[Illustration: SOUTH AMERICA]




PREFACE

The _Missionary Review of the World_ has described South America as
THE DARKEST LAND. That I have been able to penetrate into part of its
unexplored interior, and visit tribes of people hitherto untouched
and unknown, was urged as sufficient reason for the publishing of
this work. In perils oft, through hunger and thirst and fever,
consequent on the many wanderings in unhealthy climes herein
recorded, the writer wishes publicly to record his deep thankfulness
to Almighty God for His unfailing help. If the accounts are used to
stimulate missionary enterprise, and if they give the reader a
clearer conception of and fuller sympathy with the conditions and
needs of those South American countries, those years of travel will
not have been in vain.

"Of the making of books there is no end," so when one is acceptably
received, and commands a ready sale, the author is satisfied that his
labor is well repaid. The 4th edition was scarcely dry when the
Consul-General of the Argentine Republic at Ottawa ordered a large
number of copies to send to the members of his Government. Much of it
has been translated into German, and I know not what other languages.
Even the _Catholic Register_ of Toronto has boosted its sale by
printing much in abuse of it, at the same time telling its readers
that the book "sold like hot cakes." A wiser editor would have been