NYMPHAEUM2

 

 

Preface

 

 

It has always been my conviction that, in spite of our armies of explorers, many secrets remain in the world, including territories and astonishing beings. This conviction was confirmed by an extraordinary adventure that I had in eastern Asia, and which I shall relate here.

Yes, there are still many mysterious regions: marshy regions, subterranean regions with marvelous rivers, mountain ranges and forests. Travelers have doubtless skirted them, but they have only covered a fraction of their vast surfaces; either putrid waters and mud have blocked their progress, or hunger, thirst and disease. Impenetrable vegetation has restricted them to the margins. As for cavernous regions, you know that there are prodigious unexplored examples even in France. I can only speak, in any case, of Europe, Asia and America, for Africa guards its mysterious heart, Australia has only made fragmentary revelations and the extreme Arctic and Antarctic latitudes remain inviolate.

What I shall relate here is the absolute truth—and since I have invented nothing I believe I can affirm without immodesty that it is one of the most gripping adventures ever told. If it does not appear so, it will be because I have not done justice to it; even in that case, it will not fail to excite the mind.

In order to enhance understanding of the story, and in order not to burden it with fastidious preliminaries, it is necessary to know that I accompanied a Geographical Expedition in 1891 to the regions of Amur,3 in the hinterlands of Russian and Chinese Asia. In spite of my youth, I was attached to that expedition, expressly commissioned by the French government, as a naturalist and physician. Its leader was the celebrated Jean-Louis Devreuse, the captain of the cruiser Hero, whose glorious explorations in the Antarctic regions are well-known.

The story begins in the eighth month of our voyage.

 

Robert Farville.