William Duncan Strong was a scholar, a man ahead of his time: quiet, careful and meticulous in his work, averse to spectacle and publicity. He was among the first to establish that Mosquitia had been inhabited by an ancient, unknown people who were not Maya. Strong spent five months traversing Honduras in 1933, going by dugout canoe up the Rio Patuca and several of its tributaries. He kept an illustrated journal, which is preserved in the Smithsonian's collections--packed with detail and many fine drawings of birds, artifacts, and landscapes.