In presenting to the public the last installment of my travels in the
Far East, in 1879, I desire to offer, both to my readers and critics, my
grateful acknowledgments for the kindness with which my letters from
Japan were received, and to ask for an equally kind and lenient estimate
of my present volume, which has been prepared for publication under the
heavy shadow of the loss of the beloved and only sister to whom the
letters of which it consists were written, and whose able and careful
criticism, as well as loving interest, accompanied my former volumes
through the press.
It is by her wish that this book has received the title of the "Golden
Chersonese," a slightly ambitious one; and I must at once explain that
my letters treat of only its western portion, for the very sufficient
reason that the interior is unexplored by Europeans, half of it being
actually so little known that the latest map gives only the position of
its coast-line. I hope, however, that my book will be accepted as an
honest attempt to make a popular contribution to the sum of knowledge of
a beautiful and little-traveled region, with which the majority of
educated people are so little acquainted that it is constantly
confounded with the Malay Archipelago, but which is practically under
British rule, and is probable destined to afford increasing employment
to British capital and enterprise.
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