wheedling manner—using that irresistible diplomacy of childhood which imposes on fathers and mothers so many troublesome treaties, and which children so well know how to assume when they desire to obtain a favor.... more...

CHAPTER I I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY Let those who read this narrative doubt not its veracity. There be much in Nature that we wot not of, and many strange countries to explore. The monsters who roamed the earth in ancient times, as their fossil bones attest, are still to be seen in those regions hitherto unvisited by white men, and in the fathomless depths of uncharted seas leviathans find a home. Peter Ecoores Van Bu was born upon the island of... more...

THE GREAT ELIZABETHAN NAVIGATORS The map of Canada offers to the eye and to the imagination a vast country more than three thousand miles in width. Its eastern face presents a broken outline to the wild surges of the Atlantic. Its western coast commands from majestic heights the broad bosom of the Pacific. Along its southern boundary is a fertile country of lake and plain and woodland, loud already with the murmur of a rising industry, and in... more...

First Impressions of Batavia. When consideration is given to the fact that Java is only two days' steaming from Singapore, that it is more beautiful in some respects than Japan, that it contains marvellous archaeological remains over 1,100 years old, and that its hill resorts form ideal resting places for the jaded European, it is strange that few of the British residents throughout the Far East, or travellers East and West, have visited the... more...

PREFACE During 1916-1917 the First Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History carried on zoölogical explorations along the frontiers of Tibet and Burma in the little known province of Yün-nan, China. The narrative of that expedition has already been given to the public in the first book of this series "Camps and Trails in China." It was always the intention of the American Museum to continue the Asiatic... more...

CHAPTER I The start—The terrors of the Russian Custom-house—An amusing incident at the Russian frontier—Politeness of Russian officials—Warsaw: its sights; its lovely women—The talented Pole—People who know how to travel by train—A ludicrous scene.   "First single to Baku," I requested when my turn came at the window of the ticket office at Victoria Station. "Baku?—where is that?" queried... more...

INTRODUCTORY The scheme. Why I am walking across Interior China. Leaving Singapore. Ignorance of life and travel in China. The "China for the Chinese" cry. The New China and the determination of the Government. The voice of the people. The province of Yün-nan and the forward movement. A prophecy. Impressions of Saigon. Comparison of French and English methods. At Hong-Kong. Cold sail up the Whang-poo. Disembarkation. Foreign population of... more...

The most complete work on the British Colonies in North America is the Summary historical and political by William Douglas, of which the second improved edition was published in London, 1760, in two 8vo. volumes. That doctor collected material for many years and was in America, and gives valuable intelligence, especially of the Colonies he visited, but his book has no system. Prof. Kalm has much that is good in his travels in North America, and... more...

PREFACE. As I have a sort of religion in literature, believing that no author can justly intrude upon the public without feeling that his writings may be of some benefit to mankind, I beg leave to apologize for this little book. I know, no critic can tell me better than I know myself, how much it falls short of what might have been done by an abler pen. Yet it is something—an index, I should say, to something better. The French in America... more...

A word of explanation may help to an understanding of this record of a brief journey in China, in 1911, in the last quiet months before the revolution. No one who has ever known the joy of hunting impressions of strange peoples and strange lands in the out-of-the-way corners of the world can ever feel quite free again, for he hears always a compelling voice that "calls him night and day" to go forth on the chase once more. Years ago, for a... more...