It iS sometimes taken for granted that accounts of travel or<br > adventure in small boats need not be quite accurateand<br > tllat lt 1S part of the game to sensationalize them<br > Now remember to make every seamountainous1<br > was told by one more experienced than myselfSaid an<br > otherOf courseone has to write it up a bitbecause noth<br > mg much happens most of the time in a small boat at sea<br > This lack of scruple isof coursefound in only the small<br > minority of such stories and might be dismissed as relatively<br > unimportantBut it seems a pity that it should exist at all<br > for a few false facts 1ead one to doubt the truth of the rest<br > of the narrativeThe most easily detected symptom of such<br > larfetched accounts wasfor USthe rash of weird inaccura<br > cles and exaggerations which usually accompanied itWe<br > would readfor instanceof Mangareva Island towering ten<br > thousand feet into the clouds whenas we shall seɻit<br > rues to a modest fifteen hundredWe found a dramatic de<br > scription of a volcanic peak(activeof course)in an island<br > whichin factrises iust twenty feet above the seaThere<br > was Nukuhiva--which we shall also see--described as a<br > flat green islanddespite its peaks rising to nearly four<br > thousand feet һ һ <br > The Galapagos Islands--which we shall explore fairly<br > thoroughly--are little knownand have therefore been ab-<br >surdly misrepresentedI seefor examplethat one visitor<br > xiii <br >