I have revisited South America and recrossed the Andes, ridden on horseback from Vera Cruz to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Missouri.

I served in the war between Belgium and Holland, went through the Mexican campaign of 1846, fought with Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, and was present, as a spectator, at the fall of Sebastopol and the capture of Delhi.

In the course of my wanderings I have encountered many moving accidents by flood and field.
Once I was captured by Greek brigands, after a desperate fight, in which both Ramon and myself were wounded, and had to pay four thousand pounds for my ransom.

For the last twenty years, however, I have avoided serious risks, done no avoidable fighting, and travelled only in beaten tracks; and, unless I am killed by one of the Griscelli, I dare say I shall live twenty years longer.
While studying therapeutics and pathology under Professor Giessler, of Zurich, shortly after my return to Europe, I took up the subject of longevity, as to which Giessler had collected much curious information, and formed certain theories, one being that people of sound constitution and strong vitality, with no hereditary predisposition to disease may, by observing a correct regimen, easily live to be a hundred, preserving until that age their faculties virtually intact--in other words, only begin to be old at a hundred.

So far I agree with him, but as to what constituted a "correct regimen" we differed.