30 INTRODUCTION. 



make them acquainted with the Uterature and poli- 

 tics of Europe ; and to rekindle, as it were, the torch 

 of knowledife in those neglected deserts where the 

 arts and sciences drew their first breath.* The 

 Committee of Public Instruction at Calcutta are 

 daily occupied in translating into the Eastern tongues 

 the most esteemed writings of modern authors, both 

 English and Scottish. 



Much was also done for the elucidation of oriental 

 history by the liberal and enlightened spirit of Brit- 

 ish commerce during the last century. At an early 

 period the merchants trading to the Levant formed 

 themselves into a company, which was acknow- 

 ledged and protected by the government. Their 

 powers were great, and their intercourse extensive, 

 including the states of Barbary and all the shores 

 of the Mediterranean eastward of Sicily. The bene- 

 fits conferred by this association in the w;ay of 

 research and illustration were immense ; and it is to 

 their consuls, chaplains, and agents, many of whom 

 were individuals of very distinguished talents, that 

 we owe our best and earliest knowledge of the comi- 

 tries connected wath their trafficf 



It is almost superfluous to remark, that several 

 valuable additions to our stock of information have 

 been made by the adventures of modern travellers. 

 The journals of Niebuhr and Burckhardt alone, 

 though there are many other useful narratives, have 

 done more to illustrate the geography, manners, and 

 customs of Arabia, than all that has been written 

 since the revival of letters.^ Its botany and zoology 



* Asiatic Journal, vols. -viii. and xxii. 



t Among the agents of the Levant Company who have con- 

 ferred obligations of this kind, we find the names of R. Pococke, 

 Ricaut, Maundrell, Smith, Shaw, the two Russels, Porter, Dal- 

 laway,&c.— all mtelligent travellers. , ■ ■ ,-^„ 



t Niebuhr, the Danish traveller, visited Arabia in 1(63; 

 Burckhardt in 1810-17 ; and Badhia, a Spanish Mussulman, 

 under the name of Ali Bey, in 1807. 



