"...It is a curious thing that at my age fifty-five last birthday I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it if ever I come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life which seems a long one to me owing to my having begun work so young perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading hunting fighting or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it I don't yet know how big but I do not think I would go through the last fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no not if I knew that I should come out safe at the end pile and all. But then I am a timid man and dislike violence; moreover I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a literary man though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons just to see if I have any. First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me..."