INTRODUCTION. 33 



scientific chivalry to carry forward, if not to com- 

 plete, the discoveries that have been so auspiciously 

 begun. Persevering research has hfted up, or rather 

 for ever removed, the veil that so long hid the 

 mystic writings of ancient Egypt. A new interest 

 has dawned on the ruins of her tombs and her tem- 

 ples. Those monuments of nameless kings and 

 gods, instead of remaining the objects of barren ad- 

 miration or blind enthusiasm, have been restored to 

 history and chronology ; and those primitive foun- 

 tains of learning to which Greece herself owed the 

 rudiments of her knowledge have again become the 

 oracles of wisdom to the Western world. It re- 

 quired indefatigable patience, and a multitude of 

 fatal attempts, to trace the hidden sources of the 

 Nile and the Niger. Similar perseverance may dis- 

 pel the ignorance that covers the interior of Arabia ; 

 and though it cannot make the wilderness and the 

 solitary place to bud and blossom as the rose, it may 

 restore to geography much that the wreck and the 

 neghgence of a thousand years have buried in 

 oblivion. 



The task can be approached now with many faci- 

 lities that have sprung from the improvement of art, 

 or grown up with the liberal and enlightened pro- 

 gress of society. The history of the terrible- Sara- 

 cens can be discussed with more candour and free- 

 dom than in the reigns of Omar and Saladin. A 

 recital of their cruelties will find, in our day, no 

 Peter the Hermit to make them a theme of declama- 

 tion for rousing the pious zeal of kings and empe- 

 rors ; or for letting loose a second time upon Asia 

 the undisciplined fury of a superstitious multitude. 

 Even their religion may be spoken of without reviv- 

 ing those apprehensions which alarmed the piety of 

 Prideaux and the bigotry of Maracci. A fair repre- 

 sentation of its doctrines will hardly expose us to 

 the spiritual attacks of those daggers and fortresses 

 of the faith with which the Christian doctors of yore 



