escape the censure of all, or to hope for better treatment than far
worthier persons have met with before me. But this satisfaction I am sure
of having, that the things themselves in the discovery of which I have
been employed are most worthy of our diligentest search and inquiry;
being the various and wonderful works of God in different parts of the
world: and however unfit a person I may be in other respects to have
undertaken this task, yet at least I have given a faithful account, and
have found some things undiscovered by any before, and which may at least
be some assistance and direction to better qualified persons who shall
come after me.

It has been objected against me by some that my accounts and descriptions
of things are dry and jejune, not filled with variety of pleasant matter
to divert and gratify the curious reader. How far this is true I must
leave to the world to judge. But if I have been exactly and strictly
careful to give only true relations and descriptions of things (as I am
sure I have) and if my descriptions be such as may be of use not only to
myself (which I have already in good measure experienced) but also to
others in future voyages; and likewise to such readers at home as are
more desirous of a plain and just account of the true nature and state of
the things described than of a polite and rhetorical narrative: I hope
all the defects in my style will meet with an easy and ready pardon.

Others have taxed me with borrowing from other men's journals; and with
insufficiency, as if I was not myself the author of what I write but
published things digested and drawn up by others. As to the first part of
this objection I assure the reader I have taken nothing from any man
without mentioning his name, except some very few relations and
particular observations received from credible persons who desired not to
be named; and these I have always expressly distinguished in my books
from what I relate as of my own observing. And as to the latter I think
it so far from being a diminution to one of my education and employment
to have what I write revised and corrected by friends that, on the
contrary, the best and most eminent authors are not ashamed to own the
same thing, and look upon it as an advantage.

Lastly I know there are some who are apt to slight my accounts and
descriptions of things as if it was an easy matter and of little or no
difficulty to do all that I have done, to visit little more