DEDICATION. 



plan of difcovery as much as the weak endeavours of 

 a fingle perfon could, unprotected, forlorn, and alone, 

 or at times aifociated to beggars and banditti, as they 

 offered, I undertook this defperate journey, and did 

 not turn an ell out of my propofcd way till I had 

 completed it : It was the firft difcovery attempted in 

 Your Majesty's reign. From Egypt I penetrated 

 into this country, through Arabia on one fide, paff- 

 ing through melancholy and dreary deferts, ventila- 

 ted with poifonous winds, and glowing with eternal 

 fun-beams, whofe names are as unknown in geogra- 

 phy as are thofe of the antediluvian world. In the 

 fix years employed in this furvey I defcribed a circum- 

 ference whofe greater axis comprehended twenty- 

 two degrees of the meridian, in which dreadful circle 

 was contained all that is terrible to the feelings, pre- 

 judicial to the health, or fatal to the life of man. 



r 



In laying the account of thefe Travels at Your 

 Majesty's feet, I humbly hope I have (hewn to 

 the world of what value the efforts of every indivi- 

 dual of Your Majesty's fubjects may be ; that num- 

 bers 



