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Franksand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE PURPLE LAND

Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb's Adventures in The Banda
Oriental, in South America, as Told By Himself

By W. H. Hudson

ILLUSTRATED BY

Keith Henderson


[Illustration: RICHARD]


Second Edition, 1904


NEW YORK




PREFACE

This work was first issued in 1885, by Messrs. Sampson Low, in two slim
volumes, with the longer, and to most persons, enigmatical title of _The
Purple Land That England Lost_. A purple land may be found in almost
any region of the globe, and 'tis of our gains, not our losses, we keep
count. A few notices of the book appeared in the papers, one or two of
the more serious literary journals reviewing it (not favourably) under
the heading of "Travels and Geography"; but the reading public cared
not to buy, and it very shortly fell into oblivion. There it might have
remained for a further period of nineteen years, or for ever, since the
sleep of a book is apt to be of the unawakening kind, had not certain
men of letters, who found it on a forgotten heap and liked it in spite
of its faults, or because of them, concerned themselves to revive it.

We are often told that an author never wholly loses his affection for a
first book, and the feeling has been likened (more than once) to that of
a parent towards a first-born. I have not said it, but in consenting to
this reprint I considered that a writer's early or unregarded work is
apt to be raked up when he is not standing by to make remarks. He may
be absent on a journey from which he is not expected to return. It
accordingly seemed better that I should myself supervise a new edition,
since this would enable me to remove a few of the numerous spots and
pimples which decorate the ingenious countenance of the work before
handing it on to posterity.

Besides many small verbal corrections and changes, the deletion of
some paragraphs and the insertion of a few new ones, I have omitted
one entire chapter containing the Story of a Piebald Horse, recently
reprinted in another book entitled _El Ombu_. I have also dropped the
tedious introduction to the former edition,