PREFACE.
Soon after my return to England in 1825, I was solicited by several friends to publish extracts from the letters I had written during my residence in South America. To enable me to do this, I was kindly furnished with these letters by the individuals to whom they were addressed. I have at length attended to these solicitations, with this view of creating a greater interest in this country on behalf of that quarter of the world, and in the expectation that this increased interest will turn out to the good of South America.
I have to beg the indulgence of my readers in regard to these letters, from the consideration that they were not written for publication. There will appear also some indistinctness, on account of the letters being addressed to various individuals, whilst they are here classed simply in the order of time in which they were written. To which may be added, among their defects, the abruptness arising from the circumstance of what is here given being only extracts. If, however, some interest should be excited in regard to South America by the publication of these letters, and if there should arise from this some good to that country, I shall not be sorry for thus having given them to the public, notwithstandingthe disadvantages under which they appear.
I am now about to return to that quarter of the world, and trust that the same gracious hand which protected me and guided me in my former wanderings there, will still conduct me, and will enable me to sow seed which may spring up unto eternal life. Ten days after this date, I embark for Mexico, as the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. I go fraught with a sacred treasure, with some thousands of copies of the Holy Scriptures. Besides circulating these, which are nearly all in the Spanish language, I am commissioned to procure translations of the Scriptures into the native languages of that country, and which are still spoken there by some millions of the inhabitants.
In prosecuting these objects, I intend to travel over the greater part of Mexico and Guatemala. Whilst traversing these parts, I shall probably keep a journal of occurrences, illustrative of the state of the country in a general point of view; and should the small volume now published be favourably received, I may perhaps at some future period have something for the press less unworthy of public attention.
London, 13th February, 1827.