BEASTS, MEN AND GODS 

by Ferdinand Ossendowski 

EXPLANATORY NOTE 

When one of the leading publicists in America, Dr.  Albert Shaw of
the Review of Reviews, after reading the manuscript of Part I of
this volume, characterized the author as "The Robinson Crusoe of
the Twentieth Century," he touched the feature of the narrative
which is at once most attractive and most dangerous; for the
succession of trying and thrilling experiences recorded seems in
places too highly colored to be real or, sometimes, even possible
in this day and generation.  I desire, therefore, to assure the
reader at the outset that Dr.  Ossendowski is a man of long and
diverse experience as a scientist and writer with a training for
careful observation which should put the stamp of accuracy and
reliability on his chronicle.  Only the extraordinary events of
these extraordinary times could have thrown one with so many