VI PREFACE. 



number of other books of voyages and travels, some or all 

 of which are referred to in the notes. It would be unjust, 

 too, not to acknowledge, in this connection, my indebtedness 

 to the official narratives of Commanders Wilkes and Lynch. 

 I have, as a matter of course, been essentially benefited by 

 them, though I have found that of the former encumbered 

 with frequent errors. Something may, indeed, be conceded 

 to haste in preparing a work for the press; but it is hardly 

 excusable that any writer- should be so far wrong in his 

 geography as to confound San Salvador with Rio Janeiro, or 

 so much at fault as to mistake a Peruvian montana for a 

 forest. 



It would have been easy for me to have swelled the size 

 of the Second Part of the book, by inserting the stereotyped 

 gleanings of almost every modern traveller who has visited 

 the Holy Land, which have, from continued repetition, 

 become familiar to every reader ; but I could not find any 

 justification for taking that course. The important results, 

 and the actual information, obtained by the Dead Sea 

 Expedition, may be reduced within a very narrow compass; 

 and the account of it seemed to me appropriately to terminate 

 with the breaking up of the Encampment on the shores of 

 the lake. 



Anachronisms of frequent occurrence may be found in 

 these pages ; but as my desire has been to impart informa- 

 tion, they have appeared to me to be justifiable. The Expe- 

 ditions of Wilkes and Lynch have been, as it were, the 

 threads upon which I have strung the facts procured from 

 different sources, many of which are not accessible to the 

 majority of readers, or, if accessible, few have the leisure to 

 examine them. Many of these facts relate to periods long 

 subsequent to the date of the T-Lxpeditions with which they 



