Preface


In the course of my travels in Australia, and especially after
my arrival at Upper Herbert River in Northern Queensland, I soon
perceived that it would be impracticable for me to hunt for zoological
specimens without first securing the assistance of the natives of
the country. Thus it came about that for over a year I spent most of
my time in the company of the cannibalistic blacks of that region,
camping and hunting with them; and during this adventurous period
I became so interested in these primitive people that the study of
savage and barbaric races has since become my life's work.

I first conceived the idea of an expedition to Mexico while on a
visit to London in 1887. I had, of course, as we all have, heard of
the wonderful cliff-dwellings in the Southwest of the United States,
of entire villages built in caverns on steep mountain-sides, accessible
in many cases only with the aid of ladders. Within the territory of
the United States there were, to be sure, no survivors of the race
that had once inhabited those dwellings. But the Spaniards, when
first discovering and conquering that district, are said to have
come upon dwellings then still occupied. Might there not, possibly,
be descendants of the people yet in existence in the northwestern
part of Mexico hitherto so little explored?

I made up my mind, then and there, that I would answer this question
and that I would undertake an expedition into that part of the American