After extended travels by sea and land for nearly five years, I had so far recovered my voice as to be able to preach, and was very anxious to be about my chosen life-work. But my physicians--Dr. Gurdon Buck, Dr. Alfred C. Post, and Dr. John H. Swett, of the University Medical College--as kind as they were distinguished and skillful, told me that I would never be able to perform the duties of a settled pastor; that the study, labor, and care of such a life would completely break down my health in a very few months. They told me that I must engage in some labor that would give me a large amount of exercise in the open air; and that if it involved horseback-riding it would be all the better for my health, and probably give me more years in which to labor. I accordingly accepted an agency from the American Bible Society, which involved the exploration on horseback of the wild regions in the Southwest described in this volume. In addition to very extended travels by steamboat up and down many of the larger and smaller Southwestern and Southern rivers, I have ridden a great many thousand miles on horseback--I have no means of telling how many. For a long time I rode my horse several thousands of miles yearly. Bishop Kavenaugh, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in introducing me, as an agent of the American Bible Society, to a Southwestern conference over which he was presiding, told them that, "although a Presbyterian," I had "out-itinerated the Itineracy itself." I spent a night with the Governor of a Southwestern State, at the house of his sister, who was the wife of an Episcopal clergyman. We lodged in the same room, occupying separate beds, as was very common in that region. The Governor was genial and social, and we conversed until long after midnight. We talked of the hills, valleys, and mountains, of families and communities, of the customs, manners, and peculiarities of different classes of people, over a very wide portion of the State. As I was about to leave in the morning, the Governor said to me: "Sir, you know _more about this State_, and _more people in it_, than any man I ever saw." I replied: "I am surprised, Governor, to hear you make that statement. I know that politicians canvass the State most thoroughly; that you are expected to make speeches in every county, and in as many neighborhoods as possible; and that you try to shake hands with as many as you can of those that you expect and wish to vote for you. As you were born and educated in the State, and have canvassed it so thoroughly and successfully, I supposed that you knew a great deal more about it, and a great many more people in it, than I do." "I do not," he replied, very positively, "and I never saw a man in my life who did."