The prominent part I have taken in the furtherance of Geographical
Discovery on the Australian continent, and the attention, it will
naturally be supposed, I have paid to the subject generally, will lead
the reader perhaps to expect that I should, at the commencement of a work
such as this, put him in possession of all the facts, with which I myself
am acquainted, as to the character of those portions of it, which had
been explored, before I commenced my recent labours. This may reasonably
be expected from me by my readers, not only to enable them to follow me
into the heartless desert from which, it may still be said, I have so
lately returned, with that distinctness which can alone secure interest
to my narrative; but, also, to judge whether the conclusions at which I
arrived, and upon which I acted, were such as past experience ought to
have led me to adopt.

It has struck me forcibly that such information would undoubtedly be
desirable, not only to render my own details clearer, but to explain my
views, since I should exceedingly regret that any imputation of rashness
or inconsistency were laid to my charge; or if it was thought, I had
volunteered hazardous and important undertakings, for the love of
adventure alone.

The field of Ambition, professionally speaking, is closed upon the
soldier during the period of his service in New South Wales. Had it been
otherwise, however, no more honourable a one could have been open to me,
when I landed on its shores in 1826, than the field of Discovery. I
sought and entered upon it, not without a feeling of ambition I am ready
to admit, for that feeling should ever pervade the breast of a soldier,