Excerpt from The Mystic Flowery Land: A Personal Narrative In launching this volume out upon the dubious waves of a long voyage, I must ask the reader and critic to view its many imperfections with leniency; generously taking into consideration that for the last sixteen years, since the age of fifteen, I have - as one of my reviewers truthfully remarks - spent the serious and what should have been studious days in travels by land and sea, in the wilds of Australia and exploring Africa"; and latterly, I may add, in a residence of seven years in China. The few poems I have ventured to include in the work may be considered out of place and too romantic by some. I only ask the reader to allow for the influences under which they were written. As a learned writer eloquently says, "the East is the land of poetry. Here nature is found in her happiest moods: she lavishes all the tints of her wonderful palette on her gorgeous sunrises and sunsets; she instals her electric lights - the bright stars in the blue depths of the unfathomable sky - and so pure is the atmosphere, that one can see beyond their clear shining into the illimitable space; and her full orbed moon floods the whole landscape with a silvery light but seldom seen in the West. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.

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