TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL BATHURST, AND THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD VISCOUNT MELVILLE, &C. &C. &C.

My Lords, We beg leave to submit to your inspection our account of the Proceedings of the Expedition to which we had the honour of being appointed by your Lordships ; and to express our best thanks for the flattering encouragement which it receives from the sanction of your Lordships’ names.

A book of travels in countries so interesting as those to which our researches have been directed, would once have been considered, however indifferently it might be written, as a tribute of more than ordinary value to its patrons. Put so much has been effected, during your Lordships’ administration, for the advancement of science and general knowledge, that a traveller of our own times appears before the public, unassisted by the presence of that little cloud of mystery through which he would formerly have been seen to so much advantage ; and his work must no longer depend for its attractions upon