Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/11



the great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, been able to confirm by a series of photographs his story of the wonders of Cathay, his fair fame would have escaped the discredit cast upon it for centuries, and indeed until comparatively recent investigation confirmed his story.

Since the time when I made my first journey into Cambodia to examine its ancient cities, it has been my constant endeavour to show how the explorer may add not only to the interest, but to the permanent value of his work by the use of photography.

The camera has always been the companion of my travels, and has supplied the only accurate means of portraying objects of interest along my route, and the races with which I came in contact. Thus it came about that I have always been able to furnish readers of my books with incontestable pictorial evidence of my "bona fides", and to share with them the pleasure experienced in coming face to face for the first time with the scenes and the people of far-off lands.

Some parts of this volume have been published in a more costly form. In the present instance the photographs have been reproduced and transformed into printing books by a most effective half-tone process, so that nothing in the original plates is last. The letter-press has been carefully revised and brought up to date and in part re-written. I have kept myself "au